Obesity and diabetes are a downside of human evolution, research suggests
Friday, February 25, 2011 - 02:30
in Biology & Nature
As if the recent prediction that half of Americans will have diabetes or pre-diabetes by the year 2020 isn't alarming, a new genetic discovery provides a disturbing explanation as to why: we took an evolutionary "wrong turn." In the report, scientists show that human evolution leading to the loss of function in a gene called "CMAH" may make humans more prone to obesity and diabetes than other mammals.