| | |  Health & Beauty | December 2008 
Diabetes Sees Rise in Latino Community
 Eduardo A. de Oliveira - The Telegraph
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 |  | If high-risk patients lose 5 percent of their body weight, they would reduce their chances of contracting diabetes by 58 percent.
- Dr. Enrique Caballero |  | | |
Diabetes specialist Sandee LaMarche sounds the alarm: Diabetes is spreading rapidly among Latinos in the United States.
In addition to the usual hiatus immigrants spend away from the doctor's office, studies show that Latinos are two times as likely to develop diabetes than white Americans.
Nearly 90 percent of all LaMarche's diabetic patients at the Nashua Area Health Center are Latino. Every day, LaMarche treats five new patients who have symptoms of the disease, and the numbers are increasing.
Diabetes is the inability of a person's pancreas to produce a normal amount of insulin, the enzyme that breaks food down. If the illness remains untreated, blindness or loss of a limb can result. Obesity increases one's risk of contracting diabetes.
According to the American Diabetes Association, the United States had 20.8 million people with the disease in 2006. That number jumped to 23.6 million last year. Diabetes is the fourth leading cause of death among Hispanic women and elderly. According to the medical Web site dlife.com, more than 10 percent of all Mexican-Americans older than 20 have the disease.
The rapid spread of diabetes in the country is so dramatic and widespread that even the illness nomenclature had to be changed.
"Among the younger population of America, type 2 diabetes (which used to strike only adults) was unheard of," LaMarche said. "The disease used to be called juvenile or adult onset diabetes. Now, it's type 1 and type 2, because all bets are off."
At the Nashua Area Health Center, diabetic patients can sometimes get free medications donated by drug companies. But many are patients are undocumented and can't have access to a daily insulin doses without paying high prices out-of-pocket.
Mexican patient Alicia Zamora is one of them. She discovered she had diabetes when she became pregnant several years ago. Today, she complains about the constant tiredness and leg pains that diabetes imposes on her.
Zamora's first doctor visit on U.S. soil came three years after she migrated from Mexico. Her husband, who has been in the country for 20 years, has never seen a doctor.
She explains that her three-year wait came from an internal fear that the doctor "would tell me I have a disease."
So far, Zamora is grateful to have found medical assistance, including the medications she needs, at the Nashua Area Health Center. The clinic is in the early stages of creating a peer program that will promote patient-to-patient discussions about prevention beginning in 2009.
Even though prevention is urgent, the Nashua Area Health Center does not get a dime back from health insurers to provide diabetes education because it is not certified by the American Diabetes Association.
Dr. Irma Rasmussen, a Colombian, sees many immigrant patients in Massachusetts. For her, the genetic factor bears the greatest responsibility for increasing the prevalence of diabetes among Latinos.
"We see a pattern in 30-year-old patients whose families, almost certainly, have already developed the disease," said Rasmussen, who treats 16 diabetic patients a week at a health clinic for the Metrowest Medical Center, in Framingham.
LaMarche agrees: 99 percent of her diabetic patients have another family member with the disease.
As far as treatment and prevention goes, doctors say that food-portioning is very important. Latinos are known to have a diet rich in rice, beans and potatoes, such meals are high in carbohydrates, which, after broken down, translate to increased flow of sugar in the blood stream. In addition, regular exercise is highly recommended.
"If high-risk patients lose 5 percent of their body weight, they would reduce their chances of contracting diabetes by 58 percent," said Dr. Enrique Caballero, director of the Latino Initiative at Boston's Joslin Diabetes Center.
Caballero, who is also the chairman of the Latino program at the American Diabetes Association, said diabetes is a family affair and it's important to teach healthy habits starting at a young age.
"Latinos need to use the great power that family brings into everything that we do to do positive things. Parents have an important role in teaching kids to eat correctly and exercise. When it comes to adults, it is easier to change someone's religion than to change their lifestyle."
Eduardo A. de Oliveira is a columnist for The Telegraph. |
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