Diabetes Health Talk

by MIKE HOEFT:
Tim Moureau helps members of the Oneida Tribe of Indians manage their diabetes.

And he has a lot of work. Diabetics account for about 2,000 of the 10,000 active users of the Oneida Community Health Center, and there are probably a thousand more who haven’t been undiagnosed.

“I’ve not met one family that hasn’t been affected by diabetes,” said Moureau, who added that the center’s prevention program aims to dispel the notion that diabetes is inevitable.

Native Americans and Alaska natives are 2.2 times more likely to have diabetes than non-Hispanic whites, according to the American Diabetes Association. In one Arizona tribe, half the population is believed to be diabetic.

Diabetes is the inability of the body to process the hormone insulin, which regulates blood sugar.

The problem is not limited to Indian Country. The burden of diabetes is weighing heavier across the state, according to the most recent data on the disease in Wisconsin.

The cases of diabetes rose 27 percent in the state between 2003 and 2006, according to a report released in 2008 called the Burden of Diabetes in Wisconsin. It was created by the Wisconsin Diabetes Prevention and Control Program of the state Department of Health and Family Services, National Kidney Foundation of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Lions Foundation.

The number of diabetes-related hospitalizations rose 11 percent during that time, and costs of those hospitalizations climbed 48 percent, the report said.

Beverly Malzahn, 65, of Green Bay, was diagnosed as diabetic in July 2003 after she had a reaction to high blood-sugar levels during a trip to the grocery store. Her physician and nurses worked with her on taking medications, dieting and starting an exercise program.

After just 1½ months, she was taken off all medication. She lost 60 pounds in a year.

“No meds, just diet and exercise,” Malzahn said. “They had to put me on the right path first.”

Malzahn said she eats sugar-free foods; she’ll go off her diet once in a while and splurge on a perch fry, but then it’s back on again.

“Nowadays, there are so many wonderful foods for diabetics,” she said.

Most people with diabetes have risk factors such as high blood pressure and cholesterol that increase chances for heart disease and stroke. More than 65 percent of people with diabetes die from heart disease or stroke earlier in life, according to the association.

The state report shows diabetes accounts for between 12 percent and 16 percent of hospitalizations in Northeastern Wisconsin, but 22 percent of all hospitalizations in Menominee County, which is largely contiguous with the Menominee Indian Reservation.

About one in 10 people in Menominee County have diabetes. Among adults older than 50 the rate of diabetes is nearly 50 percent, according to the Menominee Tribal Clinic. The clinic is trying to lower the risk of diabetes by promoting a healthy lifestyle.

The National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has what it calls the “thrifty gene” theory. It proposes that blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans have a gene that enabled their ancestors to use food more efficiently during “feast and famine” cycles. Because there are fewer such cycles today, it causes certain populations to be more susceptible to obesity and to developing Type 2 diabetes.

Dale Webster, of Oneida, didn’t know he was diabetic until he felt a loss of strength in 2005. Blood work confirmed he had the disease.

Moureau helped Webster get his blood pressure down through medication, diet and exercise. Webster suffered a mild stroke in 2006, but has recovered and now is diligent about eating healthy and walking often.

“I’m back to golfing,” said Webster, 60, who said he lost between 12 and 14 pounds. “If you take care of yourself, you can live a normal life.”

Cindy Pelnar, registered dietitian and certified diabetes educator at St. Mary’s Hospital in Green Bay, said diabetics need to make lifestyle changes before it’s too late.

“We could be preventing a lot of these problems if people learned about exercise, weight management and diet,” she said. “By exercising and losing 5 to 10 percent of body weight, a person greatly decreases chances of the disease progressing.”

Reducing food portions is an easy step, said Georgia Fool Bull of Oneida.

“In this super size world, it’s not just what we eat, but that we eat too much. It crosses all ethnicities,” said Leah Ludlum of the Wisconsin Diabetes Prevention and Control Program.