Tumbler Ridge—alongside Port Alberni—is part of a program spearheaded by the Rural Coordination Centre of BC (RCCbc) and Healthcare Excellence Canada (HEC) to take a food-based, culturally safe program focused on type two diabetes remission.
According to Dr. Charles Helm, one of the biggest steps of phase two was to create an application for funding from Shared Care.
“The funding is for the two communities in BC that are the pilot sites for the project,” says Helm. “One is Port Alberni and one is Tumbler Ridge. It’s a half million dollar project. The application has gone to Shared Care. We are expecting to hear within weeks whether we are successful or not.”
If successful in lining up funding, Tumbler Ridge will be one of the first places globally to implement a program like this. He says getting the emergency room back up and running is the community’s top priority, but he says a program like this is looking at the long-term health of the community. “ If we do not do this, if everyone just thinks short term, health care budgets are going to go up and up and our Canadian economy is going to go bankrupt because of health care, because the number of people with diabetes are going up and up, and the system cannot take it.”
He says the goal is to put type two diabetes into remission without using medications, using food first approaches. “The evidence shows us not everybody’s going to want to do this. Some people are going to say, ‘just give me the meds, doc. I’m not interested in the diet.’ That’s their choice. But for people who are interested, 75 percent is our aim. 75 percent of people who are interested can get off their meds, put their diabetes into remission.”
He says that this won’t be easy. “If they go back to their old ways, it’s going to come back. It’s not a cure, but it is remission.”
And even for people who cannot achieve full remission, he says, there is hope. “If you can get your medications down from five to two, or you can get your insulin down from 100 units a day down to 20 units a day. That is a victory. It does not have to be full remission. It can be partial.
However, one of the keys to the project—and something that the Shared Care grant would not pay for is a health coach/health navigator position. “The District of Tumbler Ridge has been incredibly helpful,” says Helm. “It’ given us in kind support with a place where this person could work out of, for example, out.”
He says they’ve applied for funding to support the position from the South Peace Mackenzie Trust. “Once we’re here from Shared Care—and all the indications are that we have a good project, which has got a very good chance of succeeding—we will be posting that position, and taking applications.
He says having a position like this is very important. “If you get diagnosed with diabetes, it’s overwhelming. Where do you start? There’s all these websites; there’s so much information out there. You need help to navigate all that information. And that’s where this person can come in to help you through that. This is something that has never been attempted elsewhere. This is the a true pilot project. The half a million project is for two years. If it doesn’t work, if it fails, nobody is going to want to take it on. Can we guarantee success? No, we cannot. But we think it’s going to succeed. And if it does succeed, then from little Tumbler Ridge, we export this to the rest of BC, to the rest of Canada and the rest of the world.”
And if it works? Helm predicts it will save the health care system billions of dollars. “This is how we get our health care back. This is how we push back against all these societal influences which are making us so unhealthy. There are lots of forces—there are people with many PhDs who are making a lot of money making food that is absolutely irresistible to us.”
Helm admits that these sort of projects take time. “I want to thank you for your patience, because it’s been at least two years that we’ve been telling you about this.”
Helm says if the project does go through, the health coach position will be full time, and will be able to support a lot of people.
Besides, he says, there’s more to diabetes than just diabetics. “This food-based approach can help pre-diabetics. It can help recently diagnosed diabetics. It could be applied to people who think they’ve got insulin resistance. It would apply to all these groups. Plus, we’re working very closely with the Northern Nations Wildness Centre in Chetwynd and with the Saulteau First Nations.”
He says that’s important, because the majority of type two diabetics are First Nations. “For members of Saulteau First Nations, it’s not a question of if they’ll get diabetes, but when. It’s a tragedy, and it doesn’t get enough attention, but we’re working on that, because that’s where the burden of disease lies.”
He says he is emboldened by what Saulteau is trying to do. “It’s incredible what they are doing to try and push back against this. They know what they’re up against, and they’re not asking for help, they’re just doing it. So inspiring.”
He says that a Constant Glucose Monitoring (CGM) device, like the Freestyle Libra 3 (which was represented at the Health Fair) can be an important part of figuring out what works. He says you can watch what happens to your blood sugar when you eat a variety of foods, or do a variety of activities. “Everyone is different, What works for me might not work for you, and the only way we find out is to use a CGM. We can read all these books and articles and websites that tell us what is supposed to work, but do I know if it works for me? Even a few years ago, I would just have to go by the best evidence. I would follow it and see what happened. But now I can get a CGM and within a day or two, I will know what works or it doesn’t. It’s technology to the rescue for us.”
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
