Posted on 11/13/2006 9:19:04 PM PST by 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.
A more active life style helps as it boosts the immune system. But a lack of cocacola helps too. The Amish eat organic foods, and do not buy a lot of soda pop. Phophosphoric Acid and high sugar is a particulary bad combination that breeds Candida intestinaly.
Here we have a perfect combination for testing this theory, Islanders eating western food, and westerners eating organic foods. Note that here in Israel we get the Island food type of western food as it all has to be shipped overseas. As an example, all the cereals are branded made in america, for export only. The burito shells all last a year, not a few weeks as they are laced with much higher than normal preservatives. I suspect that the preservatives are a very important key to this puzzle.
The Amish eat organic foods with NO preservatives.
Actually there is a theory that native Americans, for example, could have always been predisposed to diabetes genetically, just because of their lifestyle. They were nomadic in some instances, and in others, may have had periods of plenty interspersed with periods of famine. Genetically they would have had a need to store fat in their bodies. Being moved to reservations and no longer able to migrate and to eat their traditional foods, nuts, seeds, etc. would have wreaked damage to their physical makeup. Plus, no records were kept before the whites came, so no one can be sure how long they may have had the condition.
Oh I agree completely, and I refuse to eat most red meat or milk. Fortunately there is a trend back to grass fed beef here, and our farmer's markets are thriving. However, I personally know of horror stories re organic, so just because it says "organic" as we say, don't mean nothin'.
That is true, you really have to know the source of the food. A farmers market is a great source, a boxed product with "organic" on the label is very suspect. I only wish you could get grass fed beef here in Israel. No grasslands...
I had some grass fed beef back home in California last visit, man, it was better tasting, great Steaks. Real wipe your plate with the bread stuff.
Blessings on you and yours...
Naw. Let 'em veg. Thin the herd.
So let me get these straight. Pacific Island aborigines are being affected at a 25% rate with a disease which is attributed to the alarming rate of McDonald's they are consuming instead of their normal diet which used to be berries, twigs and missionaries. Or are the missionaries fatter and the aborigines are getting lethal second-hand diabetes?
Maybe the solution is to have them switch to eating liberal busybody endocrinologists, environmentalists and other healthier people with way too much time on their hands so they won't get as fat. Oh and urging plenty of exercise - such as hunting liberals to eat. That works for me.
a missionary a day makes a Maorie healthy ,wealthy, and wise
Even the most insane diets ever published were never attacked like the Atkins diet.
Dr. Atkins was THE ENEMY to bakers, pasta makers, potato farmers, and the high fructose corn syrup industry.
I'm still doing Atkins, but it's certainly more difficult and expensive since the High Carb industry went to such lengths to discredit the Atkins diet.
I still hear the whispering campaign, claiming that Atkins is dangerous, from people who "Read is somewhere", so JUST KNOW it's true.
The real money is in the high carb foods, and the "food" industry is certainly more concerned with profit than our health.
Too bad this falls harder on the primitive peoples of the world.
I lost about 50 pounds, and notice that I am also much clearer headed.
It IS astonishing, isn't it? I lost so much weight so fast that Jenny Craig et al would be out of business inside a year if it really caught on. My own doctor's knee-jerk response was "BAD!!!", then he looked at my weight chart and my blood chemistry results and said "keep doing what you are doing".
Atkins nailed it. It is an insulin response phenomenon. Keep the pressure up and the junk food gurus will find a way to allow their food and my insulin response via new wonder drugs. (Not that I have to partake of course).
An American Man after me own heart BUMPping!
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And of Alcoholism, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Glue and Gasoline Sniffing,
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