Prolonged Fasting Can Damage Your Kidney, NAFDAC Warns Nigerians

The Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, has charged Nigerians to shun long-hour fasting so as not to damage their kidneys.

The NAFDAC boss said that kidney problems have been on the rise in recent times in the country, noting that prolonged fasting by religious adherents was partly to blame for it.

She said that it has become imperative to urge Nigerian Christians and Muslims to fast “with commonsense”.

Adeyeye stated these in Abuja on Monday while briefing newsmen on her agency’s success in tracking a high consignments of Tramadol and other pharmaceuticals to the Republic of Benin.

On the high rate of kidney problems in the country, she said: “Kidney failure, we are a very religious country – Muslims and Christians fast a lot and it is part of the kidney problem.

“Your body has to have homeostatic balance, meaning that the water level in your body must be enough to make your organs to function.

“Some people will fast for 10 or 20 days and drink only little water. The kidney is being punished.

“Now, if you put chemicals in it, it triples in exponential manner, it damages the kidney because the kidney doesn’t have water to dilute and filter.”

She added, “I fast but with common sense. We have to fast with common sense, otherwise we will pay with our kidneys.”