The myth of Aboriginal genetic deficit is becoming reality through malnutrition and a plague of Syndrome X that is becoming hereditary through intergenerational poverty.
Most westerners would be shocked if they stepped out into their communities one day and saw amputees everywhere on crutches due to advanced and untreated diabetes. Most would never dream of seeing such a sight in a developed nation. But sadly, this is the reality for many Indigenous communities in wealthy nations such as America and Australia.
There is a plague called "Syndrome X" that ensures that half of our males won't live to see middle age. It has to do with fewer nephrons in the kidneys, nephrons being the agents that process sugars. For years this nephron deficit was used as proof that Aboriginal people were biologically different, and therefore a different "race" with serious genetic flaws.
Syndrome X is said to be a problem in cultures that have traditionally had a protein-based diet for thousands of years, and then have been forced suddenly to switch to a diet dominated by sugar and refined carbohydrates. However, most scientists now disagree with the myth of "weaker genes", and the notion that Aboriginal people are somehow biologically different from everybody else in the world. Arguably, the difference lies in inequitable access to nutrition and health in colonial society, rather than some kind of genetic flaw.
It has only been recently that anybody has bothered to do comparative studies of Syndrome X across diverse ethnic groups. Up until that point, it suited the interests of the dominant culture to believe in the myth of Aboriginal genetic inferiority. Arguably, this view still does suit colonial interests, which could explain why the results of the recent comparative studies of Syndrome X have been universally ignored in the press and remain unheard of in the general public.
These studies show that Syndrome X appears across all cultures on the planet, with one factor in common - poverty. Children born underweight due to poor nutrition are born with fewer nephrons, and never catch up. But this study is too late. Nobody has quoted it or disseminated the information, and effectively the truth has been silenced. The public now has an entrenched belief that Indigenous racial difference and inferiority are "scientific fact".
This perpetuates Aboriginal disadvantage in the wider community, which in turn exacerbates poverty and malnutrition, resulting in an entire generation afflicted with Syndrome X. The syndrome is now becoming a hard-wired genetic flaw in many Indigenous people, as a result of intergenerational poverty. Thus the myth has been made reality.
The picture for this article is ochangan, a traditional remedy for diabetes.
