Survival of the sickest ch:2 A spoonful of sugar helps the temperature go down

This chapter takes a look at an all to common disorder - Diabetes.  The idea for why this gene may have been advantageous at some point came from two interesting places.  Grapes and a Wood Frog.  First with grapes.  They explored the fact that in preparation for the first frost grapes do two things.  #1 they release a lot of their water #2 they increase the amount of sugar.  This is why ice wine is so sweet but so expensive.  Not as much can be produced since they released a lot of their water.  This made researches look at another disorder.... with similar "symptoms"... one in which you loose a lot of water (through urine) and have an increase in blood sugar........... You bet - Diabetes!!  What it came down to was that having extra sugar in their blood, diabetics were more likely to survive the last ice age.  Having sugar added to water decreased the freezing temperature.  So this likely allowed some people's blood to handle the severe cold that occurred in this time.  That is why it is THOUGHT (there is still a lot of debate on this apparently) that there is a high prevalence of people of norther European descent that carry this gene.