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Comment by tcbawo | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting that the article points to a high carbohydrate diet as being one of the takeaways. I suspect some people will glom onto this data point (see, sugar isn't bad!) despite their largely unprocessed diet and constant physical activity into old age.

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What kind of carbs though? Beans actually have a lot of carbs even after subtracting fiber but I don't think anyone thinks they're unhealthy.

Exactly, I didn't see it in the article but I think it's a good guess their carb intake has somewhere near zero processed/simple sugars and processed carbs. They are eating "whole foods."

One thing I'm interested in is other than animal sources, what what fat sources do they have in their diet. Nuts is one thing that was mentioned. I wonder if they extract any oils for cooking from vegetable sources.

Do they need more fat in their diet? They aren't buying 15% fat ground beef and nicely trimmed steaks and they probably aren't discarding the skin of the fish they catch.

Total lack of dairy struck me as well (I'm quite capable of demolishing half a pound of a nice Cheshire cheese and I like butter on my toast)

It says right in the article... "Most of the rest comes from family farms growing rice, maize, manioc root (like sweet potato) and plantains (similar to banana)... It is topped up with foraged fruit and nuts."

The paleo people, in fact, do think they're unhealthy: https://paleoleap.com/beans-and-legumes/ http://www.marksdailyapple.com/beans-legumes-carbs/

From the links:

>"eating a handful of lentils as a snack every now and again probably wouldn’t be any more problematic than eating a handful of cashews, but that’s just not the way people eat lentils."

>"Legumes (beans, lentils, chickpeas, split peas, etc.) aren’t, by any means, the worst thing you can eat, but they don’t make the ideal meal either."

"The paleo people" also think a diet of 100% meat is unhealthy. Your links do identify what the paleo community associates as unhealthy traits in legumes, but both of the links advocate constraint not abstinence... unlike say... Twinkies or Wonder Bread.

And massive survivor bias

I thought that as well when reading the article, however, the authors of the study did claim the following...

"The researchers have been studying this group for a long time so it is not simply a case of the unhealthy Tsimane dying young."

The key being how long is a 'long time'? Enough for one complete generation?

Some information on mortality rates would be useful as well.

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6rf56475#page-50

20% of people dies before reaching adulthood and only 50% passes the 55 mark.

on a side, it's incredible the amount of information one can dig out of internet

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