I think I heard indigenous people being verballed this morning. Professor Martin Silink said on Fran Kelly's RN Breakfast program http://www.abc.net.au/rn/breakfast/stories/2006/1786920.htm that one reason for the high incidence of diabetes in indigenous populations was genetics.

For a second I thought he must have been referring just to Australian Aborigines, but he proceeded to rope in Micronesians, Polynesians and Native Americans. I'd like to know what genetic trait he thinks that these peoples all have in common that makes them susceptible to diabetes and which isn't shared with the rest of us. Each group has a quite distinct genetic heritage. This seems to be a classic case of confusing colour and race.

It also seemed more than a little patronising when he and Fran went on about re-establishing traditional diets, as though all of these peoples are habitat bound, but the rest of mankind isn't. Just because your parents ate it doesn't mean it's the best for you. I don't eat my Anglo culture's stodgy, fatty traditional fare, and I'm much better for it.

I would have thought that the reason these populations have high rates of diabetes is because of woeful diets caused by a combination of low socio-economic status, cost of food in remote communities, poor education levels and habit, all of which are treatable in some way or another. It almost sounds like a more sophisticated version of "they just can't hold their drink...".

Racialising the cause of a health problem is unlikely to lead to workable solutions.

Good question GY, my understanding is that it’s about susceptibility to diabetes rather that am inherent genetic flaw that all Indigenous people have. The same susceptibility can and does exist in all so called races. In my own community the prevalence of diabetes in some families is higher than others and yet genetically we could well share the same genetic areas in our genetic makeup.

However, you are correct to say that he should not have thrown all indigneous people together in one basket. The illusion of race plays out again.

Quote " Epidemiological evidence implicates genetic factors in the susceptibility of indigenous Australians to type 2 diabetes and supports the hypothesis of the "thrifty genotype," but, to date, the nature of the genetic predisposition is unknown."
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/338626&erFrom=7974175220678068414Guest

This simply means they only suspect it to be genetic in the absence of better science.

I'll chase down the transcript from that program and get back to yo

Thanks Rainier. Thought you'd be interested. My Mum's got Type 2, and her family was indigenous to Cornwall - not sure what that says! ;-)

I think what was actually meant was that when a different race (other than whites) takes on a whiteman's diet, their DNA can't cope. Whiteman's diet is high in processed food and refined (ruined) sugars,flours and salts, not to speak about sodium nitrites bathing of most meats.It's killing whites and it is killing other races a bit quicker.This might be a too simple an explanation, but most things about food ,diet and exercise are simple. The races closest to "hunters and gatherers" soon got perverted by missionaries to take on their so different lifestyle. In fact I believe that the whiteman's DNA is being threatened by so many chemicals in our foodchain all in the name of progress?

Just my dose of vit C

5 THINGS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT RACE (USA context, but relevant here as well) http://www.pbs.org/race/001_WhatIsRace/001_00-home.htm

Our eyes tell us that people look different. No one has trouble distinguishing a Czech from a Chinese. But what do those differences mean? Are they biological? Has race always been with us? How does race affect people today?

There's less - and more - to race than meets the eye:

1. Race is a modern idea. Ancient societies, like the Greeks, did not divide people according to physical distinctions, but according to religion, status, class, even language. The English language didn't even have the word 'race' until it turns up in 1508 in a poem by William Dunbar referring to a line of kings.

2. Race has no genetic basis. Not one characteristic, trait or even gene distinguishes all the members of one so-called race from all the members of another so-called race.

3. Human subspecies don't exist. Unlike many animals, modern humans simply haven't been around long enough or isolated enough to evolve into separate subspecies or races. Despite surface appearances, we are one of the most similar of all species.

4. Skin color really is only skin deep. Most traits are inherited independently from one another. The genes influencing skin color have nothing to do with the genes influencing hair form, eye shape, blood type, musical talent, athletic ability or forms of intelligence. Knowing someone's skin color doesn't necessarily tell you anything else about him or her.

5. Most variation is within, not between, "races." Of the small amount of total human variation, 85% exists within any local population, be they Italians, Kurds, Koreans or Cherokees. About 94% can be found within any continent. That means two random Koreans may be as genetically different as a Korean and an Italian

Can of worms of a thread, GrahamY, and I take Rainer’s point about race being an artificial construct when thinking about groups of people. “Racial” differentiation in humans is mostly trivial (and mostly superficial), biologically speaking.

But the reality is that there is a fair range of genetic susceptibility to disease, and “race” is one of the identifiers we use in targeting sub-populations at increased risk of a whole variety of diseases. Age is another, as is gender. Some diseases are entirely genetic, while in others genetic susceptibility plays no role at all. For many others, and type 2 diabetes is one, genetic susceptibility plays a partial role. Though it’s often difficult to separate this from other elements such as social deprivation and other “lifestyle” factors, it is sometimes reasonable to target groups of people on “racial” grounds in preventive health initiatives, screening programs, and in the design of treatment programs. Race is certainly a dodgy concept for making judgments about intelligence, social abilities and human potential, but it provides a useful shorthand for broad patterns of genetic susceptibility to a variety of medical conditions.

An obvious example of a genetic susceptibility to disease that has a “racial” basis is skin cancer in Australia. Light skinned Australians (whose genetic forebears selected themselves in regions of lower levels of sunlight) are genetically at far greater risk of skin cancers than dark skinned Australians.

One area where genetic susceptibility is very prominent is in the area of infectious diseases. People whose ancestors lived in the great Eurasian landmass have inherited a degree of immunity to many common human infections that people in isolated areas (like Australia or some Pacific Islands) had never been exposed to. The reason for this is that individuals without that inherited immunity in Eurasia got knocked off over years and generations by the diseases that circulated with relentlessly cruel regularity through that landmass. When Eurasians (the genetic survivors of countless Eurasian epidemics) brought diseases like measles, smallpox and influenza to places like Australia that had not previously experienced these epidemics the results were devastating to the local people.

Snout, that might all be correct, but diabetes 2 is not a disease that has been around for centuries in plague proportions, and can't be caught in the way that, for example, flu or small-poc can. Sugar over-abundance is a new phenomenon and I can't see a reason to think that European people might have built up a tolerance to it that is somehow lacking in peoples from as diverse an area as Australia to North and South America.

On Rainier's point about race. I also believe that race is mostly a social construct, but not exclusively. There are particular populations that are sufficiently isolated for them to be unique in some ways. However, in The Ancestor's Tale Dawkins makes a case for race on the basis that, while it's not biologically entirely sensible, it is something that we do all recognise, and it does tell us valuable information about someone. He uses the example of a 100 metre sprint final and points out that all the finalists are likely to be black. I don't think though that he is necessarily using race in the way that it is commonly used because the knowledge that it hides great diversity underlies his concept.

As I understand it, the problem of type 2 diabetes among indigenous peoples has a complex etiology that involves a combination of dietary, genetic and lifestyle factors. Prior to colonisation, indigenous peoples led typically semi-nomadic, pastoral or horticultural lifestyles that involved a high level of physical exertion. This, coupled with the fact that their subsistence strategies resulted in a relatively low-calorie, low-carbohydrate diet means that these populations have adapted over many thousands of years to these conditions. These adaptations are 'genetic' in the sense that natural selection acts over such time frames to confer an adaptive advantage on alleles that allow some individuals to survive and reproduce more readily than others.

Since the major waves of European colonisation of Indigenous lands has taken place only in the past 2 or 3 centuries, there has been insufficient time for Indigenous peoples to adapt to their radically altered circumstances - i.e. a sedentary lifestyle, combined with the replacement of traditional diets with high-carb high-fat foods, not to mention the introduction of alcohol.

Of course, the Anglo-European population is experiencing a relative increase in prevalence and incidence of type 2 diabetes as well, but this is not as severe since this population has been adapting to sedentism and carbohydrates since the 'neolithic revolution' occurred in Europe over 5 millennia ago.

Put simply, Indigenous bodies are adapted to hunter-gatherer lifeways, while Colonising bodies are slightly better adapted to sedentism. Undoubtedly, the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in our Indigenous population would decrease if they were to follow the kind of diet that GrahamY does - as indeed it would in the dominant culture if we all did tthe same.

It’s worth pointing out that diabetes is not genetic in the sense of there being a gene “for” diabetes. Rather there is likely to be a cluster of genes which together code for a more or less “thrifty” metabolism and which favour slightly different ways of processing carbohydrate foods. Diabetes might be a consequence of a “thrifty” genetic pattern encountering a non-thrifty environment. In other environments such a pattern might be a definite survival plus.

GrahamY’s question is firstly, whether such a genetic pattern exists (and there may be more than one), and secondly whether that pattern is unevenly prevalent in different human groups. I think the answer to the first is unequivocally yes (which means, Graham, you need to take more care than the average person given you have a first degree relative with type 2 DM). The second, on available evidence is almost certainly true, too: the increased prevalence of DM amongst indigenous Australians probably can’t be accounted for on lifestyle or access to medical treatment alone. CJ above provides a plausible theory of why natural selection might favour genes for a thrifty metabolism in people whose recent ancestors were hunter gatherers, more than in those whose recent forbears were sedentary farmers.

The solution to type 2 diabetes, of course, is not to wait for natural selection to sift out the genes that are mismatched for the environmental demands, which is what has started to happen in long term sedentary populations, if CJ is right. It’s to change the environmental demands (lifestyle and health care) to suit the genes. Humans are unique in the animal kingdom in having this capacity

Spot on, Snout. Succinct.

Indeed, that's what I meant to say (as well) :D

Well, I'd like to throw something else in here and that is that Indigenous people are now in at least 10 generation of removal and dispossession from the hunter and gatherer lifestyles both CJ and Snout speak of.

Many of our kids don't know about hunting and gathering, don't know what this lifestyle entails 24/7. At least not in a ‘natural environment’. They still learn and know hunting and gathering methodologies. (commonly called ‘survival’ in this post colonial nightmare)

My own 15 year is transfixed on the X box as I speak. He's a fit lad, good footy player, knows how to fish and hunt, (cos I taught him) but he lives in a material and cultural world very different to his grandfather. But he will still be susceptible to diabetes (its prevalent in my family)

So how can you use this 'from the bush to domesticity' hypothesis?

Are you suggesting genes are inherently connected and informed only by environmental conditions?

The danger here is that you can unknowingly agree with the same genetic racist theories that you are arguing against (via the back door).

Or have I got this all wrong?

Rainer, you asked:

“Are you suggesting genes are inherently connected and informed only by environmental conditions?”

In a nutshell, the answer is yes: that’s what Darwinian evolution teaches us. Each of us is the genetic product of countless generations of environmentally driven natural selection. But the important thing is that our genes are not so much shaped by the current environment, but by the environments of countless ancestors. As Dawkins points out, every living thing that exists today, from the tiniest microbe to each of us humans is only alive today because every single one of our ancestors in an unbroken line going back to the origins of life managed to reproduce and pass its genes down to us. The vast majority of living things that have ever existed haven’t managed to pass their genes to the present day. They went extinct as individual genetic packages (and often as whole species) before they could do this. I take some comfort in my own childless state that at least I’m with the majority of life forms that have ever existed!

I'd just add, though, that the environment that drives natural selection includes human culture, human activity and human decisions.

The point is that the history of our ancestors is written in the genes we inherit today. That history is one of survival and thriving in a variety of environments. That history tells us who, genetically at least, we are. It also provides pointers to how we should live for optimum health.

Cont.

Of course this doesn’t mean taking away your son’s X box and dumping him into a pre 1788 hunter gatherer way of living. Neither possible nor desirable. You could get even more absurd and ask exactly which one of his thousands of great-great-great-etc grandparents he should emulate. But in broad terms a family history of type 2 diabetes indicates a mismatch between the genes and recent lifestyle. I’d be encouraging your son to choose a diet something like what his ancestors thrived on (in terms of quantity and types of foods), and to maintain his physical activity well into middle age and beyond as his ancestors did. This is, of course, sound advice for just about any human, but is particularly important for anyone whose family history highlights a mismatch between genes and lifestyle. And with the growing availability of cheap, low quality food rich in fat and processed carbohydrate there are more and more of us encountering that mismatch.

Family history is an important if somewhat indirect predictor of the kinds of health problems one is likely to encounter, and of the kinds of preventive action we should focus on. One day we’ll all be able to read our own individual genetic codes and be able to do this much more precisely. The question is whether “race” is a useful “superfamily” concept for the targeting of this kind of health promotion. I take your point about the dangers of this, particularly given the ways the concept of race have been historically abused, including in this country.

But at the same time I reckon that understanding our genetic heritage, including the relatively small ways we differ as individuals, is hugely important. Not as a way of demonstrating “superiority or inferiority” – that’s not only ethical but also scientific garbage – but because it can teach us a lot about who we are and how we can make the best choices to live as well as we can. That is, create the kind of material and cultural world that suits us, and the genetic heritage we carry.

Rainier, you seem to have misunderstood my post.

"So how can you use this 'from the bush to domesticity' hypothesis?"

It's quite simple, really - diet and exercise are the keys to avoiding Type 2 diabetes, particularly in individuals who have inherited (i.e. genetic) susceptibility. Nobody's suggesting that Indigenous people need to revert to hunting and gathering, any more than people of non-Indigenous descent should.

However, a balanced diet consisting of whole foods with minimal fatty, sugary, starchy and processed ingredients would assist people predisposed towards Type 2 diabetes, as would regular amounts of exercise. Of course, such a diet and exercise regime would be good for just about everybody.

My 'hypothesis' explains why there is a higher prevalence of Type 2 diabetes among Indigenous peoples than in non-Indigenous populations. I'd be genuinely interested if anyone can offer a better one.

Thanks CJ and Snout,

My research suggests that the wrong kind of food does not cause diabetes. However, it may cause obesity and this is associated with people developing Type 2 diabetes which concurs with what you have pointed out – “such a diet and exercise regime would be good for just about everybody”.

Amazingly you would be surprised how many practicing anthropologists in this country know jack about this or the real facts behind race theory. No wonder Yorta Yorta didn't get up!

Thanks to you both for discussing this, I hope some of the luddites who infest this website browse through this thread and learn something.

GY, I’m having problems tracking down the transcript for that ABC radio national broadcast. I’ll keep trying.

You're welcome, Rainier.

"Amazingly you would be surprised how many practicing anthropologists in this country know jack about this or the real facts behind race theory."

Actually, I wouldn't ;)

Snout, I think you've got the wrong handle on evolution. According to Darwin it's caused by adaptation to circumstances. For your theory about diabetes to be correct using standard Darwinian theory those europeans who were less prone to type 2 diabetes would have had to have out-competed those who were more prone to it, so that as a percentage of the population they declined. Which presupposes an obesity epidemic with premature mortality at some earlier stage in Western Culture. As this didn't happen, I don't think the evolutionary theory stands up.

I suspect that most populations of human beings are equally prone to diabetes 2 if they get to be over-weight, eat too much starchy food and don't exercise. Some will be more prone, because of inherited traits, but this won't essentially be racially based.

I think that there is another mistake being made about aboriginal diet here too. The gathering part of the equation provided most of the calories, and a lot of the plants would have been high in starch, just like potatoes and rice are.

Graham, you’re assuming there that the selecting event is type 2 diabetes, which is not necessarily the case.

What I suspect is that there is a slight genetic variability in the ways individuals process carbohydrate. It is likely that at the time hunter gatherer ancestors settled into farming there was a shift in diet so that people relied more on grains to make up their staple diet. Those whose metabolism was best adapted to this new proportioning of food groups would have had a slight advantage over others in this new environment. Proneness to type 2 diabetes might be a modern manifestation of the two (or more) genotypes, but the selection pressure would have been applied by differing ability to thrive on the new diet, not proneness to diabetes.

I suspect, though, that even in Neolithic times actual diabetes may have been a significant factor in differential reproductive success, even without epidemics of obesity knocking people off before they could have kids: pregnancy alone is a very common precipitant of transient diabetes even in women who aren’t obese, and untreated, results in significant perinatal and maternal mortality. The transient diabetes of pregnancy is a pretty accurate predictor of later type 2 DM.

Traditional aboriginal diets may well have had a fair amount of carbohydrate, but almost certainly proportionally less of the more refined types (sugars especially) than either modern diets or even those of Neolithic farmers.

Graham

It's not just diabetes which is rife amongst indigenous populations. Kidney disease is also very prevalent as well as high blood pressure and heart disease.

The Northern Territory has or did have the highest reported rate of kidney disease in the world with 80% of patients, indigenous. And the decade up to 1996 saw 42% of the Tiwi clan on the Bathurst and Melville Islands succumb to kidney failure.

Experts state that the high incidences of modern diseases in the indigenous population is a result of poor living conditions, economic disadvantages and poor diet.

And I suspect that those who succumb to any of these modern diseases, thereby weakening the immune system, can predispose their offspring to the same fate, particularly if they continue the risk-taking customs of their forefathers.

Apparently skin infections are also very prevalent in remote communities which can cascade to kidney-weakening diseases.

My experience is that "you are what you eat" and when I witness what some of my tribe gorge themselves on daily, I am not surprised when some also succumb to "modern diseases" such as diabetes, blood pressure, high cholestrol, heart disease etc.

We humans can easily become addicted to processed junk foods and I believe this trait has quickly developed amongst indigenous communities and needs to be urgently addressed!

Hi all, this information provides some clues.

http://genome.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTD020843.html

Fascinating link, Rainer, thanks.

Much of it goes over my head, but what seems pretty clear is that tracking down the genetic patterns that predispose to type 2 diabetes involves looking at multiple sites along the genome: there is no single site of variation that accounts for all the differences in susceptibility.

I think the authors put it very well at the end of part 5:

"However, identifying diabetes susceptibility alleles is just one of the challenges for the years to come. We need to understanding how diabetes risk is influenced by the complex interaction of these alleles with each other and with the environmental exposures encountered during life: in the womb, in childhood, and as adults. And we need to establish how best to translate this understanding into concrete health benefits for humans."

Yes Snout, fascinating indeed. I'm no scientist so the technical jargon leaves me behind too. It proves conclusively that we are all one so called race with different “software and virus susceptibility” - as against old science 'racisms' that purported different sub species of humans with hard wired genetic traits. Cheers!

There is one thing I know about Aboriginals with diabetes , that is that John Howard's Government won't spend enough money on helping the people tackle their massive health problems.They are so much sicker yet so little is spent relative to their problems, it is a disgrace and shames ALL Australians .
As for Aboriginal children and teenagers [the parents and grandparents of today ] being conditioned to a dangerously deficient diet in adult life ,I can say that the regulation fatty corned beef ,white flour bread or damper with jam; and tea so sweet and black, "You could bog a bull in it " that I served up, and saw doled out in the 1960's by cattle station cooks and headstockmen across northern Australia in 4 gallon billy-cans and wash tubs, was undoubtly helping set the scene for a health disaster of huge proportions today.
They were cheap to feed and "look after" and enabled the money to role in .
We must now correct the wrongs and injustices of the past , no matter how much money it takes .

Hi Jim,

Yes we can induldge Bono here calling for aid for Africa (not that they don't need it) but totally ignore the lost lives of Indigneous people and especially children.

Howard is hell bent on carryout the legacy of the right wing from years past in that he's waiting for us all to die out.

He's an astoundingly evil man and by the time people realize this it will be too late.