Maoris 'facing extinction' from diabetes

Dominion Post (New Zealand) ^ | Tuesday November 14 2006 | None ascribed

[Brian Allen]

Escalating rates of diabetes among indigenous cultures could make the Maori and Polynesian races "extinct" before the end of the century, an Australian expert warns.

Professor Paul Zimmet, director of Monash University's International Diabetes Institute, said the rising number of diabetes victims among the world's indigenous communities would decimate entire cultures. "Without urgent action there certainly is a real risk major wipings out of indigenous communities, if not total extinction, within this century," he said.

"Life expectancy is already low and dropping, diabetes is hitting them very hard and the infections, amputations and kidney disease will just wreak more havoc."

Professor Zimmet labeled rising world diabetes rates – with the disease affecting one in four "indigenous" adults – a tragedy threatening to consume world economies and bankrupt "health systems."

Extinction was a "very real reality" and Australia's Aborigines were just as much at risk as Maori and Pacific Island populations and native peoples in the United States and Canada, he said. Professor Zimmet will discuss his findings at a Diabetes in "Indigenous People" Forum, which opened in Melbourne yesterday.

The claims have split experts in New Zealand. Professor Chris Cunningham, of Massey's Research Centre for Maori Health, agreed with Professor Zimmet's dire prediction, describing diabetes among Maori as being at "epidemic proportions".

Little research and screening had been carried out into the disease's prevalence among Maori and Pacific Island populations, but Professor Cunningham suspected well over half of those with diabetes did not know they had the disease.

Professor Cunningham said Maori and Pacific islanders were more susceptible to diabetes as they were not physiologically accustomed to the Western lifestyle and diet.

"The reality is a Big Mac hurts Maori more than it hurts Caucasians."

The onset of type-2 diabetes is generally triggered by obesity.

Though it usually strikes in adulthood, increasing numbers of teenagers and children are developing the disease.

Health Ministry figures show type-2 diabetes is thought to account for 20 per cent of deaths among Maori, compared with 4 per cent for non-Polynesian New Zealanders.

Maori males are 61/2 times more likely and Maori females 10 times more likely to die from diabetes than non-Polynesian people, while Pacific peoples are five times more likely to die from diagnosed diabetes than non-Polynesians.

Porirua's Ora Toa health unit manager, Charlene Williams, who is from a family with a history of diabetes, did not believe Maori would become extinct.

"They've said this about us before and we're still here." Most Maori with diabetes developed it later in life, after they had children.

Fight the Obesity Epidemic spokeswoman Robyn Toomath, a Wellington Hospital endocrinologist, said Maori and Pacific Islanders were genetically more susceptible to obesity and therefore to developing diabetes. But the waistline of all New Zealanders was expanding.

Health Ministry chief clinical adviser Sandy Dawson said the Government paid close attention to addressing the disparity in ethnic rates of diabetes.

Diagnosing diabetes early is a specific priority for the Ministry of Health, District Health Boards and Primary Health Organizations.

Last year an estimated 125,000 people were diagnosed as diabetic. Twenty two per cent of them were Maoris.

[Pontiac]

When they stick to their native ancestral diet, they don't have this problem.

The modern Western diet is not normal to any ethnic group.

Never before in history has a diet as rich in calories been available to the common man.

Never before has the poor had a problem with obesity.

What two hundred years ago were strictly diseases of the wealth are now inflicted on the poor by a plague of cheap food.

[Prost1]

Soon, the MAD (mothers against drunk drivers) will figure out that people who just had a fast-food hamburger got into an accident.

And then...Mothers against Fast Food! Instead of a DUI, you get a UFFI (under Fast Food Influence)!

It is coming...

[caveat emptor]

I've heard before that the Western diet is a real problem for Native American, Hispanic and Black groups. When they stick to their native ancestral diet, they don't have this problem.

A dentist/anthropologist named Weston A. Price wrote "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" in mid-20th-century based on research he did in various parts of the world. He studied paired groups of people, closely related ethnically.One of the groups would live close to easy access to commercially manufactured foods, while the other would be isolated in some way so that had to rely on more traditional foods, including that grown by themselves.

Most were relatively primitive people, but also included an isolated, Roman Catholic Swiss farming community and their non-isolated nearby relatives who had easy access to "white bread" type foods.

He found extreme differences in dental arches, skull and skeletal structures as well as susceptibility to many diseases including diabetes and tuberculosis, though it was not known at the time that tuberculosis is contagious. His research methods may not have satisfied those of today, but were very convincing, more so in fact than today's sometimes very small reported differences.

The book is available at Amazon, and there is a website dedicated to his work. The website IMO has gone overboard, though I doubt any of their food choices would be unhealthy.




Left: [Fijians] The development of the facial bones determines the size and shape of the palate and the size of the nasal passages. Note the strength of the neck of the men above and the well-proportioned faces of the girls below. Such faces are usually associated with properly proportioned bodies. Tooth decay is rare in these mouths so long as they use an adequate selection of native foods.

[John Valentine]

I question the basis of this report.

Diseases are not likely to cause extinction of any group unless the diseases cause death prior to reproduction. Adult onset diabetes will kill most of its victims in the fifth decade of life, long after procreation has taken place.

I'm not denigrating the seriousness of adult-onset diabetes. It is a serious disease indeed, and must be treated not only as a disease of the individual, but as a public health issue as well.

Diet and lifestyle changes can delay the effects of diabetes for years, and with the addition of medication such as metformin, and insulin potentiators now coming into use, even the use of insulin injection can often be avoided for many years longer than might have been the case 30 yrears ago.

I can't conceive of any way that adult-onset diabetes could cause the 'extinction" of an ethnic group.

[packrat35]

I have been laughing the last five minutes on that photo.

[generalhammond]

I believe part of this is cultural - not any indigenous culture BS but the liberal welfare "hand out" culture which has destroyed the Maoris as well as the Australian Aborigines. When you get used to living on hand-outs, your whole view on life changes. You don't cook, bathe enough, exercise, get educated, do chores etc. Fast food is easy and tasty. Instead of a treat, it becomes 3 or more meals a day. Hence diabetes, heart disease, impotence, extinction.

[metmom]

ping

[Old Professer]

Acorns, roots and sour grass?

[Old Professer]

Sounds like the ancient tribes of Stillborns and Willpowers.

[djf]

Acorns were absolutely critical to alot of native Americans, many of the grinding wheels they've found were used for acorns, not grain.

The biggest ones for the desert southwest are afaik Saguaro cactus fruit and prickly pear.

[baa39]

But can you do that on food stamps?

[Brian Allen]

<< I believe part of this is cultural - not any indigenous culture BS but the liberal welfare "hand out" culture which has destroyed the Maoris as well as the Australian Aborigines. >>

Spot on.

I have witnessed it at first hand and, born in New Zealand and having spent years in Australia, have watched as successive socialist ("liberal") governments and their legions of parasitical power-hungry elitist permanent "public servants" have willfully thrown wrenches in the works of more than a hundred years of successful assimilation, have delusionally fantasized faux "histories" for both countries early migrants, the Maoris and the Australian natives, have turned both early-settler peoples into "victims." (Of white "oppression") They have also convinced entire generations of young Australians and New Zealanders of their "guilt" toward brown peoples in general and toward New Zealand's Polynesian migrants and Australia's even earlier arrivals, in particular -- and have created the "liberal welfare 'hand out' culture which has 'destroyed the Maoris' as well as the Australian (native people)."

This piece and all others like it have one common thread. They are all about the CONSEQUENCES, intended and otherwise, of liberal screwings up!

(In this instance) "Diabetes" is but the symptom of a far deeper and more serious disease:

Liberalism!

[metmom]

No but the food is still free. The only catch is that without food stamps you have to work for it.

[neverdem]

thanks, bfl

[ozzymandus]

This looks like a job for: The Food Nazis!!

[American in Israel]

The onset of type-2 diabetes is generally triggered by obesity.

No the onset of type-2 diabetes is the later stage of a systemic fungal infection, obesity is an early efect of fungal toxicity. The sudden onset of type-2 diabetes in recent days is a bacterial infection with a bacteria that seems to have a section of the pancreas dna spliced onto its outer shell. The body on learning of this invader targets not only the bacteria but the pancreas, depressing insulin production. A very interesting bacteria, It turns the bodys own immune system against itself. The Hebrew university is working on a vaccine that retrains the body away from attacking itself. They are having some good results in a friend of mine. His insulin use is down to a fraction of what it was and his blood sugar is stabilizing.

His symptoms are different, with fungus, look for a period of onset obesity, with the bacteria look for the type-2 showing up right after a severe stomach flu like sickness. This kid is skinny as a rail.

Some types of type-2 are curable, but not with traditional medicine that seeks to cure the symptoms and ignores the cause. The pharmaceutical industry knows that sick people pay doctors and buy drugs, so it is better to focus on treating the symptoms than curing your cash cow...

[Lil'freeper]

A Nutrition Ping List For Those Interested in the Research of Dr. Weston A. Price

[TruthSetsUFree]

The Western diet is a problem for all of us, IMO. Food allergies are rampant and increasing, diabetes is also increasing in the U.S., not to mention the prevalence of heart disease and strokes.

[TruthSetsUFree]

Anyone interested in reading the book about the dentist who studied ethnic diets and found them far superior to our Western one in terms of health results, can find the book on Amazon here.

Also, Sally Fallon has in many ways picked up the baton. She's put together a cookbook which has tons of information as well as recipes. It's called Nourishing Traditions.

My health has improved a lot since following this way of eating. I've also discovered an intolerance to gluten and dairy, and after going off both of those have lost weight, no longer have migraines and brain fog, and in general have lots more energy and motivation. It's been quite a health journey so far but it's been worth it.

[headsonpikes]

I have witnessed it at first hand and, born in New Zealand and having spent years in Australia, have watched as successive socialist ("liberal") governments and their legions of parasitical power-hungry elitist permanent "public servants" have willfully thrown wrenches in the works of more than a hundred years of successful assimilation, have delusionally fantasized faux "histories" for both countries early migrants...

Exactly the same dire process as Canada has inflicted on natives and whites alike.

The "public servants" and native leaders are the "judas goats" of socialism - leading entire populations to their doom.