[cholul]

With Native American heritage marching down on my sons (now almost 40 and the fathers of sons themselves) from all directions, I got busy and found out as much as I could about as many health issues as I could... one of which was the old myths about Indians not mixing with alcohol. By the way, did you know we still have a couple of states with laws against selling "firewater" to "Indians"?

What I discovered was that the combative behavior we see, in Native Americans exposed to alcohol - as well as some of the mythical "laziness" of Native Americans, is the result of acute, alcohol and/or carbohydrate induced hypoglycemia and, although the "end of the story" is the same, Native Americans are not "true" alcoholics at all.

I easily educated my sons to leave alcohol and simple carbohydrates alone... but this message has still not gotten out to isolated reservations where poor Native Americans are still having to "eat cheap"... which translates to a diet heavy with simple carbohydrates. If you've got a combative diabetic on your hands - suspect acute hypoglycemia as the initial cause. This doesn't alter treatment, but does explain some of the behaviors of which myths are made.