Very interesting, that could give us a pretty good test case. At first blush, it rings as consistent with this theory. However, it seems the Chinese in the USA are more obese than in China, but not as obese as white or black or Latino Americans (they still have plenty of time to catch up). That would imply:
This theory is wrong: the simplest explanation. At the very least, it doesn’t fully explain what’s going on. Something else is causing obesity here.
Soybean oil does cause obesity, but they have partial adaptation to 0 adaptation physically, rather the consumption of soybean oil there is essentially different in some way culturally, such as combinations or preparation.
Soybean oil does cause obesity, they have some adaptation, but they consume soybean oil more here or the nature of the use here produces oil or effects that are physically different. Thats why they aren’t on the same as other recent immigrants who are quite obese.
Or something else, but that evidence is somewhat hard to rectify with soybean oil completely causing all this. On that macro level, just comparing USA obesity to China obesity, that could explain a lot. When I think about Chinese in the USA, it comes a little undone. There is plenty of precedent in racial differences in reaction to foods, such as dairy and alcohol.
And this is quite interesting too, but doesn’t entirely support our theory, it’s hard to tell what the trend is there. If it’s trending up, you’d have to posit that the oil only modulates obesity in young people, which isn’t the most ridiculous idea ever, however it would be another hurdle.
Overall, Japan seems to somewhat vindicate our idea here, that is really quite striking that obesity and soybean oil decline at the same time in boys, and I think overall obesity looks to have flatlined in adults in that timeframe. Also, they mostly missed the obesity train despite being industrialized relatively early on; due to their adaptation.
Any other thoughts? I definitely feel like I haven’t quite thought this through quite right logically, or I’m missing something. Thanks for the new info.
That study says third-generation Chinese-Americans—presumably the ones eating the most typically American diet—are actually slightly more obese than white Americans! At face value that pretty much torpedoes any genetic adaptation theory (and I have no particular reason not to take it at face value).
Theories 1 and 2 are both quite possible.
Re: Japan, it looks like soybean oil doesn’t dominate vegetable oil intake like in the US; rapeseed is more common and did not decline in the same way, and palm oil is also significant, so their overall trend in vegetable oil consumption isn’t so easy to eyeball. Though I think those numbers are consumption in the economic sense, not in the ‘eating’ sense—not sure how to account for that.
Ah interesting, nice catch there. Wonder what’s going on with 3rd gen Chinese, given that the equivalent all Asian is .86 whites vs their 1.08.
though 2nd and 3rd generations of Asians were also associated with reduced obesity prevalence as compared to other races, the magnitude of the association decreased compared to the 1st generation of Asians.
So in aggregate, it would lend itself a bit to our theory here
Also, you may be interested to know that there is no correlation between consumption and GDP in Asian countries, while Ex-Asia GDP is very highly correlated. I noticed the difference just eyeballing the chart in the OP—at the very least the linkage between GDP and consumption is fundamentally different between Asia and Ex-Asia. When you separate the data you start getting other really interesting stuff too, I’ll definitely be putting that on my substack soon.
Either way, I don’t put an absolutely massive amount of stock in this, but it is certainly plausible, I was reading this article:
So we would be getting closer to a mechanism—there is a genetic difference between African Americans and
(FADS) cluster are determinants of long chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (LC-PUFA) levels in circulation, cells and tissues.
Can’t find a lot of stuff on Asians or Asian Americans.
Re: Japan
Yeah, I haven’t had time to really dig into how intake differs between countries; one of many reasons why I didn’t put much stock in the data I gathered. The best numbers are consumption, but it is really hard to figure out what exactly that entails when it comes down to calories in bodies.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0212740
Very interesting, that could give us a pretty good test case. At first blush, it rings as consistent with this theory. However, it seems the Chinese in the USA are more obese than in China, but not as obese as white or black or Latino Americans (they still have plenty of time to catch up). That would imply:
This theory is wrong: the simplest explanation. At the very least, it doesn’t fully explain what’s going on. Something else is causing obesity here.
Soybean oil does cause obesity, but they have partial adaptation to 0 adaptation physically, rather the consumption of soybean oil there is essentially different in some way culturally, such as combinations or preparation.
Soybean oil does cause obesity, they have some adaptation, but they consume soybean oil more here or the nature of the use here produces oil or effects that are physically different. Thats why they aren’t on the same as other recent immigrants who are quite obese.
Or something else, but that evidence is somewhat hard to rectify with soybean oil completely causing all this. On that macro level, just comparing USA obesity to China obesity, that could explain a lot. When I think about Chinese in the USA, it comes a little undone. There is plenty of precedent in racial differences in reaction to foods, such as dairy and alcohol.
Japan is interesting:
https://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=jp&commodity=soybean-oil&graph=domestic-consumption
Consumption falls between 06 and now, as does obesity in boys
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-10-year-trends-for-overweight-obesity-underweight-percentage-among-boys-across-Japan_fig19_346100724
And this is quite interesting too, but doesn’t entirely support our theory, it’s hard to tell what the trend is there. If it’s trending up, you’d have to posit that the oil only modulates obesity in young people, which isn’t the most ridiculous idea ever, however it would be another hurdle.
https://twitter.com/kevinnbass/status/943719131181920256?s=20
Overall, Japan seems to somewhat vindicate our idea here, that is really quite striking that obesity and soybean oil decline at the same time in boys, and I think overall obesity looks to have flatlined in adults in that timeframe. Also, they mostly missed the obesity train despite being industrialized relatively early on; due to their adaptation.
Any other thoughts? I definitely feel like I haven’t quite thought this through quite right logically, or I’m missing something. Thanks for the new info.
Thanks for pulling all that data!
That study says third-generation Chinese-Americans—presumably the ones eating the most typically American diet—are actually slightly more obese than white Americans! At face value that pretty much torpedoes any genetic adaptation theory (and I have no particular reason not to take it at face value).
Theories 1 and 2 are both quite possible.
Re: Japan, it looks like soybean oil doesn’t dominate vegetable oil intake like in the US; rapeseed is more common and did not decline in the same way, and palm oil is also significant, so their overall trend in vegetable oil consumption isn’t so easy to eyeball. Though I think those numbers are consumption in the economic sense, not in the ‘eating’ sense—not sure how to account for that.
Ah interesting, nice catch there. Wonder what’s going on with 3rd gen Chinese, given that the equivalent all Asian is .86 whites vs their 1.08.
So in aggregate, it would lend itself a bit to our theory here
Also, you may be interested to know that there is no correlation between consumption and GDP in Asian countries, while Ex-Asia GDP is very highly correlated. I noticed the difference just eyeballing the chart in the OP—at the very least the linkage between GDP and consumption is fundamentally different between Asia and Ex-Asia. When you separate the data you start getting other really interesting stuff too, I’ll definitely be putting that on my substack soon.
Either way, I don’t put an absolutely massive amount of stock in this, but it is certainly plausible, I was reading this article:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24977108/
So we would be getting closer to a mechanism—there is a genetic difference between African Americans and
Can’t find a lot of stuff on Asians or Asian Americans.
Re: Japan
Yeah, I haven’t had time to really dig into how intake differs between countries; one of many reasons why I didn’t put much stock in the data I gathered. The best numbers are consumption, but it is really hard to figure out what exactly that entails when it comes down to calories in bodies.