With limited access to affordable fruits, vegetables and other healthy foods, Mexicans living in New York are frequenting fast food restaurants instead of farmers' markets. The result is a spike in obesity and diabetes among this immigrant group.
This story was originally published in Spanish. Below is the English translation.
"It's the alcohol hangover," Gerardo Cuapio thought five years ago when he woke up thirsty and with blurred vision. National Health Journalism Fellow Pedro Frisneda tells the story of a man who was on the verge of death without knowing he had Type 2 diabetes. It's a cautionary tale for what happens to many Latin American immigrants who move to the United States, adopting a new lifestyle and diet that can contribute to developing the disease. "The Big Apple is confronting one of the worst diabetes epidemics in the nation and health authorities have declared it an emergency," with Hispanics suffering disproportionately.
This story was originally published in Spanish. Below is the English translation.
When I was selected to be part of The California Endowment Health Journalism Fellowship program back in June 2010, I had three story ideas I wanted to develop for my fellowship projects. They involved three major health problems affecting the Latino community in the United States: health disparities of Latino women, diabetes and obesity among Mexican immigrants and Latinos affected by HIV/AIDS.
Soaring rates for obesity, diabetes and hypertension are fueling a serious gap between the need for kidney transplants and the availability of those organs, impacting Latinos and other Los Angeles patients who are in renal failure.
Dr. Lipson writes his own blog called White Coat Underground, contributes and helps edit at Science-Based Medicine, and contributes to The Science Business Blog at Forbes.com where this piece originally appeared.
Dr. Dennis Styne is the Rumsey Chair of Pediatric Endocrinology and professor of pediatrics at UC Davis. In addition to working in classical pediatric endocrinology, he focuses on childhood obesity. Using activity, education, and pharmaceutical therapy, he studies children in the Fit-Kid Weight Management Clinic that he developed at UC Davis, evaluating the best methods of assessment and treatment of obesity and its comorbidities, including type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Obesity is visible — walk down the street and you bump into it. Diabetes, on the other hand, is silent and tragic. Here are tips for reporting on the links between them.
