We Can Slay The Diabetes Monster
Filed in archive Lifestyle by Rhys on September 19, 2006
The extent of our ignorance is huge. Doctors know there are thousands more patients out there with blood-sugar levels soaring into the danger zone. They're just not included in official statistics.
Many potential sufferers could counter the life-threatening affliction merely by adopting a proper diet and taking regular exercise.
Instead, they lounge on the sofa, gorging on toxic, fatty snacks, frequently with catastrophic results, particularly among aboriginals.
A health professional
who works with native communities on Vancouver Island told me the problem of diabetes among them is "astronomical."She believes the switch from traditional native diets to store-bought food is only part of the problem.
Poor self-esteem, eroded by years of "oppression" -- within and without the native community -- opens the door to diabetes and leads down a path of alcohol and drug abuse, depression and despair.
When I ask her what might be done in a perfect world to stem this plague, she's momentarily lost for words.
"It's so huge," she says eventually. "People must recognize there's no simple answer for any of us."
But of all the Big Scares out there -- global warming included -- diabetes is one scourge we could defeat.
If only we had the will.
What do you think? How much power do we hold over our health?
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