Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Polar populations in AJHB

The American Journal of Human Biology's newest issue looks like a special issue on circumpolar populations (although this is never explicitly mentioned anywhere on the website). This journal consistently has research that I find immensely interesting, and this issue is no exception. Unfortunately, I don't get full-text access (shame on my university), which makes it a bit harder (although not impossible) to read... life is tough.
As someone who is interested in human biodiversity, adaptation to cold environments is something that I consider to be very important. This issue has papers reviewing health risks among Inuit, including one by T.K. Young that discusses the need for "ethnospecific obesity criteria" as the Inuit fit most of the criteria for obesity but "the "dose-response" curves for the impact of obesity on metabolic indicators such as plasma lipids and blood pressure are lower than in other populations." There's also a paper by M. Crawford on the genetic structure of circumpolar populations, and a paper on "Human cold exposure, adaptation, and performance in high latitude environments" by Tiina Makinen.
Right on, AJHB!!

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