Palatnik Marcos, da Silva Júnior Wilson Araújo, Estalote Angela Cristina, de Oliveira José Egidio Paulo, Milech Adolpho, Zago Marco Antonio
Departamento de Clínica Medica, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Hum Biol. 2002 Aug;74(4):533-44.
To what extent can ethnic factors contribute to the prevalence of type 2 diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) in an urban Brazilian population? Conversely, how can environmental factors such as diet change these prevalences in a given ethnic group, in this case Brazilian Indians? To answer these questions estimates of ethnic admixture in Afro- and Euro-Brazilians from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, were established using eight genetic systems and compared with the prevalences of these conditions obtained previously. This information was integrated with results obtained inside and outside of Brazil. The similarity of prevalences for type 2 diabetes and IGT in Afro- and Euro-Brazilians may be related to the extensive gene flow that occurred between them and to similar socioeconomic levels in the samples investigated. On the other hand, changes in the traditional diet are probably conditioning the appearance of diabetes among Brazilian and other South American Indians.
