Why are South Asians susceptible to central obesity?
Jonathan CK Wells Institute of Child Health, 30 Guilford Street, London, WC1N 1EH. E-mail: J.Wells{at}ich.ucl.ac.uk’ + u + ‘@’ + d + ”//–> Accepted 29 November 2006 At the beginning of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, we learn of the rebellious animals seven commandments, of which the last is the admirable statement that all animals are equal .1 By the end of the book, this commandment has been altered to read all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others .1 So it is with body mass index (BMI). In general, increasing BMI is associated with increasing body fat content, but for any given BMI value South Asians tend to have substantially greater body fat, in particular abdominal fat, than Europeans.2 This enhanced abdominal adiposity is believed to play a key role in the greater susceptibility of South Asians to the metabolic syndrome.3 What can explain this population difference? In this issue, Sniderman and colleagues propose an explanation drawing on evolutionary biol
