Asian Obesity and Diabetes Epidemic

The Asian Paradox is an illusion; Asian populations are on the same metabolic trajectory as the Western world, just a few decades behind. India's obesity prevalence increased more than 500% between 1975 and 2014, from 1.5% to 8%. India and China now carry the highest absolute number of diabetics anywhere in the world. The structural constraints that made rice safe — caloric scarcity and hard labor — have dissolved in one or two generations. Asian populations could eat rice for millennia without mass insulin resistance because they operated under involuntary caloric restriction with high physical activity.