The Advantageous Gene while We Were Just Hunters-Gatherers Now Threatens Indigenous Populations

International experts have signaled that indigenous peoples all over the world could face extinction this century unless an obesity-driven diabetes epidemic was stopped.

"We are dealing with the biggest epidemic in world history," said Professor Paul Zimmet, the director of Monash University's International Diabetes Institute.

"Without urgent action there certainly is a real risk of a major wipe-out of indigenous communities, if not total extinction, within this century," he told.

This epidemic affects the original inhabitants of Northern and Southeast Asia, Australia, the Pacific, and North and South America.

The indigenous people are particularly prone to Type 2 diabetes, primarily caused by obesity, provoked by their rapid transition during the 20th century to Western alimentation and lifestyle.

Inside the population of hunter-gatherers, the winning gene was the one which allowed an increased fat storing in times of plenty for survival of famines.

This biological pattern was documented in many indigenous communities.

But modern lifestyle brought continuous concentrated income of food energy and less physical effort.

This upset the metabolism of the people carrying this gene configuration.

"The rapid cultural transition over one to two generations of many indigenous communities to a Western diet and sedentary lifestyle has led to diabetes replacing infectious diseases as the number one threat to their survival," said Canadian diabetes expert Professor Stewart Harris.

Type 2 diabetes syndromes are now being found in indigenous children at very low ages.

"Among Torres Strait Islanders, children as young as six have been diagnosed with diabetes, Cairns Base Hospital director Ashim Sinha told, and teenagers were found to have high blood pressure and high cholesterol."

"These children are prone to develop heart attacks, stroke, renal failure and blindness but at a much younger age," he said.

Half of the adult population in some indigenous communities is threatened by this condition: 50 % of adults on the Pacific Island of Nauru Island (Pacific), up to 45 % of Sioux and Pima Indians in the US, and up to 30 % of Torres Strait Islanders in northern Australia.

And the Pacific islands were a territory free of diabetes before the World War II.

This quick largely environmental based change to indigenous health could be reversed with appropriate knowledge.

But obesity has reached pandemic proportions not just in indigenous communities and this is the greatest factor favoring chronic disease.

According to The World Health Organization, there are now more obese people than hungry ones: a billion compared to 800 millions.