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Cardiovascular diseases of a nomadic tribe in Africa increased when they moved to the city

2020-10-21T19:15:51.318Z


People in the Turkic village of northeastern Kenya have been at increased risk of hypertension, diabetes and obesity since leaving the countryside and adopting carbohydrate-rich western diets


The cardiovascular problems of the Turkic people, nomadic herders native to northwestern Kenya, have increased significantly since some of their members left the fields and moved to the cities.

The findings of a new study published this Wednesday in the journal

Science Advances

suggest that the risk of diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and obesity is higher when ancient herders arrive in urban centers and adopt carbohydrate-rich Western diets.

The work led by Amanda Lea, Dino Martins and Julien Ayroles, researchers from Princeton University, concludes that "spending more time in urban areas leads to more severe impacts on the health of these individuals."

Ayroles says the project started when he was visiting his friend, Dino Martins, who at the time was the director of the Lake Turkana Basin Institute.

"We were doing a long walk in the desert when three women appeared out of nowhere with buckets of water on their heads," says Ayroles.

"It's a common scene in that part of the world, but given how isolated we were from civilization it seemed extreme."

Martins explained to Ayroles that these women were from the Turkana community and that they often had to walk five to ten kilometers to get water.

"What they carried in the buckets should last at least a week," says Ayroles, and acknowledges that only on that morning walk he and his friend had already drunk more than four liters of water.

"The temperature was 40 degrees under a scorching sun. The idea that humans could survive with so little water in such a hot desert sounded incredible," recalls the scientist. And concludes: "We decided to investigate. Our initial goal was to study the adaptation to life in the desert in this population, but the more we learned about the recent history of the Turkana, the more we were interested in migration and the effect of lifestyle on their health ”.

Ayroles says that northern Kenya remained isolated from the rest of the world until 1970, when military blockades prevented the free movement of people through that region.

“It took years to build roads in that area;

they only arrived when they found oil ”, explains the scientist.

However, according to Ayroles, the massive lifestyle change was caused by the East African famine of the early 1980s. “Most of the herds of animals that the Turkic people depended on died and communities had to turn to food aid.

Years later, tens of thousands of Turkanos had to abandon their semi-nomadic lifestyle, migrated to cities, became sedentary, and that's where the problem began.

According to the researchers, the inhabitants who have lived in cities since then have higher rates of blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose in the blood compared to those who stayed in the countryside.

"We provide direct evidence that transitions from traditional to urban lifestyles negatively impact cardio-metabolic health in a single genetic group, that of those who migrated to the city."

Consuelo Prado, professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the Autonomous University of Madrid, affirms that these cardiovascular problems are not the fault of migration itself, but of the lifestyle and access to a certain diet.

"The key is that food is no longer worked, as before when they were nomads, but is bought in stores or supermarkets.

One of the reasons for illnesses is that they have to pay for food and buy the cheapest, and the cheapest is junk food, junk food full of fat and carbohydrates;

healthy and balanced food is more expensive and many times poor Kenyan communities cannot afford it, "insists Prado.

The scientists interviewed and collected data on biomarkers, biological substances used to detect diseases, from 1,226 Turkana adults, divided into 44 localities and three large groups: nomadic herders living in the community's homelands, those who do not practice herding, but living in the same rural and remote areas, and those who migrated to the city.

Analyzing these data with a statistical model, the researchers found that the health differences between urban and rural dwellers were mainly due to the fact that city Turkana consumed more high-calorie processed foods and fewer products. animals.

A traditional Turkana diet is made up of approximately 80% animal by-products.

Mainly milk, blood and meat derived from his herd.

When they transition to an urban setting and abandon this traditional lifestyle, the majority of their diet switches to carbohydrates such as soda, bread, rice, and cooking oil.

The anthropologist Prado explains that Eskimos in the northern parts of Alaska suffer a similar situation when they go to study at universities in the central United States.

“They are very fattening.

The energy expenditure you need to maintain 36 degrees of the body at the North Pole is not the same as that you need in a heated classroom, "says Prado.

The scientist exposes another paradigmatic case: “The fattest of the fattest are in some islands of Polynesia that now belong to the United States, like Hawaii.

Before its inhabitants had a life of fishermen and a diet based on fruits and fish, very healthy.

Suddenly they became

gringos

and they have become very fat.

80% of the Polynesian population is overweight and obese, ”explains Prado.

And he concludes: "Those metabolic imbalances, similar to those of the nomadic tribes of Kenya, are what trigger cardiovascular problems."

Ayroles and Prado agree that the so-called diseases of civilization (hypertension, diabetes, obesity and others) have become the main cause of death in humans.

In 2016, these diseases were the leading cause of death in Spain, above cancer and respiratory damage.

According to Ayroles, in addition, cardiovascular diseases will paralyze health care systems and will have a huge economic impact in the future.

The World Health Organization revealed in a recent report that 12% of all global health spending is dedicated to the treatment and health complications of type 2 diabetes alone. "This is why these studies show that there is much to learn about the indigenous populations such as the Turkana to understand fundamental aspects of human biology ”, says Ayroles.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-10-21

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