Body & Fitness

The people with the healthiest hearts in the world

What lessons can we learn from the people with the healthiest hearts on the planet?

The Tsimane people of Bolivia have been found to have the healthiest hearts in the world, a study in medical journal the Lancet has shown.

Based in the forests of the South American nation, the Tsimane are described as an “incredible population,” and have a number of around 16,000.

The group, who have retained customs similar to other ancient human civilizations, fish and farm on the Maniqui River in the Amazon rainforest.

Teams of scientists who have been studying them for many years, have found that the people living in these regions have the best heart health of all, with even older members of their society being in exceptional health.

Scientists were focused on the presence of coronary heart calcium (CAC) in the Bolivian people, as compared to a sample of westerners.

The presence of CAC is usually a sign of clogged arteries and other blood vessels – that can lead to a heart attack.

What they found was that in the Tsimane people studied, at the age of 45 almost none of them showed CAC in their arteries, whereas 25% of Americans did.

Even at the age of 75, only a third of the population showed a presence of CAC, whereas in Americans, 80 per cent did.

So what lessons can we learn from them?

The Tsimane people are thought to have the healthiest hearts in the world

Diet

The diet of the Tsimane is 72 per cent carbohydrates, a larger percentage than most westerners who take in around 50 per cent.

They consume far less fat than the standard American, though they consume about the same amount of meat. The difference is that the meat Tsimane consume is leaner.

They eat wild pig, tapir and capybara (the world’s largest rodent), with smaller amounts of protein coming from piranha and catfish.

The rest of their diet is made up of rice, maize, manioc root (like kumara) and plantains (like banana). They also forage for fruit and nuts.

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Fitness

They are far more physically active than the average American, taking in around 17,000 steps a day, with even the older members of the population taking about 15,000.

For most westerners, we struggle to hit the 10,000 mark.

Professor on the study Michael Gurven told the BBCthat the Tsimane show we need to take a more holistic approach to physical exercise rather than resigning it to the weekend.

“Bicycle to work, take the stairs, write your story on a treatdmill desk,” he suggests.

“The modern world is keeping us alive, but urbanisation and the specialisation of the labour force could be new risk factors [for an unhealthy heart].”

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