Empty calories

Beastt

I'm not familiar with the higher incidence of diabetes but I find that rather interesting. Do you have any more information on the topic? Without having more information on the subject the best I can offer is a pure shot in the dark but I know that in the case of the Hopi Indians, the extreme increase in the rates of diabetes coincided with the adoption of non-native diets which include rather extreme quantities of fat as compared to their more traditional desert diets. This offers a fairly strong suggestion that after centuries of subsisting on a very low fat diet, the sudden switch to the more familiar Western diet which is loaded with fat simply impacted them far more dramatically than it has cultures which transitioned more slowly and less drastically.

As far as testosterone production goes, I've never heard the assertion that saturated fat plays a significant role. I've also never heard that it doesn't. In short, I've never found any material which suggested a correlation one way or the other but obviously you have. What I can offer is that there is a significant portion of the population in many areas where the consumption of saturated fats are quite low and I know of nothing which suggests that testosterone levels are reduced in those areas. Athletic history also shows a rather significant number of Olympic and professional athletes who adhere to a diet significantly lower in saturated fats than the traditional Western diet and they seem to suffer no ill effects or reduced athletic performance. In fact, what few studies I've seen on the subject all suggest that abstaining from the consumption of a diet rich in animal fats and proteins offers one a slight advantage when it comes to tests of endurance and recovery.

As for the higher lactose intolerance, it's not just among African blacks and Asians. If you look at lactose intolerance on a global perspective, you find that western Caucasians are actually the anomaly because we're not so lactose intolerant while most of the world is. Figures vary slightly from source to source but the numbers here are pretty typical;

African Blacks - 95%
Indians - 90%
Asians - 90%
North American Blacks - 75%
Mexican Americans - 75%
Mediterraneans - 60%
North American Whites - 15%

http://lactoseintolerant.org/02_about.html

That said, even more NA Whites are lactose intolerant than the figures show because the level of intolerance ranges from those who can't drink milk at all without severe gastric discomfort to those who can consume a little once in a while without serious discomfort to those who don't even realize that some of their occasional discomfort and gassiness are due to mild lactose intolerance.

Lactose intolerance is actually quite natural. Before we're weaned, our bodies produce a significant quantity of lactase, (the enzyme necessary to digest lactose). About the time we go through weaning, the amount of lactase produced in our digestive system drops. In many, production effectively stops. Others continue to produce a small amount and some produce enough to continue digesting milk sugars throughout their lives. The interesting thing here arises when you take a look at other mammals and other primates. Almost none of them continue to digest milk well after they're weaned. When we look to how milk affects human health, we find that contrary to ads presented by the Dairy Council, most of the effects on health are decidedly detrimental.

So while it seems you're viewing lactose intolerance as a disorder, the evidence suggests fairly strongly, that it is actually adult lactose tolerance which constitutes the disorder. It should be noted that a percentage of people go their entire adult lives with no real idea that they're suffering a digestive problem and yet the inside of the small intestine bleeds constantly, though in minute quantities, for the duration of their adult life due to the irritation which persists from passing undigested lactase through the digestive system.