What the Tsimane Tribe Can Teach Gout Sufferers

I wanted to share with you this new study published in the Lancet medical journal, that studied a remote Amazon tribe living in the Bolivian Amazon which has shown to the researchers to have the healthiest arteries ever studied! This study concluded that an 80 year old from the tribe has the same vascular age as an American in their mid fifties! Not only was the tribe’s heart rate was much lower but also their blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose!

Unlike people in the West, the Tsimane tribe live on a diet low in saturated fats and obviously high in non-processed foods. The researchers visited 85 Tsimane villages between 2014 and 2015 and measured their risk of heart disease by taking CT scans. They discovered that almost nine in ten of the Tsimane people, about 85% had no risk of heart disease. Only 3% had moderate or high risk.

Hillard Kaplan who is a senior anthropology author and professor of the University of New Mexico, said: “Our study shows that the Tsimane indigenous South Americans have the lowest prevalence of coronary atherosclerosis of any population yet studied.He goes on to say, “Their lifestyle suggests that a diet low in saturated fats and high in non-processed fibre-rich carbohydrates, along with wild game and fish, not smoking and being active throughout the day could help prevent hardening in the arteries of the heart.”

Senior cardiology author Dr Gregory S Thomas from Long Beach Memorial Medical Centre in the United States stated: “Most of the Tsimane are able to live their entire life without developing any coronary atherosclerosis. This has never been seen in any prior research. While difficult to achieve in the industrialized world, we can adopt some aspects of their lifestyle to potentially forestall a condition we thought would eventually affect almost all of us.”

But do you know what the key takeaway was for me? That their diet consisted of largely complex carbohydrates (72 percent of their daily calories) that included non-processed carbs which are high in fibre such as rice, plantain, corn, nuts and fruits. Doesn’t it sound similar to my gout diet as outlined in this website and my eBook where I state a gout diet should consist of 80 percent complex carbohydrates?

Protein consisted of 14 percent of their diet ( I recommend 10 percent for a gout diet) and came from animal meat. Fat comprised of 14 percent of their diet ( I recommend 10 percent for a gout diet) which is equivalent to an estimated 38 grams of fat each day, including 11 grams of saturated fat and no trans fat whatsoever! Smoking was obviously non-existent among the Tsimane.

Lessons For Us

The lesson here for all of you is that if you follow my gout diet formula of eating 80% of your daily calories as complex carbohydrates such as vegetables, legumes, beans, nuts, some fruit, whole wheat bread, pasta, rice and eat 10% of your daily calories as protein (poultry, red meat, fish etc…) and fat as in milk, cheese, eggs, butter, yogurt…you will live a longer and healthier life, your gout will be more in control, the risk of getting any other complications of gout like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease will be lower for you.

Remember gout is part of what we call the “metabolic syndrome” which I’ve talked about before. Diseases like gout come mostly from bad diets and bad lifestyle. Yes genetics plays a role to a certain extent but not like the role diet and lifestyle plays. The other lesson in this study is the importance of daily activity. The Tsimane are incredibly active every single day. Walking for about 8 hours a day while hunting and gathering. Exercise is very important even for us gout sufferers and I have also outlined that as well in previous posts. So learn from the Tsimane tribe. Apply their the dietary and lifestyle lessons to your life and let’s lower those uric acid levels.

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On – By Spiro Koulouris