[env-trinity] Diabetes epidemic could wipe out indigenous peoples: experts

[Josh Allen]

Diabetes epidemic could wipe out indigenous peoples: experts


http://www.physorg.com/news82607698.html 

 

Indigenous peoples around the world faced extinction this century unless
an obesity-driven diabetes epidemic was curbed, experts told an
international conference in Australia Monday. 



"We are dealing with the biggest epidemic in world history," said the
director of Monash University's International Diabetes Institute,
Professor Paul Zimmet. 

"Without urgent action there certainly is a real risk of a major
wipe-out of indigenous communities, if not total extinction, within this
century," he told an International Diabetes Federation meeting in
Melbourne. 

The "diabesity" epidemic threatened the original inhabitants of Asia,
Australia, the Pacific, and North and South America, he said. 

Indigenous people were particularly at risk of developing Type 2
diabetes, which was primarily caused by obesity, because of the rapid
transition to Western diets and lifestyles, Zimmet said. 

The "thrifty gene" allowed communities of hunter-gatherers to store fat
in times of feast for survival of famines, but modern lifestyles
provided continuous "feasts" and less exercise, he told AFP. 

Complications of Type 2 diabetes, now being found in indigenous children
as young as six years old, include increased risk of heart disease,
stroke and kidney disease. 

Canadian diabetes expert Professor Stewart Harris said with up to half
the adult populations in some indigenous communities affected, diabetes
posed a serious threat to their survival. 

"The rapid cultural transition over one to two generations of many
indigenous communities to a Western diet and sedentary lifestyle has led
to diabetes replacing infectious diseases as the number one threat to
their survival," he said. 

Type 2 diabetes already affected 50 percent of adults on the Pacific
Island of Nauru, up to 45 percent of Sioux and Pima Indians in the
United States, and up to 30 percent of Torres Strait Islanders in
northern Australia, he said.  

Diabetes was unknown in the Pacific islands before World War II, the
conference heard. 

Among Torres Strait Islanders, children as young as six have been
diagnosed with diabetes, Cairns Base Hospital director Ashim Sinha told
the meeting, and teenagers were found to have high blood pressure and
high cholesterol. 

"These children are prone to develop heart attacks, renal failure and
blindness but at a much younger age," he said. 

The world-first three-day conference on diabetes in indigenous peoples
aims to agree on a set of measures to present to the United Nations for
an international effort to curb the epidemic. 

These are likely to include improved maternal and child health services,
and access to an affordable and nutritious diet for impoverished
communities, particularly through child care centres and schools. 

The experts said because dramatic changes to indigenous health had
happened relatively quickly and were largely environmental, it was
likely the trend could be reversed with appropriate management. 

Obesity has reached pandemic proportions throughout the world, not just
in indigenous communities, and is the greatest single contributor to
chronic disease, the 10th International Congress on Obesity heard in
Sydney in September. 

The world now has more fat people than hungry ones, according to World
Health Organisation figures, with more than a billion overweight people
compared to 800 million who are undernourished. 

(c) 2006 AFP 

 

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