Fight against diabetes reaches into pews

Duke project has faith in power of black churches to encourage healthful diet

The breakfast offerings at St. John's Baptist Church in Durham haven't changed much over the years. Aside from the yogurt, there's scrambled eggs, bacon, biscuits, waffles and syrup on a table in the downstairs dining hall.

Yet if the church is going to offer its members abundant life in addition to an afterlife, it's going to have to change its menu.

Nearly 30 people in this church, located in the heart of the Walltown neighborhood, suffer from diabetes. A weekly helping of these foods may not only aggravate their symptoms, it may be deadly. But church members now have a greater incentive to make changes.

St. John's, along with a dozen other African-American churches in Durham, is participating in a research project at Duke University aimed at improving the health of blacks suffering from diabetes. The project, funded with $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Heath, is intended to reduce complications from diabetes. Its plan is to establish social support groups within the churches, hold educational forums, and teach participants how to get the most out of their doctor visits.

Researchers think churches -- among the most respected institutions in the African-American community -- are best equipped to make lasting changes in the lives of their members.

"Church members know a lot more about how to move a congregation than we do at the university," said Sherman James, an epidemiologist who heads the project at Duke. "We on the university side will be a catalyst for it to occur."

Diabetes is one of the biggest killers in North Carolina, and it hits African-Americans the hardest. Across the state, 547,000 people have diabetes -- about 8.5 percent of the population, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services. Among blacks, the rate is 13.3 percent, and it's climbing faster than for any other ethnic group. Complications from diabetes include heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, blindness and kidney disease.

The good word in action

With proper diet and exercise, however, diabetics can take steps to control the disease and lower the rate of complications. Researchers with the Diabetes Improvement Project hope to spread that gospel among 300 study participants they are now recruiting from local churches.

At St. John's, Barbara Parker, 56, volunteered for the study because she wants to "get as healthy as I can." Loretta Powell, 46, volunteered because she wants to get off her medication.

Participants are required to join a support group at their church with other people suffering from Type 2 diabetes -- the most common form, which usually is diagnosed in adulthood. They must also attend education workshops at which people offer testimonies on strategies that have worked for them. And they must keep in phone contact with a community health educator to monitor their progress.

Those taking part will have their blood glucose levels tested three times over the next year. The idea is to compare that test with 300 other African-Americans receiving routine care through Duke's health system, but not participating in the study. Researchers hope to see marked improvements among those in the study.

Dr. Elaine Hart-Brothers, a physician who is one of the study's researchers, said one aim is to see whether there is a link between economic status and improved health. If people from different economic groups had the same exposure to information and professional resources, would their health improve?

Hart-Brothers, who heads the Durham-based Community Health Coalition, a nonprofit group committed to eliminating racial health disparities, said diabetes doesn't discriminate.