The Kitavan Study

It's a double post day today as I will be away all wekend and won't be able to post. I hope you enjoy.

I recieved a great question from Clemells the other day:

 

Hi Zane just wondering if you or Bjorn had any comments about the Kitavan people of New Guinea. They are apparently lean& disease free, yet eat a diet of 70% CHO.

 

For those of you who have never heard of the Kitavan Study check it out here.

 

I love the Kitava Study because it is one of the many studies that really supports eating a Paleolithic Diet. The study was conducted by Steffaan Lindberg, and compares the Kitavan Diet and Medical issues with those of his native Sweden. A summary of the diference in diet can be found here:

 

The residents of Kitava lived exclusively on root vegetables (yam, sweet potato, taro, tapioca), fruit (banana, papaya, pineapple, mango, guava, water melon, pumpkin), vegetables, fish and coconuts [27-29]. Less than 0.2% of the caloric intake came from Western food, such as edible fats, dairy products, sugar, cereals, and alcohol, compared with roughly 75% in Sweden [30]. The intake of vitamins, minerals and soluble fibre was therefore very high, while the total fat consumption was low, about 20 E% [28], as was the intake of salt (40-50 mmol Na/10 MJ compared with 100-250 in Sweden). Due to the high level of coconut consumption, saturated fat made up an equally large portion of the overall caloric intake as is the case in Sweden. However, lauric acid was the dominant dietary saturated fatty acid as opposed to palmitic acid in Sweden. Malnutrition and famine did not seem to occur.

As you can see the Kitavan diet consisted of wild seasonal fruits and vegetables, wild caught fish, and healthy saturated fats. This is exactly the prescription that I would advocate all followers of the paleo diet eat. Sure their level of Carbohydrate consumption is high, but these are a native people who have lived in the same area for ever. They have been eating the same diet for hundreds of thousands of years and are therefore genetically adapted to eating that level of carbohydrate.

Some of the most interesting things I took from the study are:

• Despite a fair number of older residents, none of whom showed signs of dementia or poor memory, the only cases of sudden death the residents could recall were accidents such as drowning or falling from a coconut tree... 
• The main results of the Kitava study, that there is no ischaemic heart disease (and no stroke, see Chapter 4.2), are unanimously confirmed by medical experts with knowledge of the Trobriand Islands or other parts of Melanesia. Likewise, Jüptner noted no cases of angina pectoris, myocardial infarction or sudden death during his 5 years as a provincial doctor on the islands at the beginning of the 1960s, when the population was roughly 12,000. (Jüptner H, unpublished data)... 
• No indications of stroke, diabetes, dementia or congestive heart failure
• No overweight
• Excellent blood pressure
• No acne
• The elderly residents of Kitava generally remain quite active up until the very end, when they begin to suffer fatigue for a few days and then die from what appears to be an infection or some type of rapid degeneration. Although this is seen in western societies, it is relatively rare in elderly vital people. The quality of life among the oldest residents thus appeared to be good in the Trobriand Islands.
• Less than 0.2% of the caloric intake came from Western food, such as edible fats, dairy products, sugar, cereals, and alcohol, compared with roughly 75% in Sweden [30].

So, from the results of this study we can assume that if we avoid the standard diet of grains, legumes, dairy; Stay active and keep moving in later life; and eat a diet that is consistent with our traditional diet then we can expect to avoid heart disease, stroke, diabetes, dementia, high blood pressure and acne, stay lean and have a high quality of life.

Sounds OK to me.

Thoughts to comments.