I'm sure this is a simplistic view, but it is logical to me that their heart disease and cholesterol levels would rise as they consume more unhealthy foods. McDonalds wants to expand there and hire many workers, and if you look at Chinese Americans you will see a decent amount of health issues related to changes from the healthier diets their families grew up with to a more Western one. Interesting the focus is on finding the exact genes instead of preventing the unhealthy habits.

I realize there is a genetic component, but I would say what you eat does affect whether certain genes become active, too. They are what they eat just as we are.

Bwahahahaha.... This is hilarious, if it wasn't so sadly obvious.

It's really quite simple. Where are the most Chinese people transitioning to the fat, simple carbs, and meat laden Western style diet, instead of the vegetable and soy heavy traditional Chinese diet? Oh, wait, that would be the affluent south. Which has newly high rates of heart disease and high cholesterol due to magic 'genes' that seem to have suddenly switched on.

Oh wait. But... You can get multimillion dollar patents for green vegetables and tofu, so of course they try and sell you drugs to 'cure the gene problem' when the only patents needed is how patently obvious the real solution is.

The problem is obviously a result of their increasingly westernized food culture (fast food, meat, etc.). If they'd just go back to a traditional diet they'd go back to being the healthiest people in the world.

Let me guess, the drug companies are funding the studies to find the "magic gene" that is suddenly raising the cholesterol of the Chinese while they rapidly find a drug to cure the rogue gene?

Here's some simple advice: Put down the cheeseburgers and pick up the chop sticks again. What a world.

What a waste of time, money, and lives that could be saved if instead of searching for some mystery gene, the affected Chinese were encouraged to return to their more traditional, virtually cholesterol free diets.

Simple solution: Put down the cheeseburgers and pick back up the chopsticks.

I have the answer, send me the money you would spend on research. Answer is-they have adapted the western diet instead of the plant based, whole grain, no dairy and little meat diet of their ancestors.

DUH!

Really??!! They're not even gonna consider that it might be the food, the westernized diet, that more and more Chinese are consuming??!!

It's all about the money the drug companies can make. Sadly, Americans lead the way in corruption and greed in this area--and in our gluttonous consumption of cholesterol-forming foods.

Look at the big picture everyone - this is the start of the insurance industries way of denying benefitsto a long list of "pre-existing genetic disorders" - cancers, obesity, eating disorders, epilepsy, arterial diseases, ect.......! {:-(}

"find genes like the rogue caucasian genes that cause high cholesterol in the west" or words to that effect. What a joke. The only thing gone rogue is the fast food industry and government policies batting one and two, with doctors and the medical industry batting third with big pharma batting clean-up in a game where we are the ball. Now I am sure that the good researchers at these pharma companies really just want to cure disease and ease suffering. But the business types focus research where the most money is to be made, and that is in the chronic diseases of affluence. So what say we all get rid of the meat, dairy and eggs that are the real causes and cure these diseases ourselves. Then the researchers can move on to looking for cures to the maladies that we don't bring on ourselves and where their talents will best serve humanity.