The only ones I can think of are Vilhjalmur Stefansson and William
Banting. Stefansson's diet seemed to be mostly or all meat, mimicking the
Inuit diet as much as possible. From what I've read, his first arctic
expedition was in 1906. He lived from 1879-1962. So, he would have been
about 27 years old when he first started eating this way. He lived to be 82.
There was a period of a few years in between after being married that he was
not eating the traditional diet and felt that his health was suffering.
Apparently, he went back to the Inuit style of eating for his remaining
years.
I believe Banting started after he retired(67yrs?), and lived to be 81.
His diet was a little more liberal, being able to eat "the fruit of any
pudding", I believe it said.
It's too bad that there isn't more documented cases of long lived people
that have followed this diet for their whole lives. Did these 2 men live
into their 80's because they were lucky? I guess we don't really know
because they only ate this way for part of their lives. Some of the problems
that I have found with trying to find more information is that any culture
of people that eat this way do not have a long life span. I figure that it's
because of the hard life they have and lack of modern medical care which
would have extended life expectancy. Even our forefathers in America ate
less sweet/starchy foods, but also died younger.
I read somewhere, but can't remember where(Atkins?), that heart disease
was unheard of 100 years ago. Was this because everyone was classified as
dying of old age because autopsies were not performed? So I can definitely
see why you are concerned. Perhaps in 20 years they'll find that eating
lo-carb was in fact the worst thing that we could have done, and that
arteries clog up twice as fast as a higher carb diet. Would Banting have
lived to 90 if he was able to control his hunger while eating starchy foods?
Brian Maxwell died of a heart attack earlier this year at 51. He was #3
marathon runner in the world at one time. And how about Jim Fixx dying at
52. There are quite a few other marathoners that have died of sudden death
heart attacks. Running didn't help Terry Fox cure his cancer either. If we
did our studies on these people, we would have to conclude that running is
bad for you.
I suppose we won't really know if we are eating optimally for our health
until more study is done. All I can say is that many people probably won't
live long lives unless they can maintain a healthy weight, since more recent
studies suggest obesity and diabetes are closely related and is definitely
bad for you. Maybe I won't live longer by eating this way, but it beats
suffering from embarrassment of being overweight, acid reflux, joint pain,
higher cholesterol, high blood pressure, and restricted movement. So I guess
I can say that given a choice, I'd rather die being skinny than die fat. My
quality of life is far better than eating high carb and I'm going to stick
with it for life, or until there is irrefutable evidence that it is the
worst way you can eat.
Tom
210/180/180
"Ignoramus19260" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:Do you know of anyone who lowcarbed for decades, to maintain weight?
How did it affect them?
Quoted message said:i