That study says third-generation Chinese-Americans—presumably the ones eating the most typically American diet—are actually slightly more obese than white Americans! At face value that pretty much torpedoes any genetic adaptation theory (and I have no particular reason not to take it at face value).
Theories 1 and 2 are both quite possible.
Re: Japan, it looks like soybean oil doesn’t dominate vegetable oil intake like in the US; rapeseed is more common and did not decline in the same way, and palm oil is also significant, so their overall trend in vegetable oil consumption isn’t so easy to eyeball. Though I think those numbers are consumption in the economic sense, not in the ‘eating’ sense—not sure how to account for that.
Ah interesting, nice catch there. Wonder what’s going on with 3rd gen Chinese, given that the equivalent all Asian is .86 whites vs their 1.08.
though 2nd and 3rd generations of Asians were also associated with reduced obesity prevalence as compared to other races, the magnitude of the association decreased compared to the 1st generation of Asians.
So in aggregate, it would lend itself a bit to our theory here
Also, you may be interested to know that there is no correlation between consumption and GDP in Asian countries, while Ex-Asia GDP is very highly correlated. I noticed the difference just eyeballing the chart in the OP—at the very least the linkage between GDP and consumption is fundamentally different between Asia and Ex-Asia. When you separate the data you start getting other really interesting stuff too, I’ll definitely be putting that on my substack soon.
Either way, I don’t put an absolutely massive amount of stock in this, but it is certainly plausible, I was reading this article:
So we would be getting closer to a mechanism—there is a genetic difference between African Americans and
(FADS) cluster are determinants of long chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (LC-PUFA) levels in circulation, cells and tissues.
Can’t find a lot of stuff on Asians or Asian Americans.
Re: Japan
Yeah, I haven’t had time to really dig into how intake differs between countries; one of many reasons why I didn’t put much stock in the data I gathered. The best numbers are consumption, but it is really hard to figure out what exactly that entails when it comes down to calories in bodies.
Thanks for pulling all that data!
That study says third-generation Chinese-Americans—presumably the ones eating the most typically American diet—are actually slightly more obese than white Americans! At face value that pretty much torpedoes any genetic adaptation theory (and I have no particular reason not to take it at face value).
Theories 1 and 2 are both quite possible.
Re: Japan, it looks like soybean oil doesn’t dominate vegetable oil intake like in the US; rapeseed is more common and did not decline in the same way, and palm oil is also significant, so their overall trend in vegetable oil consumption isn’t so easy to eyeball. Though I think those numbers are consumption in the economic sense, not in the ‘eating’ sense—not sure how to account for that.
Ah interesting, nice catch there. Wonder what’s going on with 3rd gen Chinese, given that the equivalent all Asian is .86 whites vs their 1.08.
So in aggregate, it would lend itself a bit to our theory here
Also, you may be interested to know that there is no correlation between consumption and GDP in Asian countries, while Ex-Asia GDP is very highly correlated. I noticed the difference just eyeballing the chart in the OP—at the very least the linkage between GDP and consumption is fundamentally different between Asia and Ex-Asia. When you separate the data you start getting other really interesting stuff too, I’ll definitely be putting that on my substack soon.
Either way, I don’t put an absolutely massive amount of stock in this, but it is certainly plausible, I was reading this article:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24977108/
So we would be getting closer to a mechanism—there is a genetic difference between African Americans and
Can’t find a lot of stuff on Asians or Asian Americans.
Re: Japan
Yeah, I haven’t had time to really dig into how intake differs between countries; one of many reasons why I didn’t put much stock in the data I gathered. The best numbers are consumption, but it is really hard to figure out what exactly that entails when it comes down to calories in bodies.