{Bolivia teams up with traditional healers to help diabetics who are cautious of modern medicine.}<\/p>\n
La Paz, Bolivia – Diabetes is fast becoming a national crisis in Bolivia.<\/p>\n
Nearly 500,000 Bolivians, some 4.5 percent of the population, suffer from the disease and a change of diet is being blamed.<\/p>\n
With many diabetics also rejecting modern medicine, the government has teamed up with traditional healers to tackle the growing health crisis.<\/p>\n
“For me, it’s important to incorporate ancestral teaching … [patients] can heal with plants and herbs,” said German Mamani, a specialist in traditional medicine.<\/p>\n
Up until the 1980s, traditional medicine was outlawed in Bolivia. Now, the government encourages traditional healers to work alongside modern medicine to reach those with diabetes, especially in indigenous communities.<\/p>\n
Merging both traditional healing practices and modern medicine is helping to educate Bolivians on prevention.<\/p>\n
“Bolivia is a predominantly indigenous society and is increasingly using its ancient medicines to tackle a very modern problem,” said Mario Vargas, a Kallawaya, or traditional healer, who practises an ancient form of medicine learned from his ancestors and adapts it to the modern world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Bolivia teams up with traditional healers to help diabetics who are cautious of modern medicine.} La Paz, Bolivia – Diabetes is fast becoming a national crisis in Bolivia. Nearly 500,000 Bolivians, some 4.5 percent of the population, suffer from the disease and a change of diet is being blamed. With many diabetics also rejecting modern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-31447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31447"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31447"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}