This link is to a recent press release, 27 October 2013,
The epiphany hit when professor Grant Schofield was working between the tiny Pacific Islands of Kiribati and Vanuatu on a public health mission.
On Vanuatu he found most of the population were healthy and happy, living the way they always had, in isolated villages with minimal input from the outside world. On low-lying Kiribati, however, where the people rely heavily on foreign aid, nearly all the adults were overweight or obese. The children were malnourished. Rampant diabetes meant the hospital was amputating up to 20 limbs a week.
“I left Kiribati thinking, ‘there’s no reason for optimism here’,” said Schofield. “In public health, you’re always positive, but I remember flying out on that plane and thinking, forget sea-level rise, these people have a much bigger problem.”
The difference? The food. Specifically, the amount of carbohydrates. In Vanuatu, the people eat the same way they have for decades - on fresh produce they grow or catch themselves - mainly fish, vegetables and coconuts.
About 60 per cent of their calories come from fat, more than double the average New Zealand intake. There was very little carbohydrate, just a small amount of rice.
Meanwhile, on Kiribati, the islanders survive on a staple of cheap imports such as soft drinks, white rice, flour, sugar, tinned fish and instant noodles.
“That’s when the penny dropped,” Schofield said. “Two islands - one running on real food, the other on the cheapest energy available - processed carbohydrates. If you ever wanted evidence that processed carbohydrates damage humans, you should go to Kiribati and have a look for yourself.”
It was that moment that prompted Schofield, a professor at the Auckland University of Technology’s Human Potential Centre, to return to New Zealand and try a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet for himself.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/wellbeing/9327862/Fighting-fat-with-fat
