Inuit of Northern Canada on their traditional diet, which can be upwards of 70 percent fat, rarely suffer from obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or cancer. Most of their calories come from marine mammals and fatty fish, and they eat almost the entire animal, savoring as delicacies the nutrient-rich organs.

The Inuit Paradox: How can people who gorge on fat and rarely see a vegetable be healthier than we are?
Greenlandic Inuit show genetic signatures of diet and climate adaptation

The traditional diet of East Africa’s Maasai people consists almost exclusively of raw meat, milk, and cow’s blood. Like Inuit, Maasai are largely free of chronic disease—until they eat a Western diet.

Cardiovascular disease in the masai
The Maasai keep healthy despite a high-fat diet

In Europe, from 1750 to 1850, life expectancy hovered between 40 and 45 years of age. Most people died young from infectious diseases, accidents, and wars. Chronic diseases were the unfortunate fate of the fortunate few who lived into true old age. By the end of World War II, life expectancy in the United States was approximately 60.

Disparities in life expectancy at birth
Rising life expectancy around the world

Today, just about every culture on the planet has at least one starch as a dietary staple.

World Food Situation
Staple foods: What do people eat?
According to the FAO, maize, rice, and wheat combine to provide more than half of global caloric intake.

Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public.

Banting Letter on Corpulence – In Today’s English

In 1906, Harvard-educated Harvard-educated anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson joined a polar expedition to live with Inuit for a summer.

VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON (1879 — 1962)
Stefansson, Vilhjalmur (1879-1962)

Ancel Keys of the University of Minnesota introduced a new theory about the cause of heart disease—the so-called Diet-Lipid-Heart Hypothesis.

Re-evaluation of the traditional diet-heart hypothesis: analysis of recovered data from Minnesota Coronary Experiment (1968-73)
THE DIET-LIPID-HEART DISEASE HYPOTHESIS IN CAPSULE

In 1972, physician Robert Atkins published a book called the Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution.

Atkins Diet: What’s behind the claims?

The study, which was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and investigated the links between dairy fat consumption and chronic disease, followed nearly 3,000 adults for more than 20 years.

Dairy fat and risk of cardiovascular disease in 3 cohorts of US adults