This national statistical fact also applies to the CNMI, according to Commonwealth Health Center food service manager Joan Quillian.
“It is pretty close,” she said.
Quillian, who has been working at CHC for nine years now, said she had diabetic patients who never saw a dietician until they had kidney failure.
CHC’s dialysis section was filled with patients undergoing dialysis when this interview was conducted on Tuesday.
The hospital’s only dietician, Quillian noted the alarming increase in the number of dialysis patients.
In 1992, the hospital record shows, only 12 were in dialysis. This number doubled in 1994 and went up to 66 in 1996.
Last year, Quillian said the number of patients undergoing dialysis was 132. One patient just passed away.
Patients who do not control their diabetes and hypertension damage their blood vessels that go to the kidneys, Quillian said.
A diabetic’s enemy, she added, is not sugar, but carbohydrates.
A full cup of rice, she said, has 15 grams of carbohydrates and is like 14 scoops of sugar.
A patient can control hypertension and high blood pressure by avoiding excess salt, she said.
If a person has hypertension and diabetes the risk factor of getting into dialysis is three times higher, she added.
Here on island, she noticed that many people use soy sauce, oyster sauce and MSG.
