He believes better nutrition and medical care can prevent athlete burnout and produce champions built to last
Rizwan Ahmed Aftab (left), CEO of Activit and Director at National Hospital DHA Lahore, with Olympic gold medalist Arshad Nadeem. PHOTO: ACTIVIT
KARACHI/LAHORE:
Pakistan’s renowned dietician, RD Rizwan Ahmed Aftab, Director at National Hospital DHA, Lahore, and Founder/CEO of Activit, emphasized that Pakistan is lagging far behind in the areas of nutrition and sports medicine.
The country has seen world-class athletes go to waste due to a lack of proper medical care for their injuries, while there is a history of athletes in football and bodybuilding, where poor care led to their deaths.
While there is a batch of athletes that are capable of winning medals at the international events, and even the Olympics, like Arshad Nadeem, and Commonwealth Games Champion Nooh Dastgir Butt, among others, there is a dearth of expertise in sports medicine that can ensure longevity to the top crop’s career, improved performances, and timely treatment.
RD Rizwan has been closely involved with the country’s top athletes as a sponsor. He took the athletes in the program, where they serve as ambassadors for the supplement brand he developed, Activit.
The athletes also get lifetime free treatment in the National Hospital DHA, Lahore, which was founded by his father and renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr Aftab Ahmed.
On the sidelines of an MMA event earlier this year, RD Rizwan spoke exclusively to The Express Tribune on the subject of sports medicine.
“There is a medicine zero sports medicine element in Pakistan,” Rizwan told The Express Tribune. “When we speak about sports medicine, the latter word is medicine. Now you define this as two parts.
The pharmaceutical side of it and the nutraceutical part of it.
“So, in the nutraceutical side of sports medicine, the most studied nutrient is creatine monohydrate, which athletes can use. It is not an anabolic, androgenic steroid that enhances their muscles or red blood cells to give them enhanced performance…but the majority of the athletes in the world use some sort of chemical enhancement, if they get caught, they get caught, if they don’t get caught, they don’t get caught.”
He gave an insight into disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, who took the banned EPO medicine, a pharmaceutical drug, which is known for blood doping, and it is widely abused to enhance endurance.
There are drugs, like EPO that Lance Armstrong used, that increase red blood cells, and the more red blood cells you have, the more oxygen carrying capacity you have that gives you more stamina,” he explained.
But there are more developments in sports medicine that can help athletes, such as collagen peptides, which are not banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
He explained that there are better ways to treat athletic injuries now, but some of the most advanced treatments, like stem cells for sports injuries, are still too expensive and not available in Pakistan.
“There are new ways to treat athletes when they get injured. Like peptides, which are a chain of amino acids. So they can be useful.”
But at the end of the day, Rizwan said that it’s the organic food that should be available to athletes to build their bodies that can compete in the international events, with top talent.
“The primary thing is organic, good quality food and not supplements,” he said.
“If you are not having your food checked, the proper amount of calories that you need, calories you are burning, the dehydration process, you are sweating. How are you spending the magnesium, potassium, and sodium? The amount of protein you need to maintain or build your muscle.
All of this is a proper science. You calculate it per kg of your weight, how many carbohydrates you need, and which type of carbohydrates you are taking. Are you consuming good fats or not?
“Every athlete has a different way of consuming calories. It is a complete science. There is no such attention to these details in Pakistan.
“What we do have, maybe in the Pakistan Cricket Board, that athletes are told about it to eat this, and not that, this much body fat you must have, but as such, this is an area where we need a lot of work.”
He added that only micronutrient deficiency can be treated and covered through supplements.
Meanwhile, Rizwan has also been involved with Arshad Nadeem since 2023, when he was looking to get the javelin thrower as an Activit ambassador and sponsor him. Still, the athlete’s coach, Salman Butt, insisted that the support should come in the shape of medical facilities and treatment.
Arshad went on to win the Paris Olympics gold medal and broke the Games record as well.
But Rizwan had been instrumental in treating Arshad’s long-standing injuries before the Olympic glory.
Arshad’s primary surgeon, who treated his elbow and knees before the Olympics and to date, is Rizwan’s cousin. The two have formed a system where Arshad’s CT and MRIs can get done at the National Hospital DHA, which is a world-class facility and equipment, and they are sent abroad, to the United Kingdom, where Bajwa resides and practices medicine.
“When I thought of taking Arshad Nadeem as a sponsored athlete in 2023, his coach, Salman Butt, said that they needed treatment. When they go to the UK, they get things, but those same facilities are not available in Pakistan. He told me that I have such a big institute for treatment, and they needed an environment where MRI and CT scans can be done, and we can send them abroad.
“Arshad’s treatment could have happened in Pakistan as well, and the surgery too, but our surgeons said that it is better for the surgeon who is already treating Arshad to carry on treating him, as they can understand the patient better, and it would be better to have Arshad’s surgeries with his primary surgeon in the UK only.
Initially, Arshad’s surgery was treated by Dr Ali Raza Hashmi, who was the protege of my father, Dr Aftab Ahmed. He was the one who pinpointed the issue. “But Bajwa did a great job.
“Dr Ali Bajwa and I have decided that Arshad can get biological treatment for everything with us.”
