In 1990, Dr. Staffan Lindeberg, a Swedish physician, conducted an extensive field study in the island of Kitava, Papua New Guinea. Its inhabitants were horticulturalists and dietary staples were cultivated tubers (mainly yam, sweet potato and taro, but also small amounts of cassava), supplemented by fruits, leaves, nuts (including coconut), fish, maize and beans. Electricity, telephones, and motor vehicles were absent, and the average level of physical activity was classified as moderate-to-active. Among the various conclusions of this cross-sectional study, the most striking were: 1) the superiority of various biomarkers among Kitavans, when compared to a sex and age-matched Swedish control population, notwithstanding their low protein and high carbohydrate and saturated fat diet; 2) the apparent absence of common western diseases, despite the existence of a significant number of elderly individuals, the exceedingly high prevalence of smoking and betel chewing among adults, and a high parasitic and infectious burden.
PhD candidate and Researcher at Lund University (Sweden), and at the European University of Madrid (Spain). BSc and MSc in Human Nutrition.The title of his talk is “Revisiting the Kitava study.”
