A Conversation with the Honorable Dr. Charles Grim

TC:  What would you consider to be the most serious medium-range and long-term health issues for Alaska Native American Indians? I know you've pointed out in the past, cardiovascular disease.

CG:  Yeah, cardiovascular disease is a huge one that's starting to worry us. I mean, it is one of the sort of potential side effects of diabetes. Diabetes is a huge problem in our population, and many of the side effects, like heart disease. But also, heart disease is increasing in our populations, whereas in the rest of the populations, we're starting to either hold it steady or decrease it, even though it's still a huge problem nationally. And obesity is also a problem in many of the populations. And really, I don't know if you were paying attention this week to that big press release and a big push by the department here, and our secretary and the Surgeon General, and the Ad Council. There's gonna start being a series of ads that are intended to be light-hearted and kind of funny, and make you consider - you know, not feel guilty - but make you consider, is there more that you can do to help your health.

And obesity is really an underlying factor in so many disease problems. It's a problem for all Americans, not just our population. That's why the secretary's making a big push. And diabetes is starting to be a big problem in this country. So I think probably the big three: obesity, diabetes, heart disease, are some of the big ones in our population, and the big ones in the country, and one more I might add to that is cancer. Some of our areas have some high prevalence of certain types of cancer. And it's starting to be a growing problem in our population. We have lower rates for some types of cancer, higher rates for others. But even some of the ones where we have lower rates, the five-year survival rate for our population is worse than for the US population in all races. So those are probably the big four, Miles, that I would indicate.