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MP lowers diabetes risk, out to inspire aboriginals

By: Mia Rabson

Posted: 05/26/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

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Winnipeg South MP Rod Bruinooge after shedding 27.3 kilograms. ( PAWEL DWULIT /THE CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES )

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Before the diet. (HANDOUT PHOTO)

Health tab $250M

In 2006-07, 6.2 per cent of Canadians had diabetes including 5.9 per cent of women and 6.6 per cent of men.

In Manitoba, approximately 76,000 people had diabetes in 2005-06, more than double the number eight years earlier. By 2016, it's estimated 111,000 Manitobans -- nearly 10 per cent of the population -- will have the disease.

It's estimated aboriginal Canadians have rates of diabetes three to five times the national average.

In the last two decades, the rate of diabetes among aboriginal women in Manitoba tripled. Among aboriginal men it quadrupled.

In 2010, diabetes will cost the provincial health system $250 million.

-- Source: Health Canada, Manitoba Health

OTTAWA -- Manitoba MP Rod Bruinooge was having a love affair with cake.

"Cheesecake, chocolate cake, pies, there's no dessert I don't like," said Bruinooge Tuesday. "I mean I even eat Christmas cake. It's crazy."

But five months ago, the Conservative from Winnipeg South knew it was time for a change.

With a brother with diabetes, an aboriginal heritage making him more genetically prone to it, and being overweight, Bruinooge, 37, was facing a triple-threat of risk factors for diabetes. Health experts he ran into in his role as an MP warned him of the dangers of his current diet.

So out went the pastries.

"I decided to leave that all behind," he said.

Instead of the processed-sugar-filled meals that are par for the North American course, Bruinooge, who is Métis, researched and returned to an aboriginal diet rich with fish and bison.

He cut out processed sugars entirely but rounded out the proteins with whole grains and lots of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Without counting calories or joining a boot camp, the excess weight started melting away.

"Within 10 days I noticed significant changes," he said.

Since starting the diet in the new year, he has shed more than 27 kilograms, an average of nearly 1.4 kg a week.

Bruinooge, now trim and feeling better than ever, is going public with his story for two reasons.

The first is to reassure his colleagues he wasn't wasting away from illness.

"I'm not dying," he said, noting some had asked him if he was ill.

But more importantly, he hopes to be a role model for aboriginals who face similar genetics and for whom -- research suggests -- processed sugars aren't metabolized the same way, leading to far higher rates of diabetes.

Aboriginals are three to five times more likely to develop diabetes than other Canadians and in certain regions diabetes is an epidemic.

In the Island Lake region of Manitoba, it's believed one in every five people have diabetes. That rises to one in three people over age 45 and one in two people over age 65. Nationwide the rate is closer to one in 17 people.

Bruinooge is speaking at a conference in Winnipeg on May 31, Safe and Healthy Food, hosted by the Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology.

"I think aboriginal people, if they were to limit their sugars, I honestly believe they would see some really great improvements in health outcomes," he said.

But Bruinooge is quick to stress he is not telling anyone else what to do.

"I'm just saying this is what worked for me," he said.

For Bruinooge, a typical diet now includes a high-fibre whole-grain cereal for breakfast, tuna or salmon for lunch and more fish or bison for dinner.

He can usually find something to eat at one of the parliamentary cafeterias but he has had to engage in some serious willpower at the cocktail party and reception circuit that keeps most MPs out every evening surrounded by endless trays of canapes and pastries.

"There is a lot of great food and I ate a lot of it," he notes of the receptions.

Bruinooge said he didn't know what to expect when he began the diet and was surprised at how well it worked.

For now he says he plans to stick with it. There is no benefit that he can see to adding processed sugar back into his diet, said Bruinooge.

"This is something you have to do for life," he said.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 26, 2010 A6

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