These people have the ‘Healthiest hearts in the world’

I think it is fairly obvious to most of our readers that the western diet has ruined our communal health. Fast food, sodas, desserts and sedentary lifestyles have led us down a path that has increased obesity and degenerative disease. The FDA is a highly lobbied government organization that might be considered a wing of the big food industry, so we can’t depend on them to put our best interest forth.

However, we can look into anecdotal evidence to help us better understand what dietary changes we might need to make in order to improve our health.

The world’s healthiest population has been found in a forest in Bolivia. A tribe called Tsimane show hardly any indications of clogged up arteries even into very old age. A BBC.com has profiled them. What’s incredible is that these people lack pharmaceutical influences (more on that below).

“It’s an incredible population” with radically different diets and ways of living, said the researchers.

Tsimane is pronounced, “chee-may-nay”. And there are around 16,000 of them living today.

Here is what researchers have found they consume:

17% is from wild pig, capybara, tapir. 7% catfish and piranha. And the rest is starches such as sweet potatoes and rice. Yes, these people eat carbs. Lots of carbs, in fact. They also consume a lot of nuts.

So what’s unique for us? They are over 70% carbs. And they are way less in fat than we are. But they run a similar protein consumption line that we do.

Both men and women take at least 16,000 steps per day.

By ages 45, pretty well none of these people have any clogging of arteries. At age 75, over 60% remain free of heart issues. In the United States, the number is drastically reversed.

According to BBC.com

Michael Gurven, a professor of anthropology at University of California, Santa Barbara, told the BBC: “It is much lower than in every other population where data exists.

“The closest were Japanese women, but it’s still a different ballpark altogether.”

So what else can we decipher from these people? They don’t have pharma. What’s most absurd in all of this is that we have modern medicine. People don’t die from broken legs anymore if you live in New Jersey. So why then is our general health so poor? If pharmaceuticals and vaccines are supposed to be saving us, why are we so morbidly unfit in comparison to tribes which have access to very little modern medicine? It isn’t as if these tribal people take antidepressants or vaccinate. Yet their health numbers are much better than ours.

Is the pharmaceutical industry battling our modern lifestyles, or are they playing into the hands of it as a way to profit? If we can solve depression through diet, why isn’t that being pushed over antidepressants? The same article about the Tsimane reports that they are very happy. I can’t imagine having to hunt for food and rely on rain for drinking water is without stress.

There is no doubt that modern medicine has improved things such as childbirth and injuries. But what it hasn’t done is improve degenerative disease. What about cancer? Heart attacks? The simplicity in the solution is obvious when you look at these people living in a forest in Bolivia. They just aren’t exposing themselves to big food and big pharma agendas.

The pharmaceutical industry isn’t responsible for our lack of exercise. But they market and appeal to our chinks in our human armor. And they poison us with this drug so that we have to take that drug; and the cycle continues.

The solutions are easy and simple: Stop poisoning your body when you don’t have to. Eat better. Meditate and do yoga rather than take antidepressants. Eat nuts over candy bars and forget the weight watchers.