Health researchers warn that soaring diabetes rates could drive New Zealand's Maori people to extinction before 2100, according to reports published Tuesday.
Professor Chris Cunningham of Massey University told a Wellington newspaper that diabetes has reached epidemic levels among the roughly 500,000-strong Maori population. He said Maori and Pacific Islander communities in New Zealand are biologically less adapted to Western diets and lifestyles, making them far more vulnerable to the disease than people of European descent.
Type-2 diabetes, typically triggered by obesity, accounts for an estimated 20 percent of all Maori deaths, compared with just 4 percent among the broader New Zealand population.
Australian diabetes expert Professor Paul Zimmet warned at a Melbourne forum on indigenous health that rising rates of the disease worldwide risk wiping out entire indigenous cultures. He said one in four indigenous adults is currently affected, with potential consequences for national economies and health systems globally.
Zimmet noted that Aboriginal Australians and indigenous peoples in the United States and Canada face comparable risks to those confronting Maori and Pacific Island communities.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in November 2006, in its own words.