By Sarah Stone

Aboriginal diabetes major focus in gathering at Exhibition Centre

May 20, 2015 | 6:29 AM

Creating clarity and clearing up misconceptions are goals of the 12th Annual Aboriginal Gathering on Diabetes in Prince Albert.

“It’s going to be orientated towards aboriginal population,” said Janice Cochrane, diabetes educator and nurse. “There will be an elder there in attendance, as well as a cultural focus.”

The event, which takes place Wednesday at the Prince Albert Exhibition Centre, will likely draw in around 300 people.  The number of attendees has grown over the past four or five years, according to Brie Hnetka, manager of programs and partnerships for the Canadian Diabetes Association (CDA) in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

“I think there is a lot of misinformation out there about diabetes and a lot, actually, stigmas about diabetes, so the theme for this gathering is kind of looking at those and looking through them and clarifying some of those things,” Hnetka said.

One of the most common myths associated with diabetes, according to Hnetka, is if a person is overweight or obese they will get Type 2 diabetes.

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“Although being overweight is a risk factor for developing for this disease, there are so many other risk factors such as family history, ethnicity, age, heredity, if you had a baby over nine pounds; so many other risk factors that people are not aware of and in fact those are even higher risk factors than being overweight,” she said.

This event helps inform those with diabetes or their family members how to live well with the disease.

She said First Nations people are three to four times more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes.  There are around 93,000 people in Saskatchewan living with diabetes, many of those are First Nations.

Cochrane said that those of aboriginal descent have adopted a special type of metabolism, which is based on the infrequency of food available.

“So when there were days of hunting and fishing the food was plentiful, however when there were days when maybe the caribou wasn’t moving or it was too stormy to go out on the lake then people actually went without food,” said Cochrane. “So the body adapted to this by slowing the metabolism or the energy down, so that it would save some nutrition.”

Cochrane said that now that food is plentiful constantly, their slow metabolisms are working against them.

She added that they need to work with aboriginal people to figure out how to speed up their metabolism.

Speakers will promote physical activities in First Nation communities, healthy food, diabetes medication, and feet health, among others.

Tickets are $25 per person, however Cochrane says that there are options for those who can’t afford that price, due to funding from the Canadian Diabetes Association.

For more information, click here.

sstone@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahstone84