4

THE LONG-LIVED PEOPLE OF VILCABAMBA, HUNZA, AND GEORGIAN RUSSIA

Reports of many people remaining vigorous into extreme old age are the stuff of popular legend, and Vilcabamba, Hunza, and Georgian Russia have generated their share. Isolated and remote when studied in the 1970s, Vilcabamba is a village in the Vilcabamba Valley in the Andes Mountains of southern Ecuador. Hunza too is remote and mountainous, an ancient kingdom near the borders of China and Afghanistan in the high valleys of the Himalayas in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Georgian Russia covers a much larger area, and it is mountainous as well. One of the three former Soviet republics of the Caucasus region, it has a population of some five million people.

VERIFYING AGES AND HEALTH STATUS

Many people in these three places have claimed to be well over 100 years old. Attempts to verify the stated ages involved several independent methods that were matched against each other. Documentation of dates of birth—such as church baptismal records—were considered the most reliable. Passports, old letters, and even the carved woodwork of some homes in which birth dates had been recorded all proved useful as well.

In the 1971 census, the village of Vilcabamba listed 9 individuals over the age of 100 in a population of 819. The number of other centenarians living on small farmsteads in surrounding mountains and hamlets is unknown. However, Ecuador is Catholic, and church baptismal records have been carefully made and preserved there for centuries. As we shall see, these church records were extremely helpful when validating the existence of centenarians in Vilcabamba. Many old people in Hunza claimed to be over 100, but there was no recording of births there, so ascertaining the veracity of this is more difficult.

In the 1970s, Georgia reported 1,844 centenarians, or 39 per 100,000 people; for some, birth records existed. In comparison, centenarians numbered 3 per 100,000 in America.

In Hunza and Georgian Russia, alleged experts on “life extension” have discredited all reports of great longevity there because a common practice in these places was for a man to take his father’s or grandfather’s name, and with it his age, to avoid compulsory military service. This may indeed have occurred, and some Hunzas and Georgians may well have exaggerated their ages to investigators. But these are not reasons to discredit all claims of great longevity among the men and women of these areas.

Several medical investigators took pains to verify the ages of oldsters in Georgia and Vilcabamba and have stated with reasonable certainty that a number of these people were more than 120 years old, and many others were well over 100. Soviet gerontologists report that Russia’s oldest man died at the age of approximately 168.

In the studies undertaken in the 1970s, each oldster was questioned about his or her age at marriage, the time interval until children were born, and the present age of children. Memories of events of historical and local importance were recorded. Calculations of the person’s age made from this data correlated well for 704 centenarians in Georgia whose ages were known from birth records; for 95 percent, the calculated age exactly matched the age on the birth record. For the rest, the error averaged 5 percent, and in no case was the error more than 10 years.

Verification was more difficult in Hunza because the absence of written records made it impossible to confirm exact ages. But as in Vilcabamba and Georgia, investigators agree that physical vigor in extreme old age, rather than the age itself, most impressed visitors. The old men and women lived in the mountains and were farmers, and often the men had been hunters or herdsmen (a few over 90 still were). Since early childhood, everyday life had involved much walking and other exercise, and these individuals continued to walk and work, usually until shortly before death.

THE WORK OF DR. DAVID DAVIES IN VILCABAMBA

Dr. David Davies, then a gerontologist at University College in London, did a thorough job of documenting the ages of a number of centenarians in Vilcabamba. He made four trips to the Vilcabamba Valley and the surrounding mountains between 1971 and 1973. In The Centenarians of the Andes (1975), he describes these trips.

Davies spent a great deal of time in churches searching baptismal records. The priests would not let these books out of sight, thus the books never left the church premises. The earlier records were made of parchment with a skin covering; some dated back to 1655. Dry climate and care had preserved them in highly legible condition.

Baptismal records of people still living dated to 1847; one individual was 126 at the time of the investigation. Records were found for several others who were older than 120. Death certificates were found for four people who had lived to 150 and died in the 1920s and 1930s in the mountains near the Vilcabamba Valley. The records had been kept by Jesuits, who in those years controlled the export of Peruvian bark found in the area, at great profit. As a source of quinine, it was then the chief medicine for malarial fevers. Davies points out that the Jesuits certainly would not have wanted to attract visitors by creating a longevity myth, and one can think of no reason why they would have falsified the documents.

Civil registers were kept separately beginning around 1900 in state offices in the different villages; these too recorded births and deaths. In these registers, deaths of the old people, births of their children, and wedding dates were recorded. These dates of death matched those in the church records. Other dates were used to corroborate life-history methods of estimating age. These data were checked for correlation with the documentation and stated ages of individuals.

Children and grandchildren were also interviewed to further corroborate the ages of the centenarians, as were other oldsters of about the same age. Interviews were held separately to prevent possible prompting. Memories of the old people are described as remarkable, and the various methods consistently verified ages listed in baptismal records. Davies’ reasonable conclusion: “We have been entirely satisfied that the ages of these centenarians are authentic.”

He further reported these people were lucid, agile, and active in old age, and did not have cancer, heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, or other diseases afflicting people in modern cultures—diseases that were common in towns just fifty miles away. Even in the village of Vilcabamba and other villages in the valley, chronic disease had begun appearing with the introduction of refined foods. When centenarians who had moved down from the mountains to be near younger relatives were exposed to these foods, they were less healthy; in some, symptoms of diabetes appeared.

Centenarians had nearly always spent their lives on their small mountainside farms outside the villages. When remaining there, they eventually experienced a time when health declined and aging occurred rapidly. Typically, within a few months death came.

Davies discovered two problems in the health of Vilcabambans. First, mortality in infancy and early childhood was high. This he discovered in examining church baptismal records; 40 percent died of epidemics and viruses before the age of three. And second, the vast majority of older people, including most centenarians, lost most or all of their teeth at a fairly early age. The gums were firm; individuals could chew foods easily, but were without many teeth during their later years. This was in contrast with Georgians, whose teeth generally remained excellent into extreme old age. We’ll return to these problems later.

THE WORK OF DR. ALEXANDER LEAF IN VILCABAMBA, HUNZA, AND GEORGIAN RUSSIA

An article that appeared in National Geographic in January 1973 entitled “Every Day Is a Gift When You Are Over 100,” is an account of long-lived people by Dr. Alexander Leaf and John Launois. Dr. Leaf, a physician and teacher at Harvard University, spent parts of two years traveling in Vilcabamba, Hunza, and Georgian Russia. In the Abkhazia region of Georgian Russia, he interviewed a woman by the name of Khaf Lasuria who, he concluded, was more than 130 years old. She was the one who spoke the immortal words of the article’s title: “Every Day Is a Gift When You Are Over 100.”

She recalled events of her life for Leaf in great detail. She had retired from her work as a tea-leaf picker two years prior. After she had passed the age of 100, in the 1940s, she had held the record as the collective farm’s fastest picker. Still independent, she took care of herself, regularly taking a bus alone to a distant village to visit relatives, keeping a garden, and caring for her chickens and pigs (which are rich in saturated fat).

She greeted the doctor with a toast of vodka; she drank a small glass of it each morning, and a glass of wine before lunch. Each household in Abkhazia had its own vineyard and made its own wine. The wine was dry and drunk fresh. It was a source of enzymes, minerals, and other nutrients, and many old people drank two or three glasses of it a day. On festive occasions, many Abkhazians drank considerable amounts of grape vodka (also homemade) and wine. But the older people often abstained from vodka and their wine glasses were smaller!

Rather amazingly, Khaf Lasuria smoked about a pack of cigarettes a day—and she inhaled! She began smoking in 1910. A small number of old people in these three regions smoked, but many reportedly did not inhale.

Leaf was surprised to find a handful of overweight centenarians in Georgia, but they too worked and walked vigorously in the mountains. Exercise is almost certainly one key to longevity.

OTHER GERONTOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN VILCABAMBA, HUNZA, AND GEORGIAN RUSSIA

A Russian gerontologist studied more than 15,000 people older than the age of 80 in Georgia and found that more than 70 percent of them walked regularly in the mountains and more than 60 percent of them still worked. Oldsters who failed to maintain useful roles tended to die sooner.

With modern investigative techniques, one Georgian cardiologist and gerontologist, Dr. David Kakiashvili, tested the hearts and lungs of many of the old. He found many had silent cardiovascular diseases that had never caused any symptoms. All had exercise-induced superior cardiopulmonary function, which he believed was protecting them. Dr. Miguel Salvador, a well-known and respected Ecuadoran cardiologist, extensively studied 338 elderly Vilcabambans and found only 1 with a weak heart.

In several studies (dating back to 1932) of the Abkhasians that were made by other Georgian gerontologists, only the slightest signs of heart conditions were ever found, these in some of the very old. No reported cases of cancer occurred in a nine-year study of 123 people who were more than 100 years old; the vast majority were also found to have good neurological and psychological stability. A study of the vision of another group over the age of 90 found that 40 percent of the men and 30 percent of the women were able to thread a needle without glasses; hearing was good in 40 percent of the group.

Further evidence of an absence of chronic diseases in Vilcabamba was provided by Dr. Jorge Santiana, a cancer specialist and an associate of Salvador. Santiana also visited Vilcabamba and examined many of its elderly. He found only one growth—benign.

Most old people in Georgia were married. The study of 15,000 Georgians older than 80 revealed that, with rare exceptions, only married people attained extreme age. Many couples had been married upward of seventy and eighty years. Among centenarians, 91 percent of the women had two or more children; 68 percent had four or more. Only 2.5 percent were childless. Among both men and women, a strong interest in sexual activity was considered normal into old age; an active sex life well into one’s nineties was not unusual.

In contrast, Davies had found in Vilcabamba that most women older than 100 had never married. The life of married women there was considerably harder; they were overworked, treated as sexual objects, and exhausted by middle age. Of fifty married women interviewed, all but one over the age of 25 had between four and fourteen children, many more than the women in Georgia.

People of the cultures discussed above expected to live long lives; young people interviewed spoke of living to 100. Old people enjoyed high social status and were esteemed for their wisdom and experience. Multigeneration extended-family households were universal, and the word of the eldest family members was generally regarded as law. Even people well over 100 continued tending animals, gardening, caring for children, working in the fields on a limited basis, and performing domestic chores.

Common elements are present among long-lived people, but having a long and healthy life is an individual matter. In dietary matters as in other habits, each person—within the framework of what was available—set his or her own patterns. Individual diets undoubtedly had an influence on individual longevity.

Foods used in the three regions have much in common, but there is conflicting and somewhat confusing evidence. We’ll now examine the diet of each place to provide a basis for contrasts, comparisons, and conclusions.

THE IMPACT OF DIET ON LONGEVITY

In Georgian Russia

Soviet gerontologists studied dietary habits of 1,000 people over the age of eighty, including more than 100 centenarians. These oldsters consumed plenty of animal products, including plenty of fatty pork and whole milk. They ate lots of vegetables as well, along with their meat, milk products, and eggs. The proportions were nearly identical to the average found in contemporary hunter-gatherer cultures and correspond with estimates of the diet of hunter-gatherer cultures existing at the beginning of the agricultural revolution.

The caloric intake of these Georgians was estimated at seventeen hundred to nineteen hundred calories per day. This is very low, especially considering their high level of physical activity. Soured raw milk, usually from goats, and raw-milk cheeses were consumed at nearly all of their meals. Eggs were commonly eaten as well. Most people kept chickens, goats, and often pigs and sheep. These animals were eaten regularly, always including the organ meats, and there were many meat courses on festive occasions. Protein intake was estimated to be between seventy to ninety grams per day.

Vegetable gardens were kept by most people. Fruits were common, but were not a large part of the diet. Grain staples included whole-grain bread baked in outdoor ovens and unflavored cornmeal-mush patties eaten with sauces spiced with hot red pepper. Homemade butter and homemade wine, as well as pork, were consumed daily, and many people enjoyed small amounts of homemade grape vodka.

In Vilcabamba and in Coastal Ecaudor

The village of Vilcabamba lies thirty miles southwest of Loja, a small town some five hundred mountainous miles south of Quito, the capital of Ecuador. Vilca means “sacred” and bamba means “valley” in the language of the Quechua Indians who once inhabited the area. Legend has it this valley was the original paradise of Adam and Eve; myths and romantic stories abound. Visitors say a very special atmosphere permeates the place.

The valley is nearly at the equator, and the altitude at the village is a little over five thousand feet. The temperature is steady year-round—usually about sixty-eight degrees at midday. Chief crops of the valley and adjacent mountain slopes are wheat, barley, yucca root, corn, and some grapes. Coffee and sugarcane are grown for export. A wide variety of green vegetables, legumes, celery, cauliflower, and cabbages are also grown.

Most of the elderly lived on small mountain farms and grew vegetables and raised animals. Soured milk products were consumed, though less so than in Georgia. By some reports, the Vilcabambans ate little animal protein—an average of twelve grams per day—according to an Ecuadoran medical team that studied the elderly there. But Davies details typical meals with centenarians that included raw or lightly boiled eggs, cottage cheese—high in fat, made fresh from cows’ or goats’ milk—and occasionally fresh meat. Many centenarian families had more meat because one member was a herdsman. Pigs were kept and pork was commonly eaten. Both eggs and cheese were commonly consumed as well, although less so than in Georgia because Vilcabamba was poor and its people could not keep as many animals as the Georgians.

Few English-speaking people had visited Vilcabamba when Davies wrote his book. Scant original information about their diet has been written; most accounts are repetitions of the few original reports, particularly that of the Ecuadoran medical team. Davies’s book indicated that more eggs, milk products, and meat were eaten by old people than had been reported in several popular books by individuals who had never visited Vilcabamba.

Davies spent time in the mountains visiting centenarians, and he learned that they all kept chickens and dairy animals and often pigs. Davies tells of his stay with one centenarian family. At dawn, the old man hiked fifteen minutes up a steep mountainside to his fields, bringing back fresh corn while his wife gathered eggs around the house. These foods would typically be lightly boiled and eaten with homemade brown bread, boiled beans, homemade raw cottage cheese, and perhaps yucca, wild potatoes, fruits, or green vegetables. Meat and organ meats were eaten if an animal had been killed recently.

Vilcabamban villagers, who were more accessible to other investigators, did not keep as many animals as the Vilcabambans who lived in the mountains.

The Ecuadoran medical team did not single out centenarians in their studies of the elderly; their data, based on a sampling of older people in the village, did not specifically reflect the average diet of centenarians.

The details of the diets of centenarians as a group and of individual centenarians might provide invaluable clues about longevity. A detailed examination of the food and lifestyles of individual centenarians (including analysis of fat-soluble nutrients and vitamin and mineral content) would add another dimension to our understanding of these people. Other considerations would include the quality of the soil and the health and diet of animals used for milk, meat, and eggs.

Many Vilcabambans had only limited amounts of animal foods; the amounts were not quite adequate for many of the people. More were available to Georgians, and fishermen centenarians certainly were richly supplied. The Vilcabambans suffered from loss of teeth, perhaps because their diets lacked adequate fat-soluble protective nutrients found only in animal-sourced foods. But foods available to them were of the highest quality and were sufficient both to protect them from most problems and to give many of them great longevity.

These issues are complex. While many claimed Vilcabambans lived so long because they consumed little food of animal origin, I believe that the evidence indicates they lived so long in spite of it. What they did consume was of the highest quality, and most likely provided high levels of fat-soluble vitamins.

Witness the Georgian centenarians. The very old eventually lost some teeth, but Davies and other investigators report that most had very good teeth. Mortality rates of infants and young children were low. The diet was rich in meat and dairy foods of the highest quality and also in fat-soluble nutrients, which were found in substantial quantities only in these foods and in fish. These nutrients are known to control mineral metabolism (thus the effect on dental health), benefit the immune system, and have a host of other profound beneficial effects. Like the Ecuadoran team’s study, the study in Georgia of one thousand people over the age of eighty grouped all data and presented averages; no search was made for differences between diets of centenarians and those of the rest of the elderly.

The high mortality rates that Davies found among the young in Vilcabamba also may be explained in part by these same considerations; many simply did not have sufficient strength to resist disease. Apparently nutrition that is adequate in most ways for adults is not adequate for the very young or for pregnant women. Imagine a population living in a way conducive to good health and longevity, and eating optimal foods, but without quite enough of certain foods and associated nutrients. Some problems must appear somewhere—although the people as a whole may be healthy and many might live to be very old. Is it not logical and even expected that nature would find a way to limit the population and prevent further scarcity? Nature’s way is to take the weakest of the young, both in human and in wildlife populations.

Birth control was practiced by virtually all native cultures that Weston Price studied. These cultures were conscious of the need to space children at least three years apart, and they accomplished this through customs and tribal laws. Further, to ensure healthy children, women ate special foods before and during pregnancy and while nursing. Young children ate special foods as well.

Any such customs regarding the spacing of children among Vilcabambans were lost as they became Roman Catholics after the arrival of the Spanish; the practice of any form of birth control was forbidden. Very large families, with no planned spacing of children, resulted, along with frequent deaths among infants and young children and reduced longevity among the women.

Among elderly Vilcabambans, even with the loss of teeth, their gums and jaws remained strong. The misery accompanying the decay and extensive loss of teeth that marked the introduction of refined foods in the cultures Price studied was conspicuously absent; teeth simply fell out in middle and later years. The people had the strength and resilience to adapt to this loss.

Vilcabambans ate more meat and milk products when they were available, for example, if one family member was a herdsman. Their consumption of animal foods was limited by scarcity rather than choice.

Several elements of Vilcabamban life are disconcerting, including the high death rate among the young and the dental problem. Davies also observed that the men often did not treat the women very well and tended to drink excessively quite frequently. Married women spoke of being unhappy with their lot in life, as did some very old women who had never married. Many people smoked (compared with only a few in Georgian Russia). The balance and happiness found in the people of Georgia was seldom seen among the Vilcabambans, except perhaps among the mountain farmers.

Two other men reportedly more than 125 years old both lived on the coast of Ecuador and had been fishermen, as was the case for the majority of that country’s isolated individual centenarians. Davies did not investigate them because he believed that isolated, remarkable individuals might live to a great age simply because of their great stamina. His interest was in examining environments where large numbers of centenarians lived, looking for influences upon the aging process. But Davies writes that in his previous studies of surviving primitive cultures (he had led expeditions studying several primitive societies and had authored several books about his work) he often found individuals living to a great age near the sea.

This is a significant clue in understanding longevity because the quality of animal life of the sea is similar to that of the dairy products, eggs, and meat produced in the mountains of Vilcabamba, Georgian Russia, and Hunza. Protective nutrients richly supplied in fish, free-ranging animals, milk products, and eggs from such animals are common elements in diets of coastal and mountain centenarians throughout the world.

In Hunza

Hunza, in the Himalayas, was isolated when studied by Dr. Alexander Leaf in the 1970s. The nearest air travel was to Gilgit, Pakistan, and even then only in good weather, through a narrow mountain gorge. Several days’ travel over difficult mountain roads was then required to reach Hunza. Permission to visit, granted by the Pakistani government and the ruler of Hunza, was difficult to obtain. Those who visited were unable to accurately document the ages of the elderly, for there was neither a written language nor birth records, and as a result, the reports of Western visitors are conflicting.

Sir Robert McCarrison, a British physician who worked in India for nearly thirty years, spent much of his time between 1904 and 1911 in Hunza. He later wrote in Studies in Deficiency Diseases that the people were “unsurpassed in perfection of physique and in freedom from disease in general. . . . The span of life is extraordinarily long. . . . I never saw a case of asthenic dyspepsia, of gastric or duodenal ulcer, or appendicitis, of mucous colitis, or cancer.” The Hunzas and their diet inspired McCarrison’s animal-feeding experiments.

John Clark’s Hunza, Lost Kingdom of the Himalayas, was published in 1956 and detailed his twenty months in Hunza in 1950 and 1951. The holder of a doctorate in geology, Clark was a professor and research associate at Princeton University at the time of his book’s publication. He had first spent time in the Far East as an army engineer during World War II, and subsequently returned on his own to see what he could do to help what he described as a small, poverty-stricken Asian country. He had training in anatomy, first aid, and public health, plus he had twenty years of field experience in first aid, obtained while working as a geologist in remote areas.

Clark’s purpose in Hunza was both humanitarian and political; he wanted to teach the people technological expertise about farming, animal husbandry, and modern woodcrafting, which would enable them to raise their standard of living and turn away from possible Communist influences. While he did not formally survey the health and longevity of the people, he did record in detail his observations and experiences.

At the urging of the mir, the hereditary ruler of the country, Clark set up a medical dispensary upon his arrival. He describes the people as desperately poor, sometimes malnourished, and much in need of medical help for a variety of problems, including malaria, dysentery, worms, impetigo, goiter, dental decay, rickets, and tuberculosis. He saw many of these problems daily during his entire time in Hunza, often treating fifty to sixty people a day, using antibiotics, sulfa drugs, and antimalarials he had brought into the country. Eventually he was forced by the Pakistani government to leave; his plans for helping the Hunzas improve their way of life and escape poverty had been rejected.

The book Hunza Land: The Fabulous Health and Youth Wonderland of the World, by Renée Taylor, based on her travels in Hunza, was published in the early 1960s and was followed by a film, Hunza: The Valley of Eternal Youth. Taylor wrote several other books about Hunza, stating there was little or no sickness of any kind, no need for doctors, and that Hunza was “the land of just enough.” She stayed at the Royal Palace and quotes the mir extensively. She wrote that many of the people were more than 100 years old and that virtually everyone was healthy and happy. No documentation was offered about the health status of any of the people.

Alexander Leaf wrote of Hunza that he had an impression of many extremely fit and vigorous old people moving about the very mountainous countryside. A picture of a man said to be the oldest in Hunza and claiming to be 110 is shown; Leaf regarded the age as approximate. Leaf apparently did little field work or interviewing in Hunza, and his only comment on the Hunzas’ health and longevity was to report that the mir, from his personal knowledge of the states’ history, verified the ages of many of the elderly.

The above accounts indicate that some people in Hunza likely enjoyed quantities of raw grass-fed dairy products, but that for many the diet may at times have been sparse in animal foods because few families could afford more than one or two animals. The country is in the high Himalayas, and villages and farms are largely built on steep valley hillsides; usable land is crowded. Clark wrote there was no winter pasture, and summer pasture was much overgrazed; the land would maintain few animals.

Chapatti was a mainstay of the diet. It is a flatbread made from wheat, barley, buckwheat, or millet flour freshly ground from whole grain—kneaded and baked over an open fire. Sprouted seeds were consumed, as were fresh vegetables; the people all farmed small plots of land. Apricots, mulberries, grapes, and walnuts were grown; the grapes were made into homemade wine. Apricot seeds were both eaten and made into an edible oil. When an animal was butchered, every possible edible portion was consumed. Clark wrote that this would typically be only twice a year; then meat would be eaten for a week or so.

Milk available was mostly from goats; milk and buttermilk was often used sour. Butter and cottage cheese were made. Those who cared for animals in high summer pastures likely ate much of these foods; most of the population had less.

Robert McCarrison’s account of Hunza is an objective medical report by a physician who knew the country well. McCarrison was one of the fathers of modern nutritional science; a list of his experiments, research papers, and the honors he received during his career would fill pages. His character, creative intelligence, and ability to record objectively the situation in turn-of-the-century Hunza cannot be questioned.

Reports since then are both scarce and conflicting. John Clark’s previously mentioned book, Hunza, Lost Kingdom of the Himalayas, is a well written and carefully constructed account of his nearly two years of living among the people of Hunza. The illnesses he reported were acute infectious processes and deficiency states, rather than chronic diseases. Prevailing problems may well have reflected deficiencies of adequate nutrients from animal sources, compounded in some cases by inadequate total caloric intake. The Hunzakuts went through a period each spring, just before fresh foods began growing, when very little food was available.

The legend of Hunza was strong before John Clark’s time in the kingdom. He writes in his preface: “I wish also to express my regrets to those travelers whose impressions have been contradicted by my experience. On my first trip through Hunza, I acquired almost all the misconceptions they did: The Healthy Hunzas, The Democratic Court, The Land Where There Are No Poor, and the rest—and only long-continued living in Hunza revealed the actual situations. I take no pleasure in either debunking or confirming a statement, but it has been necessary clearly to state the truth as I experienced it.”

There is no reason to doubt Clark. Taylor’s and other later accounts were written by some of the few Westerners who were allowed into the country; their visits were brief. As guests of the mir who stayed at his palace, they may have seen no more than the ruler wished. A film was made, this too perhaps influenced by official decisions about content. The creation of a myth may have been considered desirable. The myth has been further perpetuated by popularizers of vegetarian and largely vegetarian diets.

Early and reliable reports such as McCarrison’s established Hunza as a rather special and healthy place; hence it was that much easier to later create and perpetuate a popular legend. But if McCarrison’s account of Hunza from 1904 through 1911 and Clark’s account of Hunza in 1950 and 1951 are both accurate, we are left to account for why things changed.

This is difficult. The capacity of the land may have been overextended; by the time of Clark’s tenure in Hunza every square inch was in use. But in a land that prospered for more than two thousand years, why did problems develop in less than fifty? It seems likely that some refined foods had been introduced. For whatever reasons, John Clark’s book makes clear that by 1950, a small but significant percentage of the people of Hunza suffered from problems directly caused by inadequate nutrition; he reports treating more than five thousand people during his time in the country.

CONCLUSIONS ABOUT LONG-LIVED PEOPLE

Conflicting reports generate controversy, but we are left with reasonable proof that people in Vilcabamba and Georgian Russia lived to be very much older than most authorities state is possible, and that they did so with great vigor. This may have been the case in Hunza as well. An extremely active, emotionally rewarding life and a special kind of natural diet featuring foods from grass-fed animals appear to be the influences most responsible.

Georgians have demonstrated the most resistance to health problems, whereas Vilcabambans and Hunzas suffered from problems uncommon in Georgian Russia. The Georgians alone obtained sufficient amounts of protective nutrients, especially fats that were richly supplied by their grass-fed meat and dairy foods.

IMPACTS OF THE TRADITIONAL AMERICAN DIET ON LIFE EXPECTANCY

Foods that rural preindustrial America relied upon were similar to those consumed by the residents of Georgian Russia. One hundred twenty-five years ago, half of Americans lived on farms. They made bread from whole grains; grew vegetables and stored and preserved the surplus; raised beef cattle on grass without chemicals and hormones; kept chickens, pigs, and dairy animals at pasture; fished in creeks and rivers; and hunted for wild game. Many people living near the coast fished daily; others combined elements of farming and fishing life. People spent their days outdoors, working. They walked a lot.

Their milk and cheeses were raw and high in fat, their gardens free of pesticides, their grains whole, their animals healthy, free of hormones, and eating their natural diets. The diet of American farm people included lots of butter, cream, and lard. This was roughly the diet of Georgian Russians and of traditional people everywhere who cultivated plants and kept animals for food.

These people were largely free of the diseases of civilization—hypertension, heart disease, arthritis, colitis, obesity, diabetes, cancer, and stroke—to name the more common. Well into the twentieth century in America, these diseases had nowhere near the prevalence they have today.

The average age of death in America in 1900 was forty-five to fifty years of age. But one-third of all babies died in infancy or early childhood, keeping the average down. Sanitation in cities was poor, and the nutrition of people in cities did not begin to compare to that of people who lived on farms. Antibiotics and advances in public health, combined with resultant improvements in sanitation, have drastically reduced death among the young. Average life expectancy is thus up to seventy-five years, but the average forty-year-old today can expect to live only four years longer than the average forty-year-old could expect to live in 1900. Health and quality of life for the elderly have declined; the very prevalence of chronic disease implies extended suffering that in the past occurred on a much more limited scale.

One hundred years ago, many deaths at very young ages caused the average life expectancy to be only forty-five to fifty years, despite the fact that many people lived to be sixty, seventy, eighty, and older. A somewhat larger percentage of people today live to those ages; the claim is made that this is why there is a rising incidence of chronic disease. But the moderate increase in the percentage of people living longer today has been nowhere nearly enough to account for the increases of several hundred percent that have occurred in the incidence of each of the diseases mentioned above. Each now afflicts many people before they reach fifty or even forty. While unusual or even rare among the population as a whole 100 years ago, most of these diseases were then nearly or literally unheard of at age forty or fifty.

Protective nutrients are found in the native diets Weston Price studied, in the raw-food diets of Pottenger’s experiments and clinical work (detailed in the next chapter), in ancestral and contemporary hunter-gatherer diets, and in the diets of long-lived people. When present, these nutrients exert extremely beneficial effects; their relative deficiency in modern diets may well prove to be the ultimate cause of the growing epidemic of modern degenerative diseases.

In the next chapter we will examine the nutrients that are found in raw foods, and detail the work of Dr. Francis Pottenger, Jr., who studied the effects of raw food in cats.