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The Center for American Progress reports:
African Americans, a group plagued by significantly high rates of obesity, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and other physical ailments. A recent study suggests the answer may lie in the diets of their counterparts across the Atlantic Ocean in the rural parts of the Motherland.
In a study conducted at the University of Pittsburgh, 20 African Americans and 20 South Africans switched diets for two weeks. In this time, the Africans consumed traditional American food--meat and cheese high in fat content--while African Americans took on a traditional African diet--high in fiber and low in fat, with plenty of vegetables, beans, and cornmeal, with little meat.
After the exchange, researchers performed colonoscopies on both groups and found that those in the African diet group increased the production of butyrate, a fatty acid proven to protect against colon cancer. Members of the American diet group, on the other hand, developed changes in their gut that scientists say precede the development of cancerous cells.
[...]"we used biomarkers and looked at the proliferation rate that has been tied to cancer," Dr. Stephen J. O'Keefe, the lead researcher, told ThinkProgress. "We were astounded by the gravity and the magnitude of the changes [which] happened within two weeks."
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday May 18 2015, @06:20PM
I find it to be a stretch to say that people evolved with different dietary needs.
I meant the word evolved as "changed over time", not forming a new species. There are certain races and subgroups of people who are far more prone to certain diseases (think sickle cell anemia or Tay-Sachs disease for instance) and a lot of that is due to local conditions. Carrying the sickle cell trait is a great advantage in the malaria belt. The same is true of diets. Lactose intolerance, for example, affects 90-100% of East Asians, while affecting less than 20% of Northern Europeans. Evolution into new species is generally slow, but natural selection works very quickly on populations. Those that tolerate a local diet tend to survive and reproduce better than those that do not.