This is the name of the documentary that recently aired on CBC Newsworld’s The Lens. It is actually Dr. Jay Wortman’s diet- a metis physician who believes that the soaring rates of diabetes and obesity in the aboriginal population are due to the drastic change in their diet. Dr. Wortman has a family history of diabetes and eventually developed Type II diabetes himself. He found that his health improved drastically when he made a change in his diet and lifestyle. He switched to a First Nations traditional, “pre-contact” diet consisting of “game, fish, seafood, marine lipids, and edible wild plants” *. The concept of the diet resembles that of the Atkin’s diet; cut down on carbohydrates (the sugars and starches) and load up on protein (meat and the fat that comes with it).
Dr. Wortman then decided to launch a study in the aboriginal town of Alert Bay, B.C. , to see if reverting to a traditional diet can aid in solving the obesity problem in this First Nations population. The study is funded in part by the University of British Columbia and the Namgis Health Centre. Dr. Wortman is still in the process of collecting data, but results so far are looking good! Check out his personal blog for constant updates.
IMAGE CREDIT: Here.
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This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 8:42 pm and is filed under Controversy, Culture, Education, Film, Fitness, Food/Restaurants, Health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I am digging the fact that doctors and more and more professionals are blogging and keeping people a part of the process of their work. Great article Haneen - but I am wondering if u agree with him or if u are also critical of his ties with Atkins?
Good question Jark. I will try and think through the answer out loudly.
So, the body has 3 sources of fuel, and uses them in the following order: 1) carbohydrates 2) fat 3)protein (usually the body does not tap into this last source unless you’ve been starving, because this constitutes mainly your muscles). Out of the 3 fuel sources, fat has the most Cal/g value (each gram of fat contains 9 Cal of energy, whereas carbohydrates and protein give you 4 Cal/g).
So, the logic behind the Atkin’s diet, as I understand it, is this: limit the first source of energy, the carbohydrates, so that your body has to constantly tap into the fat sources for energy.
I personally don’t believe in the atkin’s diet as a long-term diet because I think (again this is all personal opinion based on what I know) that if you’re eating a high fat diet, the calories will start adding up eventually (due to the high Cal/g content in fat), unless you also do loadss of exercise. Also, if you do give in and snack on some carbohydrates after having not had any in a while, your body will cling on to those carbohydrates like there’s no tomorrow because the body wants to always have a carbohydrate store since it can be easily mobilized for quick energy.
Having said this, I think the situation in an aboriginal population is different. Here’s a population that has not had time to genetically evolve with the diet…their diet changed so drastically in such a short period of time. I’ve read theories about “the thrifty gene” in aboriginal people, that makes their bodies store carbohydrates very efficiently because their traditional diet did not contain much carbohydrates. Now that their diet consists of a lot of refined sugar, rice and flour, that gene is working against them…
In short, do I believe in an Atkin’s diet? Not to the extreme that the diet takes it. I believe that N. Americans eat too much carbs, but I don’t think that one should completely eliminate them from our food. Do I think that Dr. Wortman is sincere? Yes. Like I said, I think the aboriginal population is unique because of what I’ve described above.
Sorry if this was long-winded (it’s longer than my actual post!), but I couldn’t just state my opinion without explaining my logic…
Hope this answers your question!
Haneen — it does and I think I would love to encourage all types of commentary, especially long and, above all, brilliant.
I’m going to ask a few of my Aboriginal peers ’bout thrifty genes, and see what they have to say about it. Talk soon.