Amazonian diet the key to healthy heart
AN AMAZONIAN lifestyle consisting of a low-fat diet and daily physical activity could stave off heart disease research has found.
Scientists who studied a South American tribe discovered they had the healthiest arteries in the world.
In the UK, heart disease remains the top killer, with 73,000 people dying from it every year.
But the research highlighted how simple lifestyle and diet changes hold the key to a healthy heart.
The Tsimane people from Bolivia spend each day hunting, fishing, farming and gathering wild fruits and nuts with a carbohydrate-based diet containing little protein or fat. Diets are high in fibre with rice, plantain, manioc, corn, nuts and fruits.
Nine out of 10 members had clear arteries including an 80-year-old whose condition resembled that of Americans in their mid-50s. Almost two thirds over 75 were nearly risk free and eight per cent had a moderate-to-high risk level.
US lead scientist Professor Hillard Kaplan, from the University of New Mexico, said: “Our study shows that the Tsimane have the lowest prevalence of coronary atherosclerosis [hardening and narrowing of the arteries] of any population yet studied.”
Men spend an average of up to seven hours a day engaged in physical activity, while women are active for four to six hours, the findings reported in The Lancet journal said. Professor Sir Nilesh Samani, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, said: “There are some lessons we can learn. There are certainly aspects of their diet and lifestyle such as not smoking and eating a diet low in fat, that we can better incorporate into our lives.”