A fundamental understanding of health

[NoTiGG]

One of the biggest misconceptions that the majority of people have about health.... is that the reason why primitive people get sick when we interact with them(as in on the frontier with the native american indians) is because all of the diseases that we have formed protections against is because of our exposure to them... which leaves the more primitive people defenseless since they haven't been exposed before and thus they get disease. This is a great example of the lack of understanding of how disease and health works... because the real reason primitive people get sick is because we bring with us not disease but our food... which once they partake of over time it decreases their natural immunity.

[JTA Mom]

Ummm, no. The majority of indigenous people of the Americas (North, Central & South) died before having assimilated enough to change their dietary habits. To use your example, the majority of Native Americans died due to diseases BEFORE they partook of the settlers' food. In fact, the major die-off happened in the first few decades of contact & spread beyond where the settlers were. Once small pox transferred to one indigenous group, it quickly took off from there and spread to other groups, even if those groups didn't come into contact with the settlers. Disease migration & all.

However, the current high prevalence of degenerative diseases like diabetes, High Blood Pressure, etc is due to poor diet, that is true.

As for current infectious diseases (TB, cholera, etc), primitive people are just as susceptible of falling ill as other people are. The death rates are higher because most do not have access to medical care. Most (current) primitive people who live like their ancestors did (not the ones forced onto reservations, etc) do not really partake of western food much, if at all. The nomadic lifestyle makes it difficult to do so. But even if they eat like westerners, their rate of falling ill/dying is the same as other western groups, once lack of access to medical care is accounted for.

Ami

[Rafaela]

: I just can't describe how much a agree with that. While a healthy diet is extremely important, it can't protect us against everything.

[MamaEli]

OP, are you quoting this out of somewhere? Just wondering.
Regardless, I would encourage you to read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. It explains much of the concept of disease and primitive populations in great detail.
However, it is true that in people groups that have been exposed to Western food ideals for a generation or two our dietary diseases are quite prevailant. A good example are many of my friends in Kenya, who now consume large quantities of white flour, margarine, sugar, and and artificial "juices." There is now a high degreee of miscarriage, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer in the Nairobi area that has many people scratching their heads. (Purely anecdotal, I have no scientific studies to prove this.)

[Attached Mama]

Yes, when native cultures adapt an inferior diet, they are susceptible to many more diseases.

However, historically, many cultures and many people were wiped out by new diseases *long* before they ever tasted "the white man's" food. It is true that their bodies had just never been exposed to the diseases Europeans brought with them and thus had not even a first line of defense for them.