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.