Hearts and Brains

Is atherosclerosis a modern affliction, or has it plagued humanity since ancient times? Ben Daitz examines this question in his Aeon piece about the Tsimane Health and Life History Project, a decades-long study of the Tsimane, an Indigenous tribe living in the Bolivian Amazon. The findings among this foraging population of 17,000 people are remarkable: the Tsimane exhibit virtually no heart disease, lower rates of dementia, and minimal cognitive decline among their elders. Daitz offers a fascinating look into this groundbreaking research—conducted by an international team of anthropologists, cardiologists, geneticists, neurologists, geriatricians, and radiologists—and illuminates the connections between lifestyle, cardiovascular and cognitive health, and longevity.

I asked Thomas about the impact that the Tsimane findings had on his own patients. He said: ‘When we found heart disease in mummies, I told them they shouldn’t feel guilty about getting heart disease or having a heart attack, it’s part of human nature. That’s what I preached for a long time.’ And now, I asked? ‘Prevention works,’ he told me. ‘The amount of exercise the Tsimane do, which amounts to 17,000 steps a day for men and 16,000 for women (about 7-8 miles), and their diet which has 5 per cent saturated fat versus a Western diet of 15 per cent, and they do that by eating a lot of fish and wild animals. And you can’t be going down the street with a bow and arrows, but you can improve your diet and exercise for a lot of the day.’