AAP FACTCHECK – A meat-based diet advocate claims that despite eating a diet high in animal fat, “Eskimos don’t get heart disease”, so “cholesterol is your friend”.
This is false. Inuit people suffer from heart disease, and eating a diet high in animal fat increases your risk.
The claim appears in a Facebook post sharing a video in which veterinarian and naturopath Joel D Wallach says: “Everybody knows cholesterol is a myth.
“It’s kind of interesting that the Eskimos above the Arctic Circle have a legendary diet that’s 98 per cent red meat and blubber,” he said.
“They eat nothing but whale meat and whale blubber … bear meat, bear fat. They don’t eat any organically grown broccoli or carrot juice.
“They’re legendary, legendary for not getting cardiovascular disease.”
The Facebook post includes the caption: “Cholesterol is your friend. The end.”
Research, however, shows Inuit do suffer from heart disease, although there has been debate about the rate compared to the general population.
Experts say eating a diet high in animal fats increases low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in the blood, a major risk factor for heart disease.
In the 1970s and 80s, Danish researchers Hans Olaf Bang and Jörn Dyerberg published papers theorising about the high level of Omega-3 fatty acids in the Inuit diet in Greenland lowering their blood cholesterol, and protecting them against heart disease.
However, a 2014 University of Ottawa review found that the Danes had not actually studied Inuit coronary artery disease (CAD) rates, which were similar to non-indigenous populations.
Instead, the review said the researchers had made assumptions about Inuit CAD incidence based on medical records that may have under-reported heart attacks.
Earlier sources reported CAD was a frequent occurrence in northern Greenland’s Inuit population, the review said, with overall mortality twice as high as the non-Inuit population, and life expectancy 10 years lower.
A 1993 University of Pennsylvania study concluded from autopsies of Aleut mummies from Alaska that “ancient Eskimos … suffered from coronary artery disease.”
Aleuts are the Indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands.
Atherosclerosis, a buildup of fats, cholesterol and other substances in and on the artery walls, was prevalent among ancient Aleuts, a 2013 multinational study published in The Lancet found.
Scans of five 16th-century Inuit mummies also revealed the “telltale signs” of atherosclerosis, Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital reported in 2019.
Cardiologist David Colquhoun, a board member of Australia’s Heart Foundation and associate professor of medicine at the University of Queensland, called the Facebook claim “a lot of garbage”.
He said the Inuit diet was not one to replicate.
“They don’t live long enough to get coronary disease,” Professor Colquhoun told AAP FactCheck.
“They’re not healthy. They’re lucky they can survive in such terrible conditions.”
Prof Colquhoun said saturated fat was the major dietary factor that led to increased LDL cholesterol, a major predictor of heart disease, heart attack and stroke.
Andrew Reynolds, a University of Otago senior research fellow and a technical advisor for the World Health Organization’s guidelines on saturated fat intake, said the post was clearly misinforming people.
He said Inuit life expectancy when traditional diets were more common was “shockingly low by today’s standard, only 30-40 years”.
“Given that the lifestyle or diet-related types of heart disease don’t normally present until people are 60+ years old, this statement that ‘Eskimos don’t get heart disease’ is beyond misleading,” Dr Reynolds told AAP FactCheck.
“It’s a brutal abuse of a historic health inequity to drive views or likes.”
The American Heart Association has said that decades of science “has proven that saturated fats can raise your ‘bad’ cholesterol and put you at higher risk for heart disease”.
The Australian, New Zealand and British heart foundations also recommend limiting saturated fat intake.
Science Feedback has debunked a claim made by Mr Wallach about Alzheimer’s disease.
The Verdict
False – The claim is inaccurate.
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