Native Americans ate crap before the Europeans came along. They were nomadic hunters and gatherers and they ate whatever they happened to get their hands on. And these glassy-eyed liberal researchers have a nagging tendency to mistake a starvation diet for a healthy diet.
Starving people generally have low rates of diabetes.
That Native Americans have high rates of diabetes and obesity is a cultural thing as most of them are culturally similar to ignorant white people who also have high rates of obesity and diabetes.
To quote Ron White: “You can’t fix stupid.”
Your statement about the people in this study being nomadic simply doesn’t apply here.
He is talking about the “Pueblo” dwellers, and other tribes in/near the Grand Canyon. These folks lived in permanent settlements for hundreds of years, and grew crops, i.e. CORN, along with gathering & hunting.
Yep, they may have been thin with no diabetes but died before they were forty due to malnutrition.
Liberals’ dream. Just think of the SS savings!
What that meant in practical terms is that they ate a lot of seeds, wild herbs, wild fruits, rabbits, squirrels and deer.
These foods are not very calorie-dense and have very little saturated fat and sugars, but lots of lean protein and fiber.
Europeans spent centuries raising cattle and cultivating plants to be pleasant and flavorful - which means that they are high in fat or high in sugar and very calorie-dense.
I would also point out that there is a link between inefficiency in metabolizing alcohol (fermented sugars) and inefficiency in metabolizing sugars.
In Native Americans this would point to another factor for diabetes-proneness.
“Native Americans ate crap before the Europeans came along. They were nomadic hunters and gatherers and they ate whatever they happened to get their hands on.”
Actually, the Plains Indians were, by far, the tallest and healthiest people in the world during the 1800s.
They had a plentiful diet of protein and the nomadic nature kept parasites and disease down.
http://www.albionmonitor.com/0105b/plainsindians.html
And there are other health benefits, too. When an organism is under stress it will produce chemicals to protect itself. Those chemicals have the potential for extending life, if the organism doesn't die or is not severely injured.