This project supports an anthropologist conducting research in southwestern Brazil on the social, ethnic, and dietary factors affecting the incidence of high blood pressure in a sample of adults. 150 households will be surveyed and biological tests assessing cardiovascular and metabolic responses to stress conducted. The hypothesis to be tested assumes that individuals encountering high stress, due to their social and ethnic incongruity in their life styles in a rapidly changing social environment, will have high blood pressure, and high total cholesterol and triglycerides. This research is important since rapid socio-cultural changes take place in all "traditional" societies in the contemporary world. Understanding how human populations respond biologically to the social stress that rapid change induces will help us understand the course of human social and biological evolution.
