The Jungle Effect: Notes on Indigenous Diets

In The Jungle Effect: The Healthiest Diets from around the World--Why They Work and How to Make Them Work for You (2008), Daphne Miller, MD, seeks to explore the traditional diets of some of her patients whose ethnic heritages haven't been generations of American-born and raised. When various patients from ethnic backgrounds outside of the United States were having health complications that people of their own heritage rarely had, Dr. Miller sought to question the "new" diet and look at the differences between the SAD (Standard American Diet) that seemed to be causing the health issues and the patients' native heritage diet. Following are a collection of anthropological discoveries she made in her search to form better diets for her patients:

• Research has shown the 80% of medical problems involving heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes and 40% of cancer cases could be avoided by following a healthy diet, exercising regularly, and avoiding tobacco.

• San Francisco bay area is a hot spot for breast cancer.

• "Nixtamilization" is a process used to treat maize in Central and South America. To prepare corn for consumption, corn is boiled in an alkali solution of lime and water which removes the tough outer layer of the kernels, and which also enriches the corn with essential nutrients like calcium, niacin, and certain amino acids. Without nixtamilization, Mesoamericans would have suffered from severe vitamin deficiencies, including pellagra (niacin deficiency). 

nixtamilization

• Table manners and patterns of eating are apparent in almost all cultures, and in countries that practice communal eating, one simply does NOT eat alone. That is, how one eats is extremely important in many cultures. Take Cameroon and Crete, for example. In both cultures one is absolutely expected to eat slowly--a practice that very much improves digestion, and interesting enough, less food is consumed. Also, in Okinawa, the dictum Hara Hachi Bu, or "eat only until you are eight parts full," is a standard reminder not to overeat. In outcome, Okinawans maintain their weight from age 20 to 100, Americans on the other hand typically put on one pound per year after the age of 30.

• Why are most toddlers disgusted by coffee, but many adults addicted? Because acidic, spicy and bitter foods are acquired tastes.

• Eskimo tribes (Inuits), until recently, ate whale meat, seal, fish, sea bird and caribou, and despite this indigenous diet comprising about 50% high protein and 30-40% fat, Eskimos eating this diet had some of the lowest rates of heart disease and cancer in the world. Why? Probably because their blood levels showed very high levels of two omega-3 fats: EPA and DHA, fats known to prevent many chronic diseases. Eskimos ate fats from seafood and wild game, which in turn synthesized their omega-3s directly from sea greens and vegetation from the tundra. 

• Peruvian villagers in Las Palmas in the Amazon eat the cashew fruit but avoid the nut, which is known to cause stomach cramps and nausea after a few hours of ingestion due to urushio, a toxin, in the nut. These Peruvians are amused to learn that Americans consider cashews a luxury food and cook them to make them edible.

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  cashew fruit and nuts - hot to grow them

• Thiamine deficient people will have mental confusion and problems walking, but eating a thiamine-rich meal of, for example, whole grains, beans, and lean meat, immediately improves one's sense of well-being.  

• The practice of adding spices like garlic, onions, chilis, turmeric, and ginger not only aid digestion but also delay food spoilage. Many also have anti-inflammatory qualities. These tangy, spicy additions are acquired tastes. 

• Many cultures developed fermented and pickled foods which they discovered aided their digestion: Icelandic skyr (yogurt), Greek yogurt, Cameroonian fou fou and millet beer, Korean kimchi, Japanese tempeh and natto, and German sauerkraut. 

various kinds of fermented foods

• Refining grains involves removing the two most nutritious parts -- the coarse husk and the oily inner germ. These two parts give bread a rough texture and a nutty flavor, but their removal leaves only a white endosperm, a fluffy form of starch with little nutritional value. Even whole-wheat bread (as opposed to whole-grain bread) is a highly refined food as it's made with flour which has retained some husk but no germ. Basically, the flavor is removed and sweetness remains.

• Lactose intolerance. A good portion of the world's population has some discomfort or difficulty after eating dairy products. This is because their bodies don't produce lactase, the enzyme for digesting the carbohydrate lactose. Blacks, American Indians, and Asians are large ethnic groups commonly known to have difficulties with milk, while northern Europeans, some tribes in East Africa and the Middle East are able to digest lactose into adulthood.

• The Pima Indians in Arizona have some of the highest rates of type 2 diabetes in the world. Scientists have found that the Pima have a host of gene mutations that may relate to insulin reaction and sugar processing. Ironically, the Pima's cousins, the Tarahumara Indians living several hundred miles south in Sonora and Chihuahua, have a low rate of diabetes.

• 35% of Hawaiians are considered to be morbidly obese with similar numbers suffering from diabetes type 2 and heart disease. Middle-aged Hawaiians 100 years ago had the bodies of 20-year-olds, so what happened? The traditional diets of taro, breadfruit, fern shoots, purple yams, kukui nuts, fish, and free-range chickens are now only available at expensive prices in supermarkets for tourists while the foods of modern convenience are the only foods subsidized.

• Type 2 diabetes in the past 70 years in the US has increased 700% and is now affecting even the younger population. The ethnic groups most dramatically impacted by this change are Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans and African Americans. 

• All carbohydrates are not equal. The traditional carbs (e.g. cheeky yam, black bean seed, bush onion)  eaten by Pacific Islanders and Aboriginals seem to have had a protective effect against diabetes while Western food carbs (russet potatoes, white bread, white pasta, mass-produced corn, and white rice) seem to switch on diabetes.

• Over 50 species of beans are native to the Americas.

• Cretans of two generations previous consumed a guesstimated 50 kilos of olive oil per year, and lived to be quite old. A health-challenged Cretan returned to the old ways of stone-pressing olive oil when he realized the pesticides and fertilizers he used were in his precious olive oil and getting in his water supply, He also realized the modern way of processing olive oil of washing with large quantities of water, which, since antioxidants are water soluble, was washing away the most important nutrient. He returned to natural living without fertilizers and started stone-pressing his olive oil again. Health problems resolved.

stone press for making olive oil naturally

• Depression, second only to heart disease, ranks as the highest health disability worldwide, and in the U.S., 20% of women are likely to experience depression and 12% of men. In Europe, depression rates for people over age 65 are influenced by seasonal affective disorder (SAD, or "winter blues") and by location, that is, Munich, London, Amsterdam, Verona, and Berlin have the highest depression rates, whereas Iceland (with its quite Northern, sunless winter) ironically had the lowest.

• Icelanders love their fish and consume 225 pounds of fish per year, while Japanese consume the second-most at 147 pounds annually. People in the US consume only 48 pounds. The countries with the lowest per capita fish consumption rate (e.g. West Germany, New Zealand, and the United States) have, perhaps not so surprising, higher depression rates. Icelanders believe that eating high omega-3 fish, depression is greatly reduced. 

• Lamb is almost as rich in omega-3s as fish.

• Swiss alpine cheese (from Switzerland) is a dairy product of free-range cows grazing on clover and moss-rich pasturage. The cheese from these cows have milk five times the omega-3 fats and has 20-30% less saturated fat than the standard US cheddar.

• Colon cancer, next to lung cancer, is the second biggest cancer killer in the US, affecting all ethnicities fairly equally. Western and southern Africa are cancer cold spots; it's suggested that they eat virtually no processed foods, large amounts of omega-3 fish, and their cooking oils are made from simple home-processing. Americans, on the other hand, eat a diet high in refined carbohydrates and meat, both of which promote bacteria in the gut. The traditional western and southern diet contain a diet rich in fiber, probiotics and nutrients, and the people evacuate much more frequently, which in turn eliminates the build-up of toxins more regularly.

• One of the staple foods of Okinawans is sea vegetables. Like maize in Mexico, potatoes in Iceland, and barley in Crete, sea veggies appear in an array of traditional dishes: raw in salads, pickled as sauces and relishes, dried for a snack or a wrapper for rice, cooked in soups, sweetened in jelly or ice cream. It also appears in traditional herbal medicines, cosmetics, and treatments for asthma to hemorrhoids to stomach ulcers. Studies have showed that the people eating the highest amount of sea veggies were the healthiest in villages.

various kinds of seaweed -- a seaweed salad

16 Countries Evading Common Diseases

Place: Mexico’s Copper Canyon

Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: High-cholesterol

Reason[s] why: The Tarahumara Indians of this region have impressively low cholesterol due to a diet that emphasizes slow-release foods, sending sugar into the bloodstream at a much slower rate than other foods. Their diet – which includes slow-release carbohydrates from whole corn, beans, squash, cumin, and other crops – also helps maintain proper blood sugar levels, preventing an overproduction of insulin.

Place: Costa Rica’s Nicoya PeninsulaDisease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Death before age 90

Reason[s] why: Residents of this small town two hours out of San Jose spend hours each day chopping wood and making all their meals by hand, from scratch. The area also has some of the hardest water around, loaded with beneficial minerals such as calcium and magnesium.

http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/20081009_tows_bluezones/2

Place: Japan
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Heart disease

Reason[s] why: Diets rich in soy and omega 3 fatty acids but low in refined sugars keep the Japanese in good heart health, according to most statistics http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2133674.stm. Interestingly enough, one study proposes Japan’s relative immunity to heart disease may be “on paper” only, suggesting that a lot of heart disease in Japan is chalked up to heart failure. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/319/7204/255

Place: Iceland
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Depression

Reason[s] why: Like the Japanese, Icelanders consume healthy amounts of omega-3 and other healthy fats from sources such as pasture-raised lamb and wild game. Like green tea in Japan, Icelanders ward off a variety of cancers with the antioxidants in black tea, vegetables, wild berries, barley, and rye. Despite the soul-sucking winters during which the nation is plunged into almost 24-hour darkness, experts believe this diet also helps fight off the depression normally associated with such lack of sun.

Place: rural Northern India
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Alzheimer’s

Reason[s] why: A slew of studies of people in this region are being done to see why only 1% of the population over 65 is affected by Alzheimer’s disease (compared to more than 5% of American’s older than 65.) Though the practical non-existence of Alzheimer’s in Northern India (and select parts of Africa) might simply be a lack of proper diagnosis, another explanation may be genetic. http://www.searo.who.int/EN/Section1174/Section1199/Section1567/Section1823_8066.htm

Place: Loma Linda, California
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Anything well into your 90s
Reason[s] why: Like many cultures who seem to be able to ward off disease at a disproportionally-high rate, the people of this Moreno Valley eat a healthy diet. The community is home to 900 members of the Seventh Day Adventist faith, in which smoking, booze, meat, and processed foods are a big no-no.
http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/20081009_tows_bluezones/10

Place: Thailand
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Cancer (all types)

Reason[s] why: Areas of the world subject to high levels of infection seem to have the lowest rates of cancer. In many cases, the lower a nation’s Gross Domestic Product, the lower its people’s risk of developing cancer. One explanation is the so-called “hygiene hypothesis” – that people whose bodies are forced to fight off diseases in their youth are more likely to be toughened-up for battles later in life, such as cancer.

Place: Sardinia

Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Largest population on Earth of men age 100+

Reason[s] why: Folks on this island 200 km off the Italian coast eat lean, fruit-and-veggie-based diet high in whole grain breads and dairy like hearty fresh cheeses. Meat is consumed in extreme moderation and is more of a side-dish than main staple of this mountain-trekking Mediterranean diet.

Place: United Kingdom
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Epilepsy
Reason[s] why: Your odds of dying from epilepsy in the UK are lower than anywhere else in the world. By the mortality numbers, the worst place to have a seizure is Estonia.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/mor_epi_percap-mortality-epilepsy-per-capita

Place: Japan
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Obesity
Reason[s] why: Though we think of Scandinavia as flawlessly healthy, the country that pops up most often for having a healthy population and a relatively risk-free and sustainable diet that’s easy to adopt (you don’t even have to eat Japanese food to ward off obesity like the Japanese, just eat more fish, veggies and fruit, and don’t forget to chew thoroughly.)
http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/diets-of-world-japanese-diet

Place: United States
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Death from arthritis
Reason[s] why: Believe it or not, the U.S. is the last place on Earth it’s almost statistically impossible to succumb to this widespread ailment. Slovenia has dozens of times the carpometacarpal arthritis death rate: 1 per 2 million people.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/mor_art_of_fir_car_joi_percap-first-carpometacarpal-joint-per-capita

Place: anywhere in the Muslim world
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Skin cancer
Reason[s] why: Countries close to the equator with high immigrant European populations (Australia) and tanning-obsessed countries with populations of people with low skin pigmentation have some of the highest skin cancer rates. Muslim nations fare well, experts say, due to populations with high skin pigmentation and heavy cover from the sun in the way of traditional clothing.
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/07/30/f-forbes-skincancerhotspots.html

Place: Japan
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Prostate cancer
Reason[s] why: Anti-oxidants in green and chai tea, drank as much as 15-20 times a day in the land of the rising sun, ward off all sorts of cancers. The people of Okinawa practice calorie restriction and load up on in-season vegetables like bok choy and kale. http://www.usrf.org/CBS/newsArticles.asp.htm

Place: Ethiopia
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Parkinson’s disease
Reason[s] why: Interestingly-enough, the highest rate of Parkinson’s is in American Amish communities (almost 1% – 950 in 100,000 – of the Amish population has Parkinson’s), possibly due to unchecked pesticide use. Ethiopia’s is a comparably non-existent 7 in 100,000. Genetics? Sadly no: the answer may be that few Ethiopians actually live to the age at which Parkinson’s strikes.
http://viartis.net/parkinsons.disease/prevalence.htm

Place: U.S. and Canada
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Tuberculosis

Reason[s] why: Gone are the days of mass cases of consumption (the old term for the final stages of TB) but the World Health Organization is still engaged in battle with vaccine-resistant strains. TB rates in the U.S. and Canada are a tenth that of Africa, though Americans of African descent are five times more likely to contract tuberculosis in the U.S. than Americans of Native or European descent.

Place: Czech Republic
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Diabetes

Reason[s] why: Modest eating have kept Type 2 diabetes especially down in this country, where fast food is less available and people only eat until they are “almost” full.

Summary:

The U.S. healthcare system can learn and incorporate much from these unique and wonderful places. First, prevention appears to be easier than cure, and just as possible. The real question then becomes, even if everyone was aware of all the preventative measures, would they forgo the “good life” to remain healthy longer? Then, how can our healthcare system help to enforce this “healthy alternative”?

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Note: I did not put this phenomenal list together but now am unable to find its source.