Dr. Malcolm Kendrick offers a brief history of Type 2 diabetes, from references to the disease by ancient Roman physicians, through a well-known 17th-century discourse, and into the 20th century, when a shift in eating habits corresponded to a sudden rise in diabetes incidence. Kendrick observes that the shift occurred as the diet-heart hypothesis, the belief that consuming saturated fat raises cholesterol levels and promotes heart disease, became more widely accepted. As the dietary guidelines changed, people began consuming less fat and more carbohydrates — to devastating effect.