Alice Talmage is helping to demystify diabetes for people in the Western Bay after joining the PHO as a community dietitian.

Her move to Tauranga follows a two-and-a-half year stint at a PHO in Dunedin where she helped deliver the Diabetes Education and Self-Management for Ongoing and Newly Diagnosed programme.

Operating similar self-management groups here for people with Type 2 diabetes fulfils Alice's desire to empower people to make their own positive lifestyle decisions.

'I love getting everyone in a room and demystifying diabetes,” she says. 'People of all ages and backgrounds have diabetes and I want to help remove the stigma that can be attached to it.”

Despite efforts put into raising awareness about the condition, there is still misinformation about treatments, and many newly diagnosed patients experience a lot of self-blame and embarrassment.

'We've come a long way but there's more work to do to educate people. Some people don't like to talk about it. Diabetes is a lifestyle disease but there's also risk factors that are outside of people's control.

'There's weight stigma that people can be dealing with and many feel they should have been more active or eaten differently. Yes, there's lots of things people can do for their lifestyle, but sometimes you are dealt an unlucky hand.”

Alice stresses that there's no ‘magic' type 2 diabetes diet, and people don't have to cut out all carbs and sugar from meals.

'The message is to generally live a healthy lifestyle, which is what we want everyone to be doing. There's no crazy diets that people need to go on.”

About five per cent of New Zealand's population has type 2 diabetes. Pre-Covid, this was predicted to increase to seven per cent of the population by 2040 (equating to an estimated 430,000 people with type 2 diabetes).

Disruption caused by Covid is likely to increase the risks associated with developing diabetes for people, as well as make its management harder, says Alice.

'The vast majority of people have so much else going on with their lives in a Covid environment, and diabetes is just one more thing to add to their list, so its management it can feel quite overwhelming.

'Living through lockdowns, access to food has changed. Some people have made really positive changes working at home but more people have gone the other way. There's a lot of comfort eating and people weren't able to do the activities they once did. It's definitely been challenging.”

Outside of diabetes education, Alice also runs self-management lifestyle groups for general health and wellness, sees people one-on-one in a clinic, and educates other health professionals.

Self-management groups have been run via Zoom in recent months, but it's hoped face-to-face sessions can return when fewer Covid restrictions are in place.

'I'm passionate that I can play a part in helping to reduce health inequities, so there's fewer barriers for people to participate. We're going to review and adapt the sessions so they are more culturally appropriate. We already partner with the Pacific Island Community Trust and have held marae-based sessions, and they should be more of a focus in future.”