TULSA, Okla. – American Indian and Minority Health, Inc. (AIMHI) will
present their annual American Indian diabetes conference, “Return to Your
Roots 3,” on May 18 and 19 at the Doubletree Hotel at Warren Place in
Tulsa. The goal of the organization is to assure the highest possible
health status for American Indians by promoting and lobbying for a healthy
diet that mirrors the traditional diet of their ancestors. The organization
embraced the concept of a low carbohydrate/high fat diet for American
Indians years before the current popular interest in the Atkins diet. AIMHI
is about to fund a study which they believe will give them enough evidence
to force a change in the federal government’s commodity program, which they
see as a key issue in the disastrous effects diabetes has had in the Native
community.

The group’s Executive Director and founder, Elizabeth Gray first became
interested when one of her salesmen was diagnosed with diabetes. He
followed the standard American Diabetes Association recommended diet of low
fat and high carbohydrates and his blood sugar doubled. Gray had read “The
Schwarzbein Principle” whose author, Dr. Diana Schwarzbein, found that a
low carb/high fat diet helped patients eliminate the need for insulin and
drastically reduced their chances for cardiovascular disease, kidney
disease, eye disease and limb loss. The salesman followed the diet and his
blood sugar returned to normal. Gray was so impressed with the results that
she built the organization around Schwarzbein’s discoveries.

“I started researching it and found that prior to the invention of insulin
doctors prescribed high fat/low carb diets back in the 1920s,” Gray told
Indian Country Today. “I spent a year running around telling everybody that
the sky is falling, the world is round, and that carbohydrates are sugar. I
discovered there was a movement in Indian country of other people who
realized the food guide pyramid does not work for the American Indians’
metabolism. I started finding people in the outskirts of the medical
community that understood this and had cataloged supporting evidence. I
invited them to speak at the first conference.”

Now that the Atkins diet is not only accepted, but being paid attention to
by the major food companies, more people are listening to what Gray has
said all along. “Two and a half years ago when I was doing this there was
no Atkins diet movement,” Gray said. “A lot of people were angry that I
would speak against the American Diabetes Association. Some people thought
I was endangering American Indians by promoting low carb/high fat, but then
I started finding people with legitimate reputations, like Dr. Walter
Willet of Harvard Nutrition Center. I sent him a list of the government
commodities that they dole out on reservations and he said that it’s
impossible to eat healthy on this diet. The two main ingredients in
government commodities are the two main ingredients that cause diabetes,
hydrogenated fats and high carbs.”

Once Gray was convinced that federally recommended health standards were
harming the Indian people she began to ask why such a system would even be
in place. She looked on the ADA Web site and found that the association’s
five biggest sponsors were the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies who
produce insulin. The next two highest sponsors were Kraft Food and General
Mills, both makers of food that is high in carbohydrates. Gray wrote a
story on her discoveries and posted the story on the Internet with links to
research material on the ADA Web site that supported her claims. The ADA
Web site shut down for 17 hours and when it came back up the webmaster had
removed all information on the organization’s sponsors.

Gray contacted an Oklahoma senator with her discoveries and asked him what
was needed to change the law regarding the government’s commodity program.
He said she needed solid evidence, so Gray is now funding a study on
Osages, where one control group will follow the current ADA recommended
guideline and another group will follow a more traditional diet. “In Indian
country we can’t wait for the government to change; we have to utilize the
new gift the Creator has given us in gaming money,” Gray said. “We may not
have our large land masses that we used to have to feed our people, but we
have some gaming revenue that we can use to give our people traditional
food to supplement their diets.”

For more information on the conference and AIMHI, visit
traditionalhealth.org.