On Tue, 22 Feb 2000, Gawen Harrison wrote:
> Does anyone know what's the average life span of the Inuits (when you factor
> out accidents, disease and child birth problems)?
> I am asking about the Inuits when they eat their traditional diet.
I have posted this before, but I suppose it is relevant to this
question. It was originally posted on the lowcarb list.
Todd Moody
[log in to unmask]
Studies of primitive Eskimos in the late 1800's
and early 1900's revealed no evident cancer and
heart disease among them. These robust and happy
people, living in their natural state existed
almost entirely on animal protein and fat, and so
impressed were some of the observers, they adopted
all-meat diets themselves.
What these people overlooked was that the Eskimos
vigorous health was enjoyed only by the young, and
that by middle age when their vital organs began
to break down, eht Eskimo aged rapidly, and
suffered severe osteoporosis. At the same time,
the Eskimos had a very low resistance to
infectious diseases whenever exposed to them. Dr
Samuel Hutton,one of the observers (1902-1913) in
his book 'Health Conditions and Disease Incidence
Among the Eskimos of Labrador', confirmed the fact
that cancer and other diseases of civilisation
were not evident among the Eskimos but had this to
say about their life expectancy:
"Old age sets in at fifty and it's signs are
strongly marked at sixty. In the years beyond
sixty, the Eskimo is aged and feeble.
Comparatively few live beyond sixty and only a
very few reach seventy. Those who live to such an
age have spent a life of great activity, feeling
on Eskimo foods and engaging in characterisically
Eskimo pursuits...Careful records have been left
by the missionaries for more than a hundred years.
Perhaps the most striking of the peculiarities of
the Eskimo constitution is the tendency to
haemorrhage*. Young and old alike are subject to
nose bleeding and these sometimes continue for as
much as three days and reduce the patient to a
condition of collapse".
*The reason for this haemorrhaging is the large
quantities of EPA in the fats of the Eskimo diet
as described in Chapter 10. EPA and the improved
circulation it affords, accounts also to a great
extent, for the Eskimos freedom from cancer and
heart attack.
Horne also goes on to talk about their consumption
of most of their food raw, including large amounts
of fat uncooked, and thereby to a great degree
were protected from hypercholeserolemia as
explained in the discussion on raw food.
(p145-46 Horne, Ross The Health Revolution 1985)
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