Do you know the Pima Indians? The Hurons have left us their hairstyle, the Apaches their bravery and the Mohicans their last … The Pimas will go down in history with their astonishing ability to develop the disease of the 21st century, diabetes. When we know that today in the United States, expenditure related to diabetes represents 1/8 of total health expenditure in this country, we understand why, when we learn that the Pimas Indians developed diabetes once in two. , American doctors have decided to place them under close surveillance.
It was all the easier since the Pima are, like most Indian tribes, or at least what remains of them, placed in a reserve. And not just any. Imagine the desert; That of Bagdad Café. Scorching heat, thin bushes and stones as far as the eye can see, up to the red mountains, which are the domain of the Apaches. The Pima Indians were, since the dawn of time, the farmers of the plain. In several thousand years, they had succeeded in digging more than 600 kilometers of pipes which, starting from the mountain, allowed them to irrigate their desert lands sufficiently to harvest all types of cereals, fruits and vegetables, water and sun could offer. Being Pima a century ago was the guarantee of being able to eat your fill, provided you worked hard and could get through the great periods of drought during which even the water in the mountains was dry. So from generation to generation, the Pima who survived was the one who had both the courage to work in the desert, but also what is called a savings gene. A gene that controls fat storage during times of scarcity.
At the start of the 20th century, everything changed …
The white man who colonized America needs water for his big cities in the south. So he diverts the sources of the mountain. The Pima is found without water. So without food and without work. However, the white man is watching. He “parks” the Pima and supplies it with the excess of fats, flour and sugars from the First World War … The Indian therefore only has to binge, while waiting for the hypothetical return of water. This is where his savings gene, which has allowed him to survive for centuries, turns against him.
Almost 1 in 2 Pimas are diabetic: a world record!
He becomes obese, then diabetic in frightening proportions: on average 40% against 5% for the population of the other states. Inactivity and weight gain, in one generation, Pima illustrates what is emerging at the beginning of the century, diabetes, a dreadful disease. As the Pima are formidable, they also bring us the proof of this medical discourse: more than one hundred years ago, the Pima people were separated by the border between the United States and Mexico. The Mexican Pima, who has not moved for a century, knows neither obesity nor diabetes …
Bad news however for “the white man”: exploiting one of the advantages given to the Indians more than a century ago, there is now a casino in the reserve. Who says games, says income; and the possibility of studying. The first generation of Pimas lawyers has just left the faculty …
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