The Inuit diet

[bcapop]

Isn't it true that the Inuit people have no hair loss at a young age? I've never seen a young Inuit that's balding. I've never seen a old Inuit balding for that matter .

Inuit consume a diet of foods that are fished, hunted, and gathered locally. This may include walrus, ringed seal, bearded seal, beluga whale, polar bear, berries, and fireweed.[1][2] According to Edmund Searles in his article “Food and the Making of Modern Inuit Identities,â€￾ they consume this type of diet because a mostly meat diet is “effective in keeping the body warm, making the body strong, keeping the body fit, and even making that body healthyâ€￾.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_diet

They also have one of the greatest omega 3 intakes. What would happen if we follow this diet?

 

[Boondock]

To be perfectly honest, I don't think I've seen any inuits ever - period. Who knows what their norwood is? Most videos I've seen of them show them with hoods up, anyway.

Even if they had less balding, it's a big causal leap to suggest that this results from diet. It could instead simply be that they share genetics less prone to balding than Anglo-Saxons.

 

[bcapop]

That could be the case, but I it has been suggested that insulin (resistance) has something to do with hair loss and since they have a high fat and protein diet, they don't mess with insulin. And maybe a real high intake of omega 3 could be positive for us.

 

[Boondock]

By all means give it a go - it may even work for all I know. What I can say is that nutrition is extremely complex, and you should be wary of making simple inferences (e.g. more seafood > less insulin variation > less hair loss). There are so many factors at work that you can end up doing more harm than good with these things. The only solution is to do a lot of research.

 

[bcapop]

What do you mean with harm? A deficiency of something?

 

[Boondock]

It can mean having a deficiency of something, or it can mean having too much of it. It's possible to have too much of almost any nutrient. Take too much zinc and not enough copper, and you can get sick. Take too much omega 3 and next to no omega 6, and it won't do you much good.

Normally you'll be fine, but in the long-term there's quite a few blind spots in the research about what following specialist diets does to the body. I'm not saying it'll kill you, I just don't think it's a risk-neutral strategy either.

 

[ali777]

They consume something like 4000-5000kcal a day, that's double what we need.

So forget about trying the Inuit diet. It's part of their lifestyle and unless you have that lifestyle, you can't follow the Inuit diet.

 

[HughJass]

I don't think I could eat a baby seal. No matter how healthy those inuit are...

 

[JLL]

Stefansson, who spent a decade with the Inuit, commented that while they were healthy, they looked very old prematurely -- that when they were 60, they looked like they were 80. So from a cosmetic perspective, I'm not sure you'd want to imitate the Eskimo diet. Could be because of high protein or high PUFA (especially omega-3) intake.

Besides, high-fat, low-carb diets may in fact increase insulin resistance, to let the brain have all the available glucose instead of the muscles. Since their carb intake is so low, it's a useful adaptation and doesn't make them fat.

But if the hypothesis is "eat like the Inuit, increase insulin sensitivity, stop hair loss", it might not pan out exactly like that.

 

[bcapop]

Stefansson, who spent a decade with the Inuit, commented that while they were healthy, they looked very old prematurely -- that when they were 60, they looked like they were 80. So from a cosmetic perspective, I'm not sure you'd want to imitate the Eskimo diet. Could be because of high protein or high PUFA (especially omega-3) intake.

Besides, high-fat, low-carb diets may in fact increase insulin resistance, to let the brain have all the available glucose instead of the muscles. Since their carb intake is so low, it's a useful adaptation and doesn't make them fat.

But if the hypothesis is "eat like the Inuit, increase insulin sensitivity, stop hair loss", it might not pan out exactly like that.

High omega-3 could make you look older? Insulin Resistance with a high fat diet? Never heard or read anything like this. Do you have a reference for this?

 

[vauxall]

They also have one of the greatest omega 3 intakes. What would happen if we follow this diet?

You would probabaly have a very high risk of lipid peroxidation, that is you would age very fast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_peroxidation


Ther reason why it works with the Inuit is that in the north pole it's very cold and you need a diet extremely rich in elongated omega-3 for cold adaptation, but at lower latitudes this would probabaly be a bit too much.

I think once you introduce of couple of elongated omega-3 a day (EPA + DHA) you should be ok. Whether this has got anuthing to do with hair loss prevention, I am not sure.

 

[bcapop]

They also have one of the greatest omega 3 intakes. What would happen if we follow this diet?

You would probabaly have a very high risk of lipid peroxidation, that is you would age very fast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_peroxidation


Ther reason why it works with the Inuit is that in the north pole it's very cold and you need a diet extremely rich in elongated omega-3 for cold adaptation, but at lower latitudes this would probabaly be a bit too much.

I think once you introduce of couple of elongated omega-3 a day (EPA + DHA) you should be ok. Whether this has got anuthing to do with hair loss prevention, I am not sure.

It has been said that's it's wise to take extra antioxidants if you have a high omega 3 intake. There is also extra vitamin E in most fish oils .

http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/ ... nd_25.html

 

[vauxall]

For once the extra vitamin is fish oil is cheap and dirty synthetic vitamin E.

If you really want to follow the innuit diet, have somebody send you a couple of seals form the north pole and eat only that. When you start peeing red you will change your mind.

 

[JLL]

They also have one of the greatest omega 3 intakes. What would happen if we follow this diet?

You would probabaly have a very high risk of lipid peroxidation, that is you would age very fast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_peroxidation

Ther reason why it works with the Inuit is that in the north pole it's very cold and you need a diet extremely rich in elongated omega-3 for cold adaptation, but at lower latitudes this would probabaly be a bit too much.

I think once you introduce of couple of elongated omega-3 a day (EPA + DHA) you should be ok. Whether this has got anuthing to do with hair loss prevention, I am not sure.

Yeah, lipid peroxidation is nothing to mess around with. I used to think fish oil was the best thing since sliced bread, but now I've had to reconsider my strategy. It might help with hair loss, I don't know, but increased AGE/ALE production is not a price I want to pay.

 

[powersam]

Besides, high-fat, low-carb diets may in fact increase insulin resistance, to let the brain have all the available glucose instead of the muscles.

Not true, all research points to the opposite of this being true.

If I were to recommend a diet it would probably be the Paleolithic diet as it only contains foods that our digestive tract has had ample time to adjust to through evolution.

 

[JLL]

Besides, high-fat, low-carb diets may in fact increase insulin resistance, to let the brain have all the available glucose instead of the muscles.

Not true, all research points to the opposite of this being true.

Depends on how low-carb it is.

 

[Brains Expel Hair]

The Inuit diet is NOT recommended for anyone living in an industrialized nation. The Inuits would eat ALL of most animals and that included their digestive tracks which often times were still packed with kelp/algae and other micronutrient dense substances. This combined with the fact that their prey was all free range meaning that the animals had significantly more nutrients in their meat/organs was how they didn't die on the diet. If you try to replicate this diet with only the stuff you pick up in the supermarket you will run into serious malnutrition problems.

 

[powersam]

Besides, high-fat, low-carb diets may in fact increase insulin resistance, to let the brain have all the available glucose instead of the muscles.

Not true, all research points to the opposite of this being true.

Depends on how low-carb it is.

No it doesn't really. The lower the carbs, the better it will be for you with regards to insulin resistance. You are completely wrong.

 

[bcapop]

They also have one of the greatest omega 3 intakes. What would happen if we follow this diet?

You would probabaly have a very high risk of lipid peroxidation, that is you would age very fast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_peroxidation


Ther reason why it works with the Inuit is that in the north pole it's very cold and you need a diet extremely rich in elongated omega-3 for cold adaptation, but at lower latitudes this would probabaly be a bit too much.

I think once you introduce of couple of elongated omega-3 a day (EPA + DHA) you should be ok. Whether this has got anuthing to do with hair loss prevention, I am not sure.

Is there any proof in humans that fish oil causes lipid peroxidation?

 

[vauxall]

Is there any proof in humans that fish oil causes lipid peroxidation?

If you had bothered clicking the link to wikipedia you would have known.