Are diabetes, obesity and heart disease mostly hereditary?
Diabetes, obesity and coronary heart disease were far less common in 1910 (per capita), and our genes don’t change in 100 years. As an example, the lifetime risk of diabetes in 1910 was 1 in 30; today it is 1 in 3. What has changed in the U.S. is the quality of our food, especially the type of fat and the type of carbohydrate we are eating.
