A genetic variation has evolved in populations that have eaten a plant-based diet over hundreds of generations [futurity.org], such as in India, Africa, and parts of East Asia.
A different version of the allele adapted to a marine diet was discovered among the Inuit people in Greenland, who mainly consume seafood.
The adaptation allows these people to efficiently process omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and convert them into compounds essential for early brain development and controlling inflammation.
In Inuit populations of Greenland, a previously identified adaptation is opposite to the one found in the long-standing vegetarian populations: While the vegetarian allele has an insertion of 22 bases (a base is a building block of DNA) within the gene, this insertion was found to be deleted in the seafood allele.
[Paleo diet works if you have Inuit genes]“The opposite allele is likely driving adaptation in Inuit,” says Kaixiong Ye, a postdoctoral researcher working in the lab of Alon Keinan, associate professor of biological statistics and computational biology at Cornell University.