Naturopathic doctor and founder of Sankofa Health Movement, Dr. Morris Mensah, has debunked claims that people living with certain lifestyle diseases including cancer and diabetes are usually born with them or genetically inherited.

Speaking in an interview, he explained that such victims of the diseases become infected because they are nurtured with the same environmental practices as their families, who contracted the ailment.

 “There are many people who have said that in their families they have hypertension, so they know they'll certainly get it. It’s not true; you’re not born with hypertension. It’s just that how your mother was eating and developed the hypertension; that’s how she’s bringing you up and what you’ve been fed with. So, your mother feeds you the very food she ate to develop hypertension; certainly you’ll also get it. You’ll never be born with any lifestyle disease, including cancer, diabetes, and others,” he confuted on Joy Prime’s Prime Morning show on Tuesday.

He stated that medical professionals that convey such a message to their patients have deceived them, adding that it is not factual.

In contrast, he said that regardless of how many individuals in a family are impacted by an illness, one person can make changes adapting to a new way of life through diet to avert the condition.

According to him, heredity becomes a risk factor when a person chooses to engage in the same environmental activities that they were born into.

“What makes you probable is when you go the very way your mother went. The law, of course, and its effects work within every jurisdiction. If you eat this, you get that, and so you just don’t eat anything. You either eat to give you health or disease. If you know this, you’re through. Your mom has been on a certain dietary lifestyle that is always keeping the blood pressure high; if you go on that same tangent, you don’t have a different body because you’ll also be hypertensive.”

If people claim the diseases are inheritable, “What of those who develop the disease the first time in their families?” Dr. Mensah quizzed.

He added that non-communicable diseases (NCDs) can be treated effectively through proper dieting. Many people, he emphasised, suffer from the diseases due to a lack of understanding of their causes.

The naturopathic doctor clarified that many lifestyle diseases can be managed without medication if their underlying causes are properly addressed.