Philip J. Goscienski, M.D.
October 2007
The Masai of East Africa appear to represent a health paradox: they are said to live almost exclusively on the blood and milk of their cattle, yet they have no coronary artery disease and their blood cholesterol levels are very low. Does this mean that a diet high in cholesterol and dairy products, with hardly any fruits and vegetables, is healthy for humans?
Like many legends, this one falls apart under closer examination. The Masai do not have a Stone Age lifestyle. They are pastoralists, not hunter-gatherers. Before the Agricultural Revolution, some 10,000 years ago, humans did not raise cattle and therefore did not consume milk, cheese, butter, yogurt or (pity!) ice cream.
The Masai subsist largely on the milk and blood of their cattle but they seldom eat the meat of these animals. Sheep and goats that graze on a variety of plants provide their meat. The thought of drinking animal blood is unacceptable to most of us but Europeans have used it for soups and other dishes (blood sausage) for centuries.
Unlike the choice beef, pork and lamb that your local supermarket offers, the meat from Masai sheep and goats has little saturated fat. It more closely resembles that of wild game anywhere, none of which is stuffed with grain and penned into immobility.
The anthropologists that visited these tribes in the early 1970s failed to make a critical observation. The Masai do partake of plant foods, making soups and teas from roots, grasses and bark that are rich in vitamins, antioxidants and other nutrients that help to protect them from heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer. Some of these are effective in producing the low blood cholesterol levels that are characteristic of the Masai.
These pastoralists, like their hunter-gatherer relatives in Africa, have a daily salt intake that is so low, about 600 milligrams of sodium, that it falls well below what American physicians consider a low-sodium diet — 1,000 milligrams. In other words, what we consider to be flat, tasteless low-sodium diet is actually a high-sodium diet for the Masai.
The diet of the Masai is not the only factor that explains their heart health. They have no labor-saving devices, they walk a great deal, do not smoke and they aren't exposed to industrial pollutants or modern stress, all factors that affect the development of heart disease.
Except for their clean coronary arteries and low blood pressure the Masai are not as healthy as some journalists have described them. Their increasing dependence on corn and other grains for sustenance leaves many of them, especially women and children, malnourished. Infection rates, especially among children, are high; parasitic disease, tuberculosis and malaria are common. Anemia is almost universal, just as it has been among primitive agriculturalists since hunter-gatherers became farmers.
The Masai offer us a heart-healthy model: lean meat, nutritious plant foods and an active lifestyle. We should be paying attention.
Philip J. Goscienski, M.D. is the author of Health Secrets of the Stone Age, Better Life Publishers 2005. Contact him at drphil@stoneagedoc.com.