Posted by Randal on August 18, 2002, at 16:24:56
In reply to Re: Genes PLUS environment: Environment?? « jay, posted by Dr. Bob on August 18, 2002, at 8:50:34
Jay,
Just to clarify my previous post, in case it wasn't clear.
Type I diabetes (formerly called child onset diabetes) is not caused by diet and is an autoimmune disease in which the body destroys cells of the pancreas. Type I is not called child onset anymore because recently some adolescents have developed Type II diabetes.
If poverty disrupts children's blood sugar levels predisposing them to diabetes, this would have to be type II diabetes. What we normally think of as children with diabetes is in fact type I.
Randal
> [Posted by jay on August 18, 2002, at 4:13:44]
>
> >
> > Hi:
> >
> > I understand your frustration with the Nature/Nurture concept...and you certainly aren't the first to be so.
> >
> > The interplay between 'environment' and genetics is still far too complicated for us to have lengthy, absolute answers on. In the book 'The Noonday Demon', the writer Andrew Solomon(sp?) gives a good example. He was talking to a psychiatrist whose wife was an endocrinologist. The P.Doc's wife treats many kids for diabetes in which many of them come from poor and lower-class families. Of course, those kids live with the stresses that poverty can bring to a family, which can also shoot the kid's blood-sugar levels way out of whack...hence the susceptibility to diabetes. (This is a paraphrase from the book.) I have also been reading a fair bit lately about child diabetes and psychological state. It's very far from being some exact 'theory'..but it gives us something more to think about.
> >
> > OK..hang with me here. Levels of ADD and Depression also seem to be greatly impacting wealthy, as well as 'stable family' (and the two are *not* exactly co-related) children. Many don't have to face going a day without a meal, or feel the stress between parents having an argument over how to spend the last 15 dollars they have that week. (Again..please understand...I know "wealthy" parents argue..and many are dys-functional..etc.) I am sorta using a bit of a wide stroke here, but can you see where both Nature and Nurture can predominate?
> >
> > I hope that makes sense...
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Jay
poster:Randal
thread:28868
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020813/msgs/28883.html