[Correspondence] The evolutionary basis for type 2 diabetes prevalence in the Arabian Peninsula

Across the Arabian Peninsula, home to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, societies have transformed within a century from nomadic and agrarian life to globalised, oil-driven economies. With shifts in diet, physical activity, and daily living came a surge in metabolic disease, especially type 2 diabetes, in which the prevalence now exceeds 20–25% in countries such as Kuwait and Qatar.1 Lifestyle alone cannot explain this vulnerability. A deeper perspective is emerging, one grounded in evolutionary biology: that ancestral adaptations to survive scarcity might now predispose these populations to metabolic disease in an era of abundance.