Diabetes in aboriginal populations

Contrary to John Anderson's claims,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