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HEALTH WATCH
Native Lifestyle and Diabetes
by
Candice Felice
In the United States
nearly 10 million people, or 70-percent, who are diagnosed with
diabetes are in poor control, because of not maintaining the
recommended average blood glucose levels (A1C).
Overall, diabetes is
one of the fastest growing health conditions in the United States,
and yet, virtually one-third of people living with the disease are
unaware that they have it.
According to a
recent health study conducted by the American Diabetes Association
(ADA), nearly 13 percent of Native Americans have been diagnosed
with diabetes, almost twice the rate of the general population.
Novo Nordisk is an
international pharmaceutical company specializing in the treatment
of diabetes, located in Washington, DC. In a recent phone interview
with their Medical Scientific Director, Dr. Soraly Serva, she says
having the proper education is the first step in combating the
growing numbers among Native Americans.
Education is the
key, because with education, this is where you can make some changes
in diet, exercise and lifestyle in general. So definitely
education. There is nothing we can do about genetics.
But she says there
are a lot of cultural issues surrounding these preventive steps.
According to the ADA, statistically, over 15 percent of Native
Americans over 20 have diabetes.
Serva says, Cultures
that are more outdoors, cultures that are more active, where
activities are a very important part, you do not see the incidence
of diabetes as high. People that pay more attention to foods that
are healthier, you know there are some foods that are by definition;
tend to be healthier than other diets. Those people tend to have
incidences of diabetes that are not as high as those we are seeing
in Native Americans. And all of that can be accomplished with
education. No doubt about it.
She says genetics
and environment are two of the primary causes of diabetes ranking so
high among the Native populations. And Serva says without proper
diet and exercise these rates will continue to rise. Serva says,
without a doubt, educational involvement within the Native community
is the key.
She says, There
are 21 million people in this country that have diabetes. Of those
21 million people Candice, six million, do not know that they have
the disease. Those are the people that we are concerned about,
because by the time you diagnosed them, most likely, they are going
to be suffering from the complications of diabetes. And if people
dont know what diabetes is; what the symptoms are, then you cannot
expect them to go their physician and mention diabetes and get
tested for diabetes, so education and creating awareness , like the
Native American community should know that it is double the risk.
According to the
ADA, American Indians are 2.2 times as likely to have diabetes as
non-Hispanic whites.
Serva says in light
of this, statistically women, especially Native women with
gestational diabetes have a 20-60 percent chance of developing
diabetes within the next 5-to-10 years of giving birth. In
addition, the likelihood of their next pregnancy will have to be
monitored, because if the mother has gestational diabetes with the
first pregnancy, she will most likely have it with the next.
She says, These
are the individuals that when you check their blood sugars, they are
not exactly within the parameters that we could diagnosed as
diabetes for their values are very borderline. And many of them
when you do glucose tolerance test they also have results that are
very close to the parameters that would diagnose diabetes. And I
tell you that there are 30-percent, thirty is the estimated
percentage of American Indians and Alaskan natives, who have
pre-diabetes and this is according to Indian health services. So
the people that we classify as pre-diabetes definitely are going to
be getting the disease.
What happens with
this Candice is, if you have type-one diabetes, type-one diabetics
are those individuals that do not produce any insulin; they will
have to use insulin. Type-two diabetes individuals that do not
produce enough insulin and the amount of insulin that they do
produce is not enough. So see you have two problems with type-two
diabetes, as the years go by there may be a time where the pancreas
will not produce any insulin, and then you will have to be on
insulin. So as diabetes progresses, the need for insulin increases.
But the good news is, at least we have insulin available to control
this disease.
The ADA recommends
patients reach an A1C level of less than seven-percent. The A1C
test is a blood test that gives the person with type-two diabetes a
snapshot of their average blood sugar control from the previous
two-to-three months.
Serva says in
addition to diabetics controlling insulin intake, they must also
monitor their blood-pressure. She says the number one cause of
death among diabetes is cardiovascular disease, which is heart
attack and stroke.
And the death rate
due to diabetes for American Indians and Alaskan natives compared to
the general U.S. population is three times higher! So it is very
linked to cardiovascular disease, stroke and ultimately death.
To obtain more
information on the proper care and treatment of diabetes please go
to
www.changingdiabetes.us.com
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