Why is diabetes a concern for Aboriginal women? What are the health risks?
Until the 1940s, diabetes was virtually unknown in Canada’s Aboriginal communities. However, in the last decades, it has reached epidemic proportions. The prevalence of diabetes among First Nations is now at least three times the national average, and rates appear to be higher on-reserve than off-reserve. Aboriginal women in particular are believed to be prone to diabetes. Approximately two-thirds of the First Nations people diagnosed with diabetes are women. This means that Aboriginal women are contracting the disease at a rate roughly twice that of Aboriginal men. This gender difference is not observed in the wider Canadian population, where diabetes strikes men more often than women. First Nations women have over 5 times the rate of diabetes compared to women in the general population. Not only is there a higher rate of type 2 diabetes in First Nations women of most age categories, many of these women were also diagnosed with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). While there has been
