That reference is a bit disingenuous and heavily biased.
“Mortality came mostly from accidents, warfare and infectious disease rather than chronic disease.”
“Excluding infant mortality, about 25% of their population lived past 60. Based on these data, the approximate life expectancy (excluding infant mortality) of this Inuit population was 43.5 years. It’s possible that life expectancy would have been higher before contact with the Russians, since they introduced a number of nasty diseases to which the Inuit were not resistant. Keep in mind that the Westerners who were developing cancer alongside them probably had a similar life expectancy at the time.”
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/mortality-and-lifespan-of-inuit.html
So, yes, they had a low mortality, but they weren’t dying of cancer and diabetes until they started eating the typical Western diet. They were dying of accidents and warfare and infectious diseases they were being newly exposed to by contact with new populations.
If you look at the graphs, the highest death rates were infant mortality and 25-45 year olds. Are you saying that the 25 year olds were all dying of diet-related disease, but the 60-100 year olds were not?
Odds are that the men were dying in hunting accidents or while fighting and the women were dying in childbirth. (Which is a typical pattern for populations without modern medicine.)
No. 25% of the adult population living in a very rough arctic environment without ANY hospitals, antibiotics or emergency care is NOT short.
By contrast, 70% of the early American colonists were dead within the first two years of their journey. Should we blame that on diet as well?
The fact is that the Inuit had NO diabetes and almost no cancer until they began to eat a Western diet. Then did NOT suffer chronic disease until introduced to sugar and flour. This is well-documented by Western physicians who cared for the population.
Inuit who ate the Western diet had diabetes rates 500 times greater than the ones who ate the traditional diet. Cancer rates shot up in a population who made the dietary switch within just a few yeas.
(Read “Good Calories, Bad Calories” by Gary Taube.)
Here’s more:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/cancer-among-inuit.html
“Field physicians in the arctic noted that the Inuit were a remarkably healthy people. While they suffered from a tragic susceptibility to European communicable diseases, they did not develop the chronic diseases we now view as part of being human: tooth decay, overweight, heart attacks, appendicitis, constipation, diabetes and cancer. When word reached American and European physicians that the Inuit did not develop cancer, a number of them decided to mount an active search for it. This search began in the 1850s and tapered off in the 1920s, as traditionally-living Inuit became difficult to find.
“One of these physicians was captain George B. Leavitt. He actively searched for cancer among the traditionally-living Inuit from 1885 to 1907. Along with his staff, he performed 50,000 examinations a year for the first 15 years, and 25,000 a year thereafter. He did not find a single case of cancer. At the same time, he was regularly diagnosing cancers among the crews of whaling ships and other Westernized populations.”
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/search/label/Inuit
The fact is that carbohydrate consumption is the killer here and refined carbohydrates are the worst. Every single human population that moved from an animal-based fatty diet to a carb/plant-based diet has gone on the develop heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, etc. Although the Inuit are the prime example, there are many more that can be cited.
I highly recommend reading “Good Calories, Bad Calories” by Gary Taube for an accurate overview and a break-down of the studies which show this correlation.
Here’s one more reference, then I’ll drop it.
Google: inuit ecology ppt and click on the first link.
It shows a powerpoint slide show. The second-to-the-last slide describes the most common causes of death among the original Inuit.
1. a) Accidents (drowning or freezing after capsizing)
b) Hunting accidents accounted for 15% of all male deaths
2. Feuds and murders
3. Suicide
4. Female infanticide
Try reading Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston Price written in the 1930s. He compared (with examples) traditional diets and recently introduced western diets.