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)