Love to eat high-carbohydrate diets, including pasta, breads, cookies, and sugar-sweetened beverages, but worried about their health effects? People naturally endowed with an alteration in their DNA could likely be at a distinct advantage over those who do not.

Researchers, from the Harvard University in the US, have identified a gene mutation -- SGLT-1, or sodium glucose co-transporter-1 -- that likely lowers the risk of diabetes, obesity, heart failure, and even death, in people who consume such high-carbohydrate diets.