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CMAJ
CMAJ - April 4, 2000JAMC - le 4 avril 2000

Diabetes in aboriginal populations

CMAJ 2000;162:969

Contrary to John Anderson's claims, [letter]1 diabetes in aboriginal populations has nothing to do with socioeconomic factors, nor can alleged genetic characteristics explain the high prevalence of diabetes in these populations, as the case of American and Mexican Pima Indians patently demonstrates. Pima Indians living in the United States are ravaged by diabetes, whereas those who live in Mexico, despite their lower socioeconomic status, are free of diabetes.2 Therefore, the prevalence of this disease in American Pima Indians can only be ascribed to the fact that they consume Western foods not in their traditional diet, which are unavailable to their Mexican counterparts. These "genetically unknown"3 foods are rich in fat and contain sucrose in solid form or in concentrations exceeding the physiologic limit imposed by evolution.4

A group of Australian Aborigines virtually recovered from diabetes in 5 weeks by returning to their traditional diet.5 Similarly, a group of obese Hawaiians lost an average of 7.8 kg each in 3 weeks by consuming their traditional foods to satiety, without changing their sedentary lifestyle.6

Rather than continuing to look for putative genetic mutations responsible for diabetes epidemics in aboriginal populations after their contact with Westerners, it might be more rewarding to look for genetic mutations that confer relative resistance to diabetes in Westerners, despite their consumption of some diabetogenic foods that humankind is genetically unequipped to handle.7

Riccardo Baschetti
Family physician
Padua, Italy

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References

  1. Anderson JF. Diabetes in Aboriginal populations [letter]. CMAJ 2000;162(1):11.
  2. Fox CS, Esparza J, Nicolson M, Bennett PH, Schulz LO, Valencia ME, et al. Is a low leptin concentration, a low resting metabolic rate, or both the expression of the "thrifty genotype"? Results from Mexican Pima Indians. Am J Clin Nutr 1998;68:1053-7. [MEDLINE]
  3. Baschetti R. Genetically unknown foods or thrifty genes? [letter]. Am J Clin Nutr 1999;70:420-1. [MEDLINE]
  4. Baschetti R. Sucrose metabolism [letter]. NZ Med J 1997;110:43.
  5. O'Dea K. Marked improvement in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism in diabetic Australian Aborigines after temporary reversion to traditional lifestyle. Diabetes 1984;33:596-603. [MEDLINE]
  6. Shintani TT, Hughes CK, Beckham S, O'Connor HK. Obesity and cardiovascular risk intervention through the ad libitum feeding of traditional Hawaiian diet. Am J Clin Nutr 1991;53:1647S-51S.
  7. Baschetti R. Diabetes epidemic in newly westernized populations: Is it due to thrifty genes or to genetically unknown foods? J R Soc Med 1998;91:622-5. [MEDLINE]

© 2000 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors