Type-2 diabetes

Part 3: Western diet is the cause of type-2 diabetes

In the same way that type-1 diabetes is not found in the wild animal kingdom or in primitive man, neither is type-2.

That this form of the disease is a result of environmental and lifestyle factors is demonstrated when people migrate and adopt the eating habits of their new country: Populations who migrate to westernised countries with more sedentary lifestyles have greater risks of type-2 diabetes than their counterparts who remain in their native countries.[1]

But it is not just the change in exercise patterns that causes the greater susceptibility to diabetes; populations undergoing westernisation in the absence of migration: Native Americans[2] and Western Samoans,[3] who remain in their own countries have also experienced increases in both obesity and type-2 diabetes.

References

1. Manson JE, Spelsberg A. Primary prevention of non -insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. Am J Prev Med 1994; 10: 172-184.

2. Gohdes D, et al. Diabetes in American Indians: an overview. Diabetes Care 1993; 16: 239-243.

3. Hodge AM, et al. Dramatic increase in the prevalence of obesity in Western Samoa over the 13 year period 1978-1991. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord 1994; 18: 419-428.