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LIFESTYLES(2)
Should you
need an organ transplant, would you as an African American get it soon
enough?
It is a well known fact that African Americans present often
to their doctors with more serious complications of diabetes, cardiovascular
diseases or cancer than Whites. A situation that is due, generally
speaking, to delay in diagnosis and basic treatments.
Blacks represent 12% of the U.S. population. According
to government data, in 1996 African Americans comprise 12% of kidney
donors, yet they received 21% of the kidneys donated. African Americans
are 2.6 to 5.6 times more likely to develop kidney diseases as complications of
diabetes, as an example. They suffer end-stage renal disease (ESRD), a very
serious and life-threatening kidney disease, much more frequently than do
Whites. A study published in the Sept. 2000 issue of the Journal of The
National Medical Association (JNMA) indicates that African Americans represent
more than 30% of ESRD patients and of the 31,149 people awaiting kidney
transplants, more than 10,000 were black. The treatment of choice for ESRD is kidney transplantation.
To decrease the risks of rejection, a close match between
donors and recipient blood types and genetic make-up is important. Members
of different races and ethnic groups are usually more genetically similar to
members of their own group than they are to members of other racial and ethnic
groups.
Data from different sources suggest that African Americans are
less likely to participate in organ donation programs. Besides, the
problem of reduced donor pools is being felt increasingly throughout the United States.
Therefore, without a systematic increase of the minority
donor pool so that good matches can be made as frequently as possible for
minority patients, we as African Americans run the risk to wait longer for
an organ transplant while the medical condition calling for the organ transplant
might get worse even critical. A recent report published by the
Journal of the American Medical Association says there were 72,255
people on transplant waiting lists in the U.S. in 1999. By year's
end, 6,448 had died while waiting for an organ.
The problem of non participation of African Americans in
programs of organ donation is an intricate one. According to the study of The
American Public's Attitudes toward Organ Donation and Transplantation, conducted
for the Partnership for Organ Donation, Boston, MA, February 1993, African
Americans and Hispanics have somewhat a different attitude toward organ donation
as compared with Whites. The study suggests the level of education, a
different cultural and perhaps religious thinking seem to cause this reluctance
of those ethnic groups to donate their organs upon death. Factors, such as
mistrust of the organ donation system -- perceived at times as favoring the
well-connected, the well-known, or as discriminating against minority needs --
myths, folk beliefs, lack of planning or communications with family members, have also been reported by others.
Various organizations and personalities (including the
basket-ball star Michael Jordan) have tried and continue to encourage African
Americans and other minority groups to donate their organs upon death.
Those interventions, as the authors of the JNMA have found in their study,
should include gender-specific approach; individuals soliciting organ donation
from minorities need to be culturally sensitive; when developing educational
campaigns, the organ donation panels must take into account the distrust of the
medical community by many African Americans.
(Reviewed by Carl Gilbert, MD on 01/20/2001)
Soul Food, a common bond for
African Americans ! But, isn't it connected to many health problems?
Described as 'food made with feeling and
care', soul food
evolved from the
rich heritage of African customs. Over the years, it has been fashioned by
Southern cookery, expanded by tribal habits of the Native Americans, and
influenced by Caribbean and French cooking.
Soul food is a high energy and high calorie diet originally
conceived in such a way that slaves could survive the hard labor they were
subjected to. Nourishing meals to fatten slaves up before sale were also
common during slavery eras.
Black slaves came to love that cooking which was almost the
only thing permitted to them. Meals became therefore a time for sharing
common feelings of happiness and sorrow.
The ingredients of soul food, according to The Black
Family Dinner Quilt Cookbook (Published by Simon &
Schuster), are very much in line with dietary recommendations of today."
Although they varied by continental region, the basic similarities included
cereal from ground grains, rice, nuts, fish, wild fame, onions, yams, mangoes,
melons, roots and leaves. Grains, rice, fruits, vegetables and plant parts are
all major sources of complex carbohydrate which should make up most of the
American diet. Additionally, wild game tends to be lower in fat than the
domestic farm animals raised today for mass production," writes Lauren
Swann, M.S., R. D. in the book.
Soul food during slavery times was "a powerhouse of
nutrients" for slaves forced back then to perform intense labor.
Energy needs changed when freedom came along. Today's
sedentary jobs require fewer calories.
Still, "many African Americans are choosing to indulge in
overabundant portions of excessively fatty cuts of pork and beef. deep fried
poultry and fish, heavily salted dishes and sugar desserts," continues
Swann. All those elements that cause high cholesterol, hypertension,
obesity, diabetes, etc.
It is up to African Americans to draw on soul food, this
common bond, to improve eating habits. Current dietary guidelines
recommend that whole grains, vegetables and fruits make up most of the
diet. "Corn, rice, dried beans and leafy green are ethnically
familiar food which meet these needs," writes Swann.
"Too much soul food can make a soul out of You," a
retired dentist from Cincinnati used to say.
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