The Danish-Greenlandic Environmental Cooperation
Greenlanders, environmental poisons and being overweight
In East Greenland especially, high levels of POPs have been found among the population. The same study has revealed that the population has, in recent years, gained weight dramatically. The reason is that Greenlanders are adopting the eating habits of the rest of the Western world.
Among polar bears, the ones in East Greenland and Svalbard have the highest levels of PCB in the world. Greenlanders hold the same record for people. Two unfortunate world records.
Polar bears and humans are top links in the food chain. The reason that polar bears in some parts of the world have extremely high concentrations of POPs may be that they live mostly off seal blubber. POPs accumulate especially in fatty tissues. If humans eat seal blubber very often, then concentration levels comparable to those in polar bears could be expected. But if the people living in hunting areas eat polar bear meat fairly regularly, then it could not be worse with respect to consumption of substances that are suspected carcinogens.
"We do not have proof that there are problems among the population of East Greenland that come from high POP concentration levels. But if problems do arise, then Greenlanders will be among the first to be hit," says Henning Sloth Pedersen, medical officer of health at the primary health care clinic in Nuuk. He has just been to Ittoqqortoormiit (Scoresbysund) and Tasiilaq (Ammassalik) as leader of a current study of POP concentration levels among the population. The study is part of the health program under the AMAP and is financed by Dancea.
In 1998, fifteen people were examined in Ittoqqortoormiit (Scoresbysund). This pilot project revealed that the pressure on marine animals and people is about the same. This is to be expected, since humans and polar bears, for example, share the same place in the Arctic food chain.
A high participation level
Based on this study, a proper scientific investigation was to be done to establish whether the warnings from the pilot study held true. It was decided that Tasiilaq (Ammassalik) would be included as well, because the supposition was that there is more pollution on the east coast than the west coast.
Fast food has become a part of the weekly diet of many Greenlanders.
In a study like this, it is crucial that the people examined are chosen randomly, and, not least, that they actually show up. This was not the case in earlier studies done in Disko Bay, where participation was sometimes as low as twenty-five percent.
"The only way to get high participation is to go out yourself and tell people what the study is for. People usually don't mind participating. On the contrary," says Henning Sloth.
In both Ittoqqortoormiit (Scoresbysund) and Tasiilaq (Ammassalik), fifty men and fifty women of childbearing age (18-45 years old) were chosen. Chosen in a statistically correct way by Statistics Greenland.
"Then I went to Scoresbysund," tells Henning Sloth Pedersen, "having gotten the phone numbers I could get, and found out who people were ahead of time. I contacted each one of them on the phone or at work, or visited the rest. We have bad experiences with sending messages by post or messenger. It is as if it is more serious when the doctor comes himself. People know me, because I have been here for many years and speak Greenlandic."
The result was a participation rate of ninety-seven percent! The study consisted of an interview of twenty to thirty minutes on eating habits, tobacco, alcohol and other living habits, work, education, family relations, housing. Factors that reflect lifestyle and living conditions.
"I'm the one who does all the interviews," explains Henning Sloth. "Partly so that the research is done uniformly, and partly to make sure people have understood the questions completely."
Traditional food is on the decline. The people who eat the least Greenlandic food are usually significantly overweight, because they eat lowquality food instead. The change towards eating less traditional Greenlandic food has been surprisingly quick.
Height and weight were also measured, and blood samples were taken. The blood samples were tested for POPs, and for fatty acids that reflect diet. At the same time, the immune system was studied, as well as the balance between different hormones. If men have high concentrations of female hormones, it is as if they were taking contraceptive pills that lowered their fertility. The same is true of women if they get hormones that resemble birth control pills, since several POPs have estrogenlike effects.
Threshold limiting valuesThe results were frightening. To evaluate how bad things really are, the results can be compared with the Canadian threshold limiting values (the Danish authorities have not set independent limits, but use the Canadian ones). The Canadians use the terms "concern limit" and "action limit." Pregnant women are the most sensitive segment of the population.
The investigation confirmed entirely the pilot study of 1998. POP concentrations are very high both in marine mammals and among the population of Ittoqqortoormiit (Scoresbysund).
SmokingA study from Uummannaq covers some other aspects. The study was done in the summer of 1999 and included fortyeight men from the ages of thirty to fifty in two villages. They were all full-time or parttime hunters, and all healthy, that is, they all had the same level of physical activity, meaning they probably ate the same amount of food.
To everyone's great surprise, there were quite a few who had never smoked, fourteen in all. Earlier studies have found very few non-smokers and people who have never smoked.
The Uummannaq study is unique, because it is the first study of two groups that were the same, except for smoking. It should be noted, though, that it dealt with a select few, and was a small sample, and for these reasons the data should be interpreted cautiously.
It is probably well known that you gain weight when you stop smoking. Conversly, nicotine is used in diet pills. That is why the results were skewed by the fact that those who had never smoked weighed, on the average, 10 kg more than the smokers. They have the same constitution. They have the same level of activity, but they weigh 10 kg more, a difference that is, assumedly, made up of fat. That is where the dilution problem comes in, because POPs accumulate in fat. If you have 10 kg more fat, then your POP concentration will be correspondingly lower. The same phenomenon is seen in seals, where the POP concentration level in a summer seal can be fifteen times higher than in a winter seal. That means that if someone has a high POP concentration level, it may be because he or she has eaten lean summer seals.
Girl chewing the fat off the inside of the skin of a little auk.
In a study in Canada, people lost weight in controlled circumstances, and their POP concentration levels rose at the same time. Another undiscovered source of error. Despite this, it still seems that tobacco has an independent effect.
Another variation is when a mother breast-feeds her child. The child receives a high concentration of POPs, while the mother's POP concentration level falls. The same is true of mother animals and their young.
It seems that especially polar bears, which live off seal blubber, have extremely high concentrations. According to hunting statistics, polar bear meat is a pretty big part of the yearly meat consumption in Ittoqqortoormiit (Scoresbysund). There are some indications that the highest concentrations in people in Ittoqqortoormiit (Scoresbysund) are due to polar bear meat.
Eating Greenlandic food
"But one thing that really surprised me in Scoresbysund was how little Greenlandic food people ate," says Henning Sloth Pedersen. "And that has happened in the last five years. About sixty percent of the population has Greenlandic food as a main meal less than once a week. The ones that eat the least Greenlandic food are significantly overweight, because the things they eat instead of Greenlandic food are of bad quality. We can see that on the diet questionnaires. The same is true of the hunters in Uummannaq, where more than fifty percent of those who had never smoked were overweight, despite a high activity level.
Ammassalik is different
Compared to Scoresbysund, people have a healthier lifestyle in Tasiilaq (Ammassalik).
"Seventy percent of the population is not overweight." Henning Sloth points this out as the most important. "They eat Greenlandic food at least once a month. Smoke less than the national average. The last twenty-five percent, who were unemployed, were more difficult to get in touch with. They ate very little Greenlandic food, were overweight, and smoked."
There is a striking difference between these two populations on the east coast.
So when people stop hunting and stop all the activity connected to hunting, they eat less Greenlandic food.
