Thanks for your posting, Joyce,

> The trouble with most of these mass surveys is that they take no notice of
genetics or location.

Indeed, the authors of the report make this very point.

In healthcare these days there is much worshipping (especially by politicians
and other policy-makers)) at the shrine of "Evidence-based medicine" but,
valuable though scientific medical research certainly can be, it is always
limited by the fact that it relates to a specific population and lifestyle at a
particular (and now passed!) point in time.

> eg do Inuit people eating their original diet have a high incidence of CVD or
cancer - I'm sure I've read not!

A range of indigenous populations with very physical, grounded (living in
harmony and close contact with nature) and community-based lifetyles have
high-cholesterol, high-protein, high-saturated-fat diets (and many our stone-age
ancestors did too, especially in the winter months) yet do not suffer from our
high-incidence of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer. However, many of
them die younger from other causes, especially infectious diseases and
"accidents" (including being accidentally killed by a wild animal, snake or
spider!).

There is no doubt that they can and do teach us much about avoiding the
"western-civilisation-associated" diseases, and there is much we can teach them
about hygiene and modern healthcare technology.