Title: The 7 Deadliest Diseases For Blacks | BlackDoctor.org - Where Wellness & Culture Connect
Headings: The 7 Deadliest Diseases For Blacks
The 7 Deadliest Diseases For Blacks
Why These Disparities?
Black Americans & Lung Disease
Blacks & Heart Disease
Blacks & Diabetes
Blacks & Sickle Cell Anemia
How Are These Disparities Being Dealt With For The Future?
Read Next Article

Content: A similar situation exists for heart failure. A promising treatment for heart failure didn’t seem to be working — until researchers noticed that it worked much better for Black patients than for white patients. A study of Black patients confirmed this finding — and provided tantalizing evidence that the drug will help patients of all races with certain disease characteristics. Blacks & Diabetes
Blacks have twice the risk of diabetes as whites. In addition, Blacks with diabetes have more serious complications — such as loss of vision, loss of limbs, and kidney failure — than whites, notes Maudene Nelson, RD, certified diabetes educator at Naomi Barry Diabetes Center at Columbia University. “The theory is that maybe it is access to health care, or maybe a cultural fatalism — thinking, ‘It is God’s will,’ or, ‘My family had it so I have it’ — not a sense of something I can have an impact on so it won’t hurt me,” says Nelson. There is, indeed, evidence that Blacks may have a genetic susceptibility to diabetes. Even so, Nelson says, the real problem is empowering patients to keep their diabetes under control, since patients often have the sense that they are not as much in charge of managing their diabetes as their doctor. It’s easy to say people with diabetes should learn how to control their disease. But the tools for this kind of self-empowerment often aren’t available in Black neighborhoods, says Elizabeth D. Carlson, DSN, RN, MPH.