Posted on 07/25/2012 9:13:27 AM PDT by Renfield
The ancient Native Americans of the desert Southwest subsisted on a fiber-filled diet of prickly pear, yucca and flour ground from plant seeds, finds a new analysis of fossilized feces that may explain why modern Native Americans are so susceptible to Type II diabetes.
Thousands of years of incredibly fibrous foods, 20 to 30 times more fibrous than today's typical diet, with low impact on the blood sugar likely left this group vulnerable to the illness when richer Anglo foods made their way to North America, said study researcher Karl Reinhard, a professor of forensic sciences at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
"When we look at Native American dietary change within the 20th century, the more ancient traditions disappeared." Reinhard told LiveScience. "They were introduced to a whole new spectrum of foods like fry-bread, which has got a super-high glycemic index."...
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Ping.
My great grandfather’s nickname around town was Old Poop but I don’t think he was diabetic.
That or a degree in stool-pushing.
I think this study is full of crap.
If you can’t be a doctor be a dentist or chiropractor. If you can’t be a gynecologist be a proctologist. If can’t do that be a pooper snooper. ;-)
Dude finds a fossilized turd and is ready to generalize about the whole “native-american” diet? Does he understand that there were hundreds of tribes and dozens of nations located all over the continent and the chances that they were all eating “incredibly fibrous diets” are rather slim? Has he considered the possibility that this brave had just eaten a tasteless, horrible meal that the wife of the big chief had gotten her hubby to force everyone to eat, and that the next day he went back to his mastodon steaks and bronto burgers?
Any mention of the effects of alcoholism on the rate of diabetes of Native Americans?
I think we need to get Bloomberg to do some hands on poop checking for sugary sodas, transfats and smokeless powder in ancient feces....some of which are bigger than Bloomberg which will require him to get a stepladder to reach the top of the turd.
And that’s why they lived to age 30!!!!!
Potatoes were from South America.
Tomatoes were also a New World food.
Sugar cane came from SE Asia.
And weren't the Spanish, not the Anglos, the ones that introduced new foods to the SW United States?
"Anglo" foods? like steak and kidney pie, toad in the hole, bangers and mash, or salmagundi soup? I didn't know that the Indians of the Southwest got into that sort of cuisine.
He didn't say EVERYBODY!
BTW, the desert Southwest used to have a very thin, miniscule population due to the absence of enough water to support a large population. It wasn't like it is in modern times.
All good points, but I suggest you direct them toward the author....I’m just the middleman.
So, corn arrived and that spelled their doom. Suddenly they had a high carb diet!
Indians developed corn and spread the plant and the culture that went with it just all over the place ~
[ Any mention of the effects of alcoholism on the rate of diabetes of Native Americans? ]
Actually their suceptability to alcoholism could very well be caused by their increased rate of diabeetus.
This is due to the area of the intesting that absorbs alcohol, which is the same area responsible for absorbing sugar.
Fascinatingly the people who have had gastric bypass who are alcohol drinkers had their preference to drink alcohol cut AFTER the bypass surgery.
I would say there is a distinct corelation, not sure of the exact mechanism though. But a gastric bypass for the natives would also seem to stem the levels of alcohol intake as well should those studies hold up.
[ Anthropologists differentiate between “North America” and “Meso America” ~ rather similar to the way they differentiate between Asia and Europe.
So, corn arrived and that spelled their doom. Suddenly they had a high carb diet!
Indians developed corn and spread the plant and the culture that went with it just all over the place ~ ]
Depends on which indians and where, also the Europeans brought farming practices that increased the plentifulness of high carb foods as well.
Europeans were ultimately absorbed into the CORN CULTURE.
Regarding Europe, the potato arrived and there was their doom!
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