You may not walk like an Egyptian, but you might want to eat like a Tsimane.
A study published in March in The Lancet says the forager-horticulturist tribe in South America has the lowest reported levels of vascular aging of any population on Earth.
Besides the healthy heart conditions, these indigenous people of the Bolivian Amazon region also have low blood pressure, low cholesterol, and low blood glucose.
The researchers attributed these healthy qualities to the tribe’s high level of physical activity and its plant-based diet.
They concluded that the lack of this type of activity and diet in developed countries such as the United States should be added to the risks associated with heart problems.
“The loss of subsistence diets and lifestyles could be classed as a new risk factor for vascular aging and we believe that components of this way of life could benefit contemporary sedentary populations,” said Hillard Kaplan, PhD, senior author and anthropology professor at the University of New Mexico, in a press statement.
Katie Ferraro, a registered dietitian and assistant clinical professor at the University of San Diego and University of California, agrees with the assessment.
“We could certainly move in their direction,” Ferraro told Healthline. “We could look to them as models.”
What researchers discovered
The researchers visited 85 Tsimane villages in 2014 and 2015.
They took CT scans of the hearts of 705 village residents between the ages of 40 and 94.
They checked for hardening of the coronary arteries as well as the villagers’ height, weight, blood pressure, heart rate, cholesterol, blood glucose, and inflammation.
They discovered that 85 percent of Tsimane people had no risk of heart disease. That included two-thirds of the villagers who were 75 years or older.
Another 13 percent of the tribe members had a low risk, while 3 percent had moderate or high risk.
A similar study of 6,814 people in the United States ages 45 to 84 showed that only 14 percent had no risk of heart disease. About 50 percent had a moderate or high risk. Another third had a low risk.
The Tsimane population also had low heart rates and healthy levels of blood pressure, glucose, and cholesterol.
This was despite the fact that about half of villagers did show elevated levels of inflammation.
“The inflammation common to the Tsimane was not associated with increased risk of heart disease and may instead be the result of high rates of infections,” said Dr. Randall Thompson, cardiologist at Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute.
The researchers credited the villagers’ plant-based diet and physical activity level for their health.
They noted that the Tsimane people spend only 10 percent of their waking hours being inactive. That compares with a 54 percent inactivity level in people in industrialized nations.
The researchers said hunting, fishing, gathering, and farming keep the men working six to seven hours a day, and the women working four to six hours a day.
They also noted the Tismane people’s plant-rich diet, which is 72 percent carbohydrates, includes nonprocessed foods such as rice, corn, nuts, and fruits. Their diet is about 14 percent protein, coming from animal meat.
Smoking is also rare in these villages.
The Tismane aren't the only ones.
The Hadza tribe in Africa also apparently benefits from its hunter-gather diet.
A CNN reporter found this out when he recently traveled to the Hadza's territory and ate what they ate for three days.
At the end of that period, Tim Spector discovered his gut microbal diversity, which was pretty healthy to start with, had improved by 20 percent.
He also discovered three days later, after returning to his regular diet, that his gut microbal had returned to where they were before his Hadza visit.
How Americans can adapt
Ferraro said the activity level and the carbohydrate-rich diet were the two factors that stood out in the study.
She noted high-carb diets are generally considered unhealthy in the United States, but that’s because Americans tend to get their carbohydrates from processed foods.
“The villagers are eating the right carbohydrates,” said Ferraro, who teaches a cultural foods class at San Diego State University. “They’re a prescription for heart disease prevention.”
Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, LD, a licensed, registered dietitian who is a wellness manager at the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute, agreed with that assessment.
“It shows that having a high-carb diet is not as bad as people think with the key point that their carbs were also loaded with fiber, something the body cannot digest,” Kirkpatrick told Healthline. “I've always recommended a ‘back to the basics’ approach to diet and this clearly shows the upside to that.”
Both dietitians also pointed to the high activity level as another key.
“I think the physical activity factor here is huge,” said Kirkpatrick, “and for sure corresponds to the new studies showing that inactivity is as risky to health as obesity.”
Both acknowledge that Americans aren’t going to move to a tent in a national park and try to hunt game.
However, they said there are ways people in modern societies can incorporate parts of the Tsimane lifestyle.
One is to significantly reduce the amount of processed foods in the diet.
The mantra of fresh vegetables, fruits, and nuts is applicable here.
The other is to lead a more active lifestyle, even for people who have desk jobs where they are sitting most of the workday.
Ferraro said it’s a good habit to get up every hour from your desk and be active for 5 to 7 minutes. You can even set a timer to remind you.
That practice will add 45 minutes to an hour of exercise to your day.
“Make movement part of your daily routine,” she said.
Soda, Juice, Other Sugary Drinks May Boost Risk of Fatal Heart Disease
Sugary drinks may be worse for your health than sweet desserts.
Still struggling to kick a daily soda habit?
New research that shows an association between consuming sugary drinks and death might be the final straw that gets you to give up soda and juice — for good.
In a study presented at a recent American Heart Association (AHA) scientific meeting this month, researchers found that adults who drank a lot of sweet beverages, including soft drinks, juice, and fruit drinks, may face an increased risk of dying from heart disease, as well as other health issues.
Researchers from Emory University and other institutions tracked the diets and health of 17,930 black and white adults over the age of 45 for about six years, using the data from the REasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study.
“There were two parts of this question we wanted to understand,” Jean Welsh, PhD, MPH, a study author, assistant professor at Emory University, and research director with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, said in a statement.
“Do added sugars increase risk of death from heart disease or other causes, and, if so, is there a difference in risk between sugar-sweetened beverages and sugary foods? We believe this study adds strong data to what already exists highlighting the importance of minimizing sugary beverages in our diet,” she said.
The results showed that adults who consumed at least 24 ounces of sugary drinks daily — equivalent to three cans of soda — had twice the risk of fatal coronary heart disease compared with participants who drank less than 1 ounce.
Those who drank sugary drinks also had an increased likelihood of death from all other causes compared to those who barely drank any of those drinks.
Interestingly, the researchers didn’t find a link between eating sugary foods — such as candy, desserts, and sweetened cereals — and death from coronary heart disease and other cardiovascular conditions.
The distinction may be related to how the body metabolizes sweet food, which tends to balance the sugar with protein and fat, compared with drinks like soda, which generally contain no other nutrients and tend to cause an insulin spike.
Some experts also point to the high concentration of sugar in sweet beverages as a potential blame for poor health.
“It’s largely related to volume. There are so many more grams of sugar in a soda than a cookie because you need to add a lot of sugar to [soda] before it starts to taste sweet,” said Dr. Michael Miedema, a research cardiologist at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation. “Once you start dissolving sugar into a liquid, you can get a lot more in there.”
What happens when you drink sugar?
Study authors note that their research doesn’t prove a cause-and-effect relationship between drinking sweetened beverages and death from heart disease. Rather, it shows that there’s an association between the two.
“The main limitation of a study like this is that it’s observational,” Miedema told Healthline. “Researchers are simply watching what happens to people who take in more sugar. Participants might be doing quite a few others things, such as eating more salt and saturated fats and less fruit and vegetables, that factor in here.”
The report does, however, fit into a larger context of research that shows high amounts of sugar might be dangerous for our bodies, Miedema added.
Research from 2014 found that U.S. adults who consumed a lot of foods and drinks with added sugar were more likely to die from cardiovascular disease.
Findings from another study showed that people are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes if they drank two sugar-sweetened beverages per day compared with participants who sipped less than one per month.
In addition to foods with added sugars, items that are full of simple carbohydrates also quickly break down into sugars that may negatively impact your health.
“If you look at all the studies combined, there seems to be evidence that simple carbohydrates — like those found in white bread, white rice, pasta, cookies, candies, and soda — are not healthy for us, especially in larger volumes,” Miedema said.
How much soda is safe to drink?
Since most of us probably won’t completely give up our favorite sodas and juices, how much is actually safe to drink?
The U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommend that less that 10 percent of your daily caloric intake come from added sugars. The World Health Organization agrees, but adds that keeping sugar intake below 5 percent of your overall diet would be even better.
According to the AHA, women and men should consume no more than 100 and 150 calories of added sugar, respectively.
Most medical advice recommends sticking to water when you’re thirsty and treating sugary drinks as special treats.
Limiting the frequency and quantity of sugary beverage consumption is key to achieving good health, said Miedema.
“A can of soda each week probably won’t do much harm. But we know that when unhealthy behaviors become part of a routine, it becomes difficult to control, so it’s probably better to avoid it altogether,” he said.
As for diet sodas, the study didn’t mention a link between no- or low-calorie sweeteners and death. However, Miedema said people who drink diet soda might not be off the hook.
“It’s tricky. Diet sodas don’t have any sugar or caloric value, so you don’t get that big insulin spike, which seems to be a good thing,” he explained. “But some small studies show that there are hormonal changes that happen in response to just tasting something sweet, so diet soda might not necessarily be a better alternative.”
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