One Mans Stand Against Junk Food as Diabetes Climbs Across India
India is “sitting on a volcano” of diabetes. A father’s effort to ban
junk food sales in and near schools aims to change what children eat.
*An Increased Risk
Researchers around the world began noticing that Indian immigrants were more prone to diabetes in the 1970s.
“But nobody knew why,” said Dr. Viswanathan Mohan, a physician and researcher who owns several dozen diabetes centers in India.
Scientists searched for genes that predisposed Indians to diabetes, but didn’t find them. Instead, a growing body of research suggests that Indians’ body type — one that is smaller but with more abdominal fat — may be responsible.
Being born to a malnourished woman — a common phenomenon in India — may also increase the odds of developing diabetes. Clues to this pattern emerged from other parts of the world. Researchers studied the health of babies born during the Dutch famine in 1944-45. They found that the babies had a higher likelihood of impaired glucose tolerance as adults, which led to higher rates of diabetes.
Dr. Chittaranjan Yajnik, a diabetes specialist, and Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, are among the researchers exploring a theory that Indians evolved what Dr. Yajnik has called “a thin-fat” body type over millenniums as a way to survive famines when monsoons failed.'>>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/26/health/india-diabetes-junk-food.html?
