AHS22

The Lötschental was the first alpine valley Weston A. Price visited in his search for peoples free from dental degeneration. He stated: “The [Lötschentalers] . . . have neither physician nor dentist because they have so little need for them,” thereby reinforcing the romantic image (think of Heidi) of healthy mountain dwellers. But some critics of Price’s world-wide studies ask: “What about the high child mortality and short life expectancy of the groups Price studied?” thus by innuendo questioning the quality of those groups’ diets. Recent village genealogies of three of four Lötschental villages provide data for quantitative estimates of child mortality and longevity over hundreds of years. This presentation will describe the ongoing analysis of the data and point out factors other than food quality that complicate the story. Iodine deficiency, the potato’s appearance, genetic factors, and Swiss medical tourism boosterism all affected either real mortality or what Price was told.