Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

"Eskimo Diet" Lacks Support For Better Cardiovascular Health

Posted by timothy on from the quit-your-blubbering-and-eat-this-wheat-germ dept.

jones_supa (887896) writes Monthly Prescribing Reference reports that the "Eskimo diet" hypothesis, suggested as a factor in the alleged low incidence of coronary artery disease (CAD) in Greenland Eskimos, seems not to be supported in the literature, according to a metastudy published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology (abstract). Researchers found that only one study directly assessed the prevalence of CAD or CAD risk factors, and that study showed that CAD morbidity was similar among Inuit and American and European populations. In most studies, the prevalence of CAD was similar for Greenland Eskimos and Canadian and Alaskan Inuit and for non-Eskimo populations. The original studies from the 1970s that formed the basis of the supposed cardioprotective effect of the Eskimo diet did not examine the prevalence of CAD. "The totality of reviewed evidence leads us to the conclusion that Eskimos have a similar prevalence of CAD as non-Eskimo populations," the authors write. "To date, more than 5,000 papers have been published studying the alleged beneficial properties of omega-3 fatty acids not to mention the billion dollar industry producing and selling fish oil capsules based on a hypothesis that was questionable from the beginning."

16 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. low carb and low PUFA vs high Omega-3? by hazem · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A diet with all its componets is very different than supplement pills.

    My guess (without reading 5000 papers) is that if there is some kind of benefit from an "Eskimo diet" it would be from it being devoid of flour and sugar, and generally low in carbohydrates and industrially processed polyunsaturated fats.

    My personal experience is that by focusing on eating natural sources of fats and eliminating most carbohydrates (especially refined carbohydrates) for the last 8 months, I've lost a lot of exceess fat (60 pounds so far) and gained enough excess energy that I'm now regularly running in 5ks and even started competing in triathlons.

    I take vitamins because they are relatively cheap, but I'm not sure I see the point of fish-oil capsules, especially with the bad breath and indigestion that comes with them.

    As for CAD risk, I'm not sure. But by adopting a low-carb/high-fat diet (LCHF or "keto"), my cholesterol numbers (for what they're worth) have improved dramatically. My HDL is higher by a few points and my triglycerides are lower by more than 20 points, compared to when I used to be on a statin.

    1. Re:low carb and low PUFA vs high Omega-3? by Beck_Neard · · Score: 2

      How do you know it's because you're consuming less carbohydrates, rather than just because you're consuming fewer calories?

      --
      A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
    2. Re:low carb and low PUFA vs high Omega-3? by hazem · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's a good question.

      In the past, I've tried to merely restrict calories and eat what the food pyramid recommends... plenty of "healthy whole grains" and limiting fats. I lost a tiny bit of weight and was miserable and hungry - and my cholesterol numbers actually got worse. I went to the gym every day but was tired and listless mosf of the time. And as soon as I eased up, I gained even more weight (over the equilibrium weight I was at before starting the calorie restriction).

      If you look at how metabolism works, fructose is only processed in the liver and the result is serum triglycerides. Dietary fats, however (at least as I understand it) are quickly taken up by chylomicrons and delivered to cells throughout the body, so they don't contribute much to trigylcerides as measured in the standard lipid panel. This is at least how I undersand it.

      My personal experience is just an n=1, but within the low-carb community, the predictions were that by adopting a an LCHF diet, I would lose weight, not be hungry but eat less, feel more energetic, and that my lipid panels would improve. I've found all of these things happened, as well as odd little things like no longer having indigestion and just having a desire to exercise and be more active.

      Do I KNOW this is from an LCHF way of eating? Not with absolute certainty, of course. But my experiences match the predictions and when I do endulge in a large amount of carbohydrates, I tend to feel not-so-great for a couple days.

      Frankly, I'm just thankful to have found a way of eating that allows me to lose the weight I've carried for decades while allowing me to be more energetic, and with all that, not suffer from hunger or feelings of deprivation. A year ago, I had conceded to my best friend that I would always be fat but I could at least be active and fat (I was already bike-commuting and hiking). But after a mere 8 months of this way of eating... eating "as much as I feel like eating", I now weigh less than I have in almost 2 decades and I've started racing (albiet slowly) in 5Ks and triathlons. And note, I adopted the diet and started losing weight (about 30 pounds) before I started any of the running.

      Maybe it's a "fad diet", I just eat like diabetics were told to eat in the early 1900s (https://archive.org/details/diabeticcookeryr00oppeiala) and how like most people were told to eat to lose weight until the 1960s or so. It's essentially "meat, eggs, and green veg" but avoid sugars and starches and most fruits. And I've never felt so good as an adult.

      So my n=1 is not "science" and maybe it's all placebo, but if so, it's a pretty darned good placebo. I'm down 60 pounds I never thought I could lose and doing crazy things like triathlons, which were also unimaginable, even a year ago.

    3. Re:low carb and low PUFA vs high Omega-3? by hazem · · Score: 3, Informative

      The theory of "low carb diets" is that they reduce your appetite, resulting in fewer calories consumed.

      This has been my personal experience. I started eating "low-carb/high-fat" last September and just crossed the -60 pounds mark. I still marvel at how I'm just not very hungry most of the time, even after missing meals or exercising for several hours... or how I can, indeed, go ride my bike vigorously for a few hours before eating any breakfast.

      I haven't counted calories at all, so from an objective sense, I can't give precise amount of wha I used to eat compared to what I eat now. However I'm certain I eat less from the mere fact that now I often miss meals (from not being hungry enough to bother) when before I might even eat 2 lunches, and snack much less than before (evidenced by the fact that I don't buy snacky foods much any more - when for example I was subscribed to Amazon to have boxes of KIND bars delivered to both my home and office). One of the best parts is that I can now take long bike rides after work (I've been a bike-commuter for a few years) and not have to rush home to eat dinner from crazy hunger.

      I believe the theory about low-carb and hunger is that carbohydrates stimulate insulin production. This causes cells in the body (fat and muscle) to take up blood glucose more than they would otherwise, thereby lowering blood glucose. This dynamic system has delays, so blood glucose will drop below the "normal" level and as a result you get really hungry in order to raise it back up again. As a result, you either eat more or feel lethargic due to lack of energy. This may explain the need/desire to snack between breakfast and lunch and after lunch in order to stave off the fatigue and "crash" that most people experience at these times.

      Some people go a bit nuts when I say I can eat as much as I want with this way of eating and still lose weight - as if they think I believe I'm violating the laws of physics. But the reality is that of course I'm obeying the laws of thermodymics - it's just that when I eat a diet low in carbohydrates, I just don't want to eat very much. And how can that be a bad thing? I'm getting fitter, feeling better, and all without being hungry or otherwise suffering.

    4. Re:low carb and low PUFA vs high Omega-3? by TheLink · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I take vitamins because they are relatively cheap, but I'm not sure I see the point of fish-oil capsules, especially with the bad breath and indigestion that comes with them.

      If you're getting bad breath from your fish-oil capsules, it may be that they contain oil that's _rancid_ or oxidized.

      Bust open a capsule, if it stinks, it's rancid and you shouldn't be eating it anymore than you should be eating rotten fish. Or expecting it to convey health benefits anymore than rotten fish would. Fresh fish doesn't stink - might just have a mild fish smell. Same goes for fresh fish oil. If you eat sashimi or ikura you'd know what I mean.

      The big problem is it seems that rancid/oxidized fish oil is not that rare. That's why I don't have that much confidence in those fish oil studies - I don't see much checking on the oxidation/rancidity of the oil.

      So it may be that fish oil is good for you, but only if it hasn't gone bad.

      --
    5. Re:low carb and low PUFA vs high Omega-3? by Rich0 · · Score: 2

      I haven't counted calories at all, so from an objective sense, I can't give precise amount of wha I used to eat compared to what I eat now.

      I've tried both balanced calorie-counting diets and LCHF diets. I can vouch that the latter works FAR better.

      I was able to lose weight on a balanced diet, and being a chemist who is a bit OCD I measured EVERYTHING that went into my mouth. What I will tell you is that while I did lose weight, I was always hungry. I was eating six small meals a day and while I was sitting at my desk at work I'd always be looking over to my bag of food just willing the clock to move so that I could eat my next meal. In the end I just couldn't do it any longer, and I regained the weight I had lost.

      On the other hand, I've been on a LCHF diet for a year now. I can't say that my weight is as low as I want it to be, but I'm 50 pounds lighter than I was a year ago, and I'm lighter than I ever was on the balanced diet. Last night my wife ordered a cheesecake for desert and while I did taste a slight sliver of it I really didn't have any issues with watching her eat the bulk of it. If anything it tasted too sweet to me - when I do make low-carb treats (which I avoid mostly now) I often go easy on the sweeteners.

      Being a fairly OCD person I'm probably fairly susceptible to addictive behaviors, and I think that part of the reason LCHF works for me is that it basically takes much of the pleasure out of eating. When I was in a bad mood I used to grab some ice cream or whatever in the past. Now I find something else to do or just deal with it. That lack of serotonin boost from sugar gets you out of that reinforcement loop when you eat.

      From what I've read a lot of the pharmaceutical attempts to come up with diet drugs have failed due to side-effects of suicide. I wonder if that is due to the link to serotonin/etc. I think part of the problem with overeating is that it just makes you feel good when you do it, so people do it. If drugs get rid of the pleasure they'll break that conditioning cycle, but on the other hand if eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's doesn't cheer you up after a breakup maybe you're more likely to jump off of a bridge instead. It really makes you think about the neurology of depression.

      In any case, the solution to such problems obviously isn't to keep eating food that puts you at risk for diabetes/etc.

  2. Re:Eskimo?! by buchner.johannes · · Score: 4, Informative

    Some Inuit in Canada and Greenland object very strongly, which is as good a reason as we need not to do it.

    This whole topic is a bit of minefield, it's fair to say. We can initially divide the Eskimo/Aleut people into three - the Inuit, the Unangax (Aleut), and the Yupik.

    The Unangax of the Aleutian Islands don't care to be called Inuit or Eskimo. They see themselves as distinct from Eskimos and don't mind being described as Native Americans; other Eskimo/Aleut people don't identify as being such. The Unangax are easily distinguished by their language (many borrowings from Russian, including the system of verb inflexions) and their religion (most are Russian Orthodox).

    The Yupik have no objection to being called Eskimos, and will use that term to encompass both themselves and the Inuit. The main groupings within the Yupik are the Alutiiq of the coast, the Yuit or Siberian Yupik, and the Yup'ik of Central Alaska.

    Then we come to the Inuit. The two largest groupings are the Canadian Inuit and the Kalallit or Greenland Inuit, both of which would prefer you not to call them Eskimos. (The Greenlanders are happy with Inuit to mean both themselves and the Canadians.) Ethnically speaking, two smaller groupings - the Iñupiat of the North Slope and the Inuvialuit of the Western Arctic - are also Inuit, although the Iñupiat would rather be described as Eskimo.

    I said it got confusing ...

    by "suze", from http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtop...
    further in http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtop...

    The word "Eskimo" is non-PC in Canada, much as it's fine in Alaska. The particular indigenous person of the north who was featured on QI was a Yupi'ik from Alaska - Sarah Palin's husband is one of those as well - and hence "Eskimo" rather than "Inuit" is the term to use. The plural of Yup'ik is Yupiit.

    Had the person been an Aleut, then again "Eskimo" might have caused offence. The Aleut are very sure that they are not Eskimos; while they don't object to "Aleut", they prefer one Unangax, two Unangax, three or more Unangan. (Note that most of the Eskimo-Aleut languages have what's called a dual number; this comes between singular and plural and is used when there are two of something. It's rare in European languages; Slovenian and Sorbian have it, and it's on the point of vanishing from Lithuanian.)

    The indigenous people of Baffin Island and such like places absolutely are Inuit, although "an Inuit" or "lots of Inuits" are always going to be wrong since "Inuit" is the plural. One Inuk, two Inuuk, three or more Inuit.

    While the people of the central Arctic would prefer Inuinnaq to Inuit, they won't get especially upset at the more general word. As for indigenous Greenlanders, the preferred term is Kalaallit, singular Kalaaleq. (There's no dual in Greenlandic.)

    Wikipedia is not informative on why/where it is considered offensive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... But it has a nice map of the tribes.

    --
    NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
  3. Re:Fad diets based on new "science" by hazem · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Common sense tells me that the best things to eat for an animal species is what it's evolved to eat in its natural habitat.

    This sounds like the foundation of the "Paleo" diet. And while this makes sense, I'm not sure there have been many good studies demonstrating the benefits of this approach. Part of the problem is establishing what "paleo" humans actually ate.

    For example:

    For humans, that would be 2 million years of eating nuts and fruits and clams and fish and some red meat on occasion.

    This is an assumption, and maybe a good one. But look at societies like the Masai. They're fairly "aboriginal" and eat mostly red meat, blood, and milk and very little plant matter (they apparently consider eating plants a sign of weakness). Other aboriginal societies live on diets dominated by coconuts and plants.

    I think the problem today is that there are few sources of "original" food sources available. As a species we've domesticated most of the plants and animals we eat, changing them over time. So it's hard to rely on the concept of "eat what we ate a million years ago". The best we can do to determine optimal nutrtion now is try to conduct solid double-blind studies based on the foods we have available. Unfortunately that is expensive to do and most of the money in nutrition research comes from the food industry, which has a vested interest in the outcomes of the research they fund.

    That said, you probably can't go too wrong by avoiding processed and refined foods, eating animals that eat what they naturally eat, and eating plants that are grown with as few chemical interventions as possible.

  4. Change of diet in the Eskimo population? by m00sh · · Score: 2

    In 2003, a thorough analysis of the incidence and available mortality statistics among Inuit populations in Greenland, Canada and Alaska by Bjerregaard et al, also concluded that the totality of evidence from various Northern areas makes a strong argument for high presence of CVD in Eskimos (Appendix A in Supplementary Materials).

    Is the current Eskimo diet the same as the traditional Eskimo diet?

    Do the Inuits in Greenland still eat blubber and not eat pizza, sugary drinks, hamburgers and chocolate whatsoever.

    If saturated fat CVD theory were right, the Eskimo diet would have significantly more CVD than the general population. However, it seems about the same. So, the saturated fats is bad for you part is still questionable even. Now, the whole Omega-3 is heart healthy is the one being put on question.

  5. Elephant in the room... by jdagius · · Score: 2

    ... lipid hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
    So I get that the "Eskimo Diet" doesn't improve cardiovascular health. But then it doesn't degrade it either. Then why all the "heart smart" low-fat, no-fat, low-cholesterol propaganda we're constantly bombarded with?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...
    It seems Uffe Ravnskov may be right. Dietary cholesterol very likely has little or no bad effects on health. It is probably "good" for you. In fact, statin drugs used to treat CAD are far worse for your health.
    Proof: If statins actually were effective against CAD, then the ads on TV could make that claim. If you listen carefully, they don't make any claim that they lower the incidence of CAD. Their sole claim for "effectiveness" is that they lower your blood cholesterol numbers. It would be more compelling if they could claim health benefits of course, but their is no compelling evidence for this.

  6. Re:Eskimo?! by Sarten-X · · Score: 3, Informative

    Those ancient cretins vandalized language into a byzantine mess.

    --
    You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
  7. Stomp by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

    I'm on the Ubangi diet. I just cram the whole plate in my mouth.

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  8. Re:Eskimo?! by mpe · · Score: 2

    Or just call them "aboriginal people", which is the politically/technically correct way to address any native tribe...

    Attempts to create PC terms often end up offending people anyway.

  9. Re:Well, there goes... by camperdave · · Score: 2

    The key is you have to live like the Eskimo/Innuit/PC-Word-of-the-day or the paleolith in order for these diets to work. ie. spend the bulk of your time outdoors, tracking, hunting, fishing, gathering fuel regardless of the weather. In reality, it is probably the overall and pervasive physical activity that makes these work rather than the nutrient mix of the food.

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  10. Re:I'm afraid you're wrong. by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 2

    The biggest change happened in late 1800's / early 1900's when refined sugar and bleached flour became widely available. There are a bunch of interesting studies when native groups who ate traditional diets transitioned to high refined carb diets. http://ajcn.nutrition.org/cont...

    --
    -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
  11. Re:Well, there goes... by Beck_Neard · · Score: 2

    1. The 'paleo diet' as it's usually described has absolutely no relationship to what our paleolithic ancestors actually ate. See this talk by an actual anthropologist on the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    2. Even if it did, there's no evidence to suggest that adopting a paleo diet is healthier than simply following the nutritional, exercise, and lifestyle recommendations laid out by modern science. In fact, it's probably far less healthy.

    --
    A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.