“Thrifty gene” identified in Manitoba Indians

A study conducted in a reservation in northern Ontario has identified a genetic mutation that seems to have allowed the Indians there to survive famines in the past but to have triggered diabetes when food became plentiful and their lives became sedentary.

The study appears in the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (1999;84:1077-82).

Dr Robert Hegele, coauthor of the study …