Part one: Some studies on the relationship between Urban living and diabetes in a group of Australian Aborigines

Abstract In an attempt to understand the reasons for the high incidence of diabetes among Australian Aborigines when they urbanise, we measured a number of metabolic parameters in a group of Aborigines from the Kimberley region of northwest Australia three months after they reverted temporarily to their traditional hunter‐gatherer lifestyle, and then again three months after they returned to urban.life. These Aborigines had an abnormally high insulin response to glucose which was reduced, but not to normal levels, by reverting temporarily to their traditional lifestyle. These metabolic changes are consistent with the development of diabetes in the urban setting.