Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
If we want to see worldwide trends in public health, look to the South Pacific archipelago of Samoa and American Samoa.
About 75 percent of the U.S. territory's adult population is obese, the highest rate in the world. Rates of type 2 diabetes top 20 percent and a recent study found that the elevated obesity rates are now even present in newborns.
This obesity epidemic began there a few decades ago. Brown University epidemiologist Stephen McGarvey has investigated the obvious question: How did all this happen?
On a panel yesterday at the AAAS meeting in Chicago, McGarvey said that three main factors likely make to Samoa's obesity crisis: genetics and epigenetics, culture and economics, and geography. He and collaborators have conducted several studies of genetics on the island to search for unique biological susceptibilities to obesity in the Samoan population. Looking deep into the migrations and history of Polynesian peoples, it's conceivable that life might have been stressful enough or food may have been scarce enough to uniquely influence genes related to managing and storing energy.
http://www.science20.com/news_articles/samoans_were_obese_it_was_fashionable_why-129824
About 75 percent of the U.S. territory's adult population is obese, the highest rate in the world. Rates of type 2 diabetes top 20 percent and a recent study found that the elevated obesity rates are now even present in newborns.
This obesity epidemic began there a few decades ago. Brown University epidemiologist Stephen McGarvey has investigated the obvious question: How did all this happen?
On a panel yesterday at the AAAS meeting in Chicago, McGarvey said that three main factors likely make to Samoa's obesity crisis: genetics and epigenetics, culture and economics, and geography. He and collaborators have conducted several studies of genetics on the island to search for unique biological susceptibilities to obesity in the Samoan population. Looking deep into the migrations and history of Polynesian peoples, it's conceivable that life might have been stressful enough or food may have been scarce enough to uniquely influence genes related to managing and storing energy.
http://www.science20.com/news_articles/samoans_were_obese_it_was_fashionable_why-129824