"Fishing" for the origins of the "Eskimos and heart disease" story: facts or wishful thinking?
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Narrative review and historical critical analysis without systematic review methodology
PubMed 25064579 · doi:10.1016/j.cjca.2014.04.007
What was done
The authors conducted a narrative literature review of published studies spanning 40 years to examine whether coronary artery disease (CAD) mortality and morbidity are lower in Greenland Eskimo and Canadian and Alaskan Inuit populations compared with Caucasian populations, and critically evaluated the original 1970s studies by Bang and Dyerberg.
What was found
The abstract reports no numerical data or effect sizes. It states that most reviewed studies found Greenland Eskimos and Canadian and Alaskan Inuit have CAD as often as non-Eskimo populations. Furthermore, Bang and Dyerberg's foundational 1970s studies did not investigate CAD prevalence in the population despite being widely cited as evidence for dietary cardioprotection.
Why it matters
This review challenges the foundational premise of the cardioprotective 'Eskimo diet' narrative, demonstrating that the assumption of low CAD rates was not empirically supported by the original dietary research.
Limits
The abstract provides no search methodology, study inclusion criteria, or total number of studies analyzed. No quantitative morbidity or mortality rates, statistical comparisons, or population sample sizes are reported.
Cited by
- contradicts Traditional Inuit populations, who historically had virtually no access to plant fiber and consumed exclusively meat and fat from hunted mammals, had very low rates of coronary artery disease.