A professor of Gastrointestinal Physiology and Inflammation, Professor S. B. Olaleye has charged all and sundry to be wary of assaulting their gastrointestinal tract with chemicals consumed ignorantly or deliberately.
He warned that therapeutic drugs taken without the physician’s advice may be dangerous to the health of the gastrointestinal system.
Professor Olaleye gave this advice in the
Inaugural lecture he delivered on behalf of the Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Ibadan.
The lecture was entitled ‘Winds Against the Hollow: Lessons From the Sentinel’.
He disclosed that he had carried out extensive research on the gastrointestinal tract and discovered that though the gut has an inbuilt defence system, a compromise on this gatekeeping function may result in it being overwhelmed.
Professor Olaleye said he had carried out research activities concerned with the identification of
physiological, dietary, and environmental factors that control normal and abnormal gastrointestinal states.
He submitted that aggressive factors, such as non- steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, reactive oxygen species, alcohol, bile salts, acid, and pepsin, can alter the mucosa defence by allowing the back diffusion of hydrogen ions and subsequent epithelial cell injury.
