The article states:
A chronic condition, type 2 diabetes occurs when the body makes too little of the insulin it needs to metabolize glucose, its fuel source, or is unable to use the insulin properly. Obesity is a leading risk factor. Dr. Zinman says it was reasonable to search for the role that genes may have played....And former chief Harry Meekis, who helped to negotiate the research agreement, said at the time, “We didn't want to be known as the people with the third-highest rate of diabetes – we wanted to be the community that did something about it.”...International press coverage of the finding at Sandy Lake helped to cement the thrifty-gene theory in the public consciousness – and spark a backlash from academics such as Prof. Poudrier. She was completing her PhD at Queen's University when she read of the discovery, and it drew her deep into the underpinnings of the famous Neel theory.
Now it seems the search may be in vain and the basic law of nature as articulated above may apply even to the tribal people. The article continues:
...evidence to support the theory was bountiful after Dr. Neel proposed it – a mouse with a mutated gene that led to obesity and diabetes, research surveys showing famines could kill off more than a quarter of a population and, most compelling, the sudden spike of obesity and diabetes in aboriginal communities where none had existed before...Aberdeen's Prof. Speakman feels it's easy to understand why the hypothesis has been so highly regarded. “Because it's a great idea: ‘In times of famine, it's the lean ones who are gonna die.' It's a simple idea; it all makes sense.”...Except that it's wrong, he adds. There is no proof that fatter people survive famines better than thinner ones. In fact, says Prof. Speakman, a specialist in how animals use energy, throughout evolution, “most populations would never see a famine. There's one every 100 years or so, but in those times, people only lived 25 or 30 years.”
The theory of the thrifty gene seems to be totally disproved. In fact the article clearly states:
Jeffrey Friedman, the renowned Rockefeller University scientist who discovered the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin, has been hunting the thrifty gene since the mid-1990s on the Pacific island of Kosrae. Sixty years ago, its people were lean, living off the land and sea, but after the U.S. started shipping them soft drinks, Spam and processed foods, three-quarters of Kosrae's residents have become overweight, if not obese.
Namely if one sits around all winter with a more than adequate supply of calorie rich food, carbohydrates or fats, one ends up getting fat and then one gets Type 2 Diabetes. It is always better for those politically correct to say it is a disease or there is some evil exogenous factor when in reality it is lack of will power, it is an individual's responsibility and not that of society.
Hopefully this tale will trickle down. It applies to American Natives, to the Canadian Natives, to Irish, Germans, and Chinese and Indians. Eat too much, you get fat, then your insulin supply is stressed and then Type 2 Diabetes, and finally all that follows. So just shut your mouth for a while perhaps.
However the trend still exists in the press to find excuses or create victims for Type 2 Diabetes. Namely it is not the patients problem because they eat too much but it must be some gene or some evolutionary mechanism. The article in Science Centric is a typical example. They headline and continue with:
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