[Varda]

Eskimo is the appropriate term for the wide range of Arctic dwellers from western Alaska to Greenland. Inuit is a linguistic term not appropriate for all those peoples. While it's been fashionable in liberal circles to claim offense in the name of various native peoples, I'm sure if I were a non-Inuit speaking Eskimo being called an Inuit is what would offend me.

Secondly, 45 years seems pretty good for a low tech people living in such an extreme environment. The traditional Arctic diet is a marvel (low cancer, heart disease, diabetes rates) and known to be nutrient rich and complete. Modern Eskimos do have diet problems, it's due to the introduction of the modern diet. Google up a few articles about it. One things for sure, there's a lot we don't know about proper human nutrition.

[S0122017]

I searched using altavista and this is what I found:

Atkins proponents are fond of citing the Inuit (Eskimo) diet which is almost 100% animal protein/fat based and yet these indigenous people have very low levels of heart disease. What is not highlighted is the fact that the Inuit have low life-expectancy and one of the highest levels of osteoporosis in the world.
http://www.energygrid.com/health/2004/05ap-atkins.html

The health benefits abound. Much research was gathered by studying the Inuit diet with a ratio of n-6:n-3 of 1:2.5 and other cultures (Okinawa, Japan for example) that consumed much of their dietary fat from fish in the 6:1 ratios. The Inuit (Eskimo) diet consisted almost exclusively of meat (there is very little space to grow “greens or grains” in the Arctic) and their meat source was overwhelmingly from the sea. Hence, their intake of rather high ratios of n-3 FA gave them near insusceptibility against cardiovascular disease. Since about the turn of the last century our ratios have changed drastically to that of about 20:1 and as a consequence we suffer a grave n-3 FA deficiency. This dietary state happens to be a pro-inflammatory condition. There are very strong scientifically proven connections between diets low in n-3 FA and higher incidences of a number of diseases. They include cardiovascular disease. Heart attacks and strokes are more common in people not consuming enough of this essential FA. There is even a connection with multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia and depression, and even osteoporosis. http://www.jivemagazine.com/column.php?pid=2375

In a more recent study of Yupik Eskimos living in southwestern Alaska, scientists found an advantage to a diet high in salmon, marine mammals, and other sources of omega-3 fatty acids. These Eskimos succumbed to circulatory disease at only one-third the rate of those on modern Western diets in the United States. However, an important caveat is that these studies did not look at other factors, such as exercise levels, which are known to have an impact on heart disease. The Eskimo diet is extremely limited due to a lack of food diversity (particularly plants) in the harsh arctic environment, especially compared to the one around the East African lakes. However, another group of modern hunter-gatherers—the Australian Aborigines—consumes a more varied fare, from various vegetables and seeds to wild animals and fish. The Aborigines are of special interest to nutritionists because they show little or no evidence of diabetes and cardiovascular disease in their natural environment, yet suffer as much as the rest of us when adopting the diet and lifestyle of the West. Looking into the phenomenon, nutrition researchers Joan M. Naughton and Kerin O’Dea of the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Andrew J. Sinclair of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology traced the Aboriginal advantage to traditional foods, especially the levels and types of fat in their diet.

The scientists analyzed the traditional Aboriginal diet across a wide range of geographic regions, from the tropical coast of the north through the vast, arid center to the cooler climates of the south. The specific foods varied greatly, with some Aborigines getting as much as 64 percent of their calories from animal foods. But even in this last group, saturated fat in the diet is uniformly low and the essential fatty acid content, including omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, fairly high. This is because wild game have very little saturated fat and relatively high levels of essential fatty acids when compared to domesticated animals. This fatty acid profile is a consequence of the wild animal species’ consumption of wild plants containing high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids. This is analogous to the absence of omega-3 fatty acids in farm-raised fish versus wild fish if the “domesticated” fish are not fed nutrients from the sea. http://www.omegabrite.com/doc/book/03.pdf

Conclusion:

Western diet sucks.