Diabetes and hypertension are rampant in the Caribbean, more so in Guyana. These days just about everyone over forty is either a diabetic or hypertensive. Most people suffer from both because the two diseases seem to be twins.
The most common form of diabetes in Guyana is Type 2, the one that develops with lifestyle. We have been preached about eating healthy and about exercising but these seem to be the hardest things to do. Every day one can see people flocking the fast-food joints. Others prefer to buy food for lunch rather than cook and walk with a meal.
But that criticism is for another story. Professor Hilary Beckles caught the attention when he said that the people of the Caribbean are the least healthy in the world. He said that they were among the sickest in the entire world.
He noted the literacy level of the Caribbean people and the extent of poverty. It would seem that literacy and poverty are also twins like diabetes and hypertension.
Some time back there was a survey that concluded that more than 60 percent of graduates from the University of Guyana were functionally illiterate. That was shocking but there is a reason for that. Books have gone through the window. Rather than read a book people would find anything else to do.
The result is that grammar and spelling are atrocious. Just check the Facebook and WhatsApp chats. There was a time when Guyanese were considered the most literate in the Caribbean and the best brains in the world. We are a long way from those days. This COVID situation has not helped.
However, the conversation started with diabetes and hypertension. Just for the records, White America sees both Afro and Indo-Guyanese as black. In Guyana, we see the difference to the extent that there is hate between us. But we both get hit hard by diabetes and hypertension.
More than fifty percent of Guyanese are diabetic. Some take Metformin and some take a plethora of other medications. There was this middle-aged man waiting to see the doctor. He had done his preliminary tests. His cholesterol was good but his blood sugar level was 254. He said that he takes one 500 milligram Metformin in the morning and another 500 milligrams at night. Yet his fasting blood sugar level was 254.
The medication seemed not to be working as efficiently as it should. I suppose his doctor would change the medication and give him another product that was tested on a white man. And if down the road this does not work then the doctor would change it again.
The medications that people use in this country were tested on white people. The way they would work on a white person might not necessarily be the same way they would work on us. Some don’t even work on us.
Professor Beckles offered the answer. He said that during the 300 to 400 years of slavery and colonial domination, the people, particularly those of African descent, have been genetically modified. The diet of salt fish and salted pork and other salted products shipped from afar and fed to our ancestors has had an impact.
The result is that salt and sugar make a mess of our systems hence the preponderance of diabetic and hypertensive cases. The medicines we use, contrary to how they are advertised on television, may not necessarily be the way they would work on us.
Guyanese are people who have long been relying on ‘bush’ or local herbs. There is a Guyanese man who lives in New Jersey. He suffered from Type 2 diabetes. He goes to a Guyanese store which imports the bitter melon that we here know as Karila. He said that he takes the young ones and ‘juices’ them.
He uses no medication and his blood sugar is normal. Other Guyanese do the same for hypertension. They use cucumber. Others use other local products. These are people who have come to rely on what their foreparents used when there was no imported medicine.
The irony is that our best brains have left for the very countries that genetically modified us. Many have become scientists participating in the trials. And for the records, one trial that I know involved black people in the United States was one dealing with syphilis. They wanted to see how syphilis would behave over time. They used black people.
