Eat less, eat better, stay active
- EFN Staff | December 15, 2016
There’s a good chance that the vast majority of people in Saskatchewan are touched by diabetes in one way or another. Whether it is through knowing someone who has it, through a family history or by living with it personally, it is an unfortunate reality that many of us face.
According to the Canadian Diabetes Association’s 2016 Report on Diabetes in Saskatchewan, “Approximately 314,000 people in Saskatchewan, or about 29 per cent of its population, are living with diabetes or prediabetes.” The cost of this statistic is a staggering $98 Million dollar burden to the Saskatchewan Health Care system.
The report shines a spotlight on the fact that the Indigenous population in Saskatchewan is showing diabetes rates that are 3-5 times higher than that of the non-Indigenous population. Many factors are identified in the report that contribute to this increase in the rates. “Indigenous communities can face multiple barriers to effectively prevent and manage diabetes, such as higher prevalence of food insecurity, higher food prices, higher prevalence of risk factors related to type 2 diabetes, less access to programs and services, lack of proper infrastructure and a wide range of social determinants of health such as low income, low level of education and inadequate housing.”
Related:
- Opinion: Time to rethink type 2 diabetes
- AFN encourages healthy living, acknowledges Aboriginal Diabetes Awareness Day
Lyle Daniels has been living with a diagnosis of the most common form or Type 2 diabetes since 2008. With type 2 diabetes your pancreas does not produce enough insulin, or your body does not properly use the insulin it makes. As a result, glucose (sugar) builds up in your blood instead of being used for energy.
Lyle has found that committing to a healthy lifestyle goes a long way towards managing his diabetes, and in some cases corrects the damage that the disease can cause. “Our attitudes about eating and activity have to change,” he suggests. For Lyle, staying active in the form of running or walking up to five kilometers daily as well as staying away from sugars have made a significant difference in his blood sugar readings.
“I’ve had to re-learn how to think about food, finding alternatives to sugary drinks and reducing portion sizes to about one third of what I used to eat. We don’t need to eat nearly as much food in one sitting as we tend to.” He still enjoys the occasional treat, but he balances that with activity to help his body use up the extra calories rather than converting it to sugar which is then difficult for his body to process.
He recalls vividly an encounter with a medical nurse who took the time to show him 2 vials of blood. The first vial was of a normal blood sample, with a normal blood sugar reading (between 3 and 7) nothing out of the ordinary. The second vial contained blood with a blood sugar reading of 10. “It looked like maple syrup… It was a powerful visual about how much harder your heart would have to work to move this blood throughout your body.”
This was a wakeup call for Lyle. “We need to get information like this out to our communities. Visual tools are always the best in the community setting.”
Prevention is high on the list of priorities according to Daniels. Telling people’s stories and finding ways to relate to the indigenous population will go a long way help educate about diabetes. The Canadian Diabetes Association (CDA) provides tools such as an information package titled Just the Basics. It breaks down information about how to make healthy food choices and the importance of adding activity to your life. The resource can be found on the CDA’s website and has been adapted into variations in Ojibwe, Plains Cree, Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun to help Aboriginal people make healthy choices.
Lyle believes that he is proof that we have to “make the time to develop a better understanding of our bodies. If we do that, there is hope for a healthy lifestyle in our future.”His simple advice to those who are looking to avoid or better manage diabetes is, “eat less, eat better, stay active.”
For more information about diabetes you can visit the Canadian Diabetes Association online at http://www.diabetes.ca