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Just to add to the confusion, I don't think that adding refined foods to the mix would have changed anything. The one thing that I think is the over riding factor here is the active lifestyle. Back when the Indians were eating their own food, they had to grow it, harvest it, grind it, and prepare it. Plus they had to hunt, fish, etc. All this activity would have burned up any excess carbs they would have eaten, so diabetes would have been rare.
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This is one of the assumptions behind the lifestyle causes diabetes hypothesis. It runs something like this. Our highly sedentary western lifestyles, create an obesogenic environment, and thus making us prone to developing diabetes. Throw in refined foods and our access to lots of calories, it's just
common sense that this will cause us problems.
Now prepare to have your myths well and truly busted.
International Journal of Obesity - Abstract of article: Physical activity energy expenditure has not declined since the 1980s and matches energy expenditures of wild mammals
It's only an abstract, I can't afford to subscribe, but the clue is in the title.
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Physical activity energy expenditure has not declined since the 1980s and matches energy expenditures of wild mammals
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They use a process called the Doubly Labelled Water method to calculate energy expenditure. I understand that the method has been validated, but don't ask me how it works.
they conclude that
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Physical activity expenditure in Europe [....] has slightly but significantly increased since the 1980s.
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So we're more active than 20 years ago
And my favourite
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[Daily Energy Expenditure] of individuals in Europe and North America was not significantly different from individuals measured in the third world.
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So much for the all that hard work in the fields protects you from diabetes theory.
They also concluded that the daily energy expenditure of modern humans was in line with wild animals.
They finish by concluding that the current level of energy expenditure by western peoples can not explain the rise in obesity.
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It is funny how we all assume that everyone was really physical in the past.
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Wise words indeed from Volleyball.
