What is it about?
Chinese immigrants experience an increase in risk for diseases like diabetes after immigrating to the US. Many people think this is because they 'acculturate,' or change towards an American lifestyle, since this leads to changes in diet and to weight gain. But it is hard to study this because it is hard to track these changes over time.
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Why is it important?
We tracked these over time in a sample of 305 Chinese immigrant women. We found that insulin resistance, a marker for diabetes risk, increased with acculturation. But this was only true for women with less education. Also, it was not because of changes in diet or weight gain.
Perspectives
Some unique features of this study are: (1) We were able to follow this cohort of Chinese immigrant women over time, and to look at changes in disease risk markers over time (2) Adiposity or body fat is emphasized as the major risk factor for diseases like diabetes. While it was linked to insulin resistance in this study, it couldn't explain the increase in insulin resistance with acculturation. What this means is that acculturation might increase insulin resistance through another biological pathway. We have conducted other studies that link psychosocial stress to disease risk markers, and this is another pathway worth exploring.
Dr Marilyn Tseng
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Acculturation and Insulin Resistance Among US Chinese Immigrant Women, Ethnicity & Disease, November 2015, ISHIB (Ethnicity & Disease),
DOI: 10.18865/ed.25.4.443.
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