I found this episode of a show called Medicine Men Go Wild under the Documentary section of Rogers on Demand (digital cable).
Healthiest hearts
http://www.medicinechest.info/episodes/3two brothers (both doctors) visited a town of 400 in Chukotka, most northern east part of Russia.
another one of the heart disease "mysteries" of people living on high fat animal food diets which they wanted to study. however they mentioned that there is processed food available there today. same as anywhere.
they tested the men to find that they all had great blood lipid values.
one of the men did not have blood as great as the others. he stated his diet contained as much animal fat as the others. they wanted to understand what created this difference. in one shot I noticed that his facial structure did not appear as well developed as the rest of the men. he also had either decayed or poorly developed teeth, and he appeared to have some cystic acne on his jaw as well as scarring.
later in the show they are having lunch at his house. they find out that his favourite food is a brand of american beef hot dogs. they come in a tin can, loaded with carbs and preservatives. he says it is easier and faster to prepare than walrus so he often chooses hot dogs. his wife also loves to bake sweets/breads and spoils him with them. it is now clear to the doctors why his blood values are not so good.
the traditional diet consists of walrus, whale, fish and reindeer.
they ferment a bit of walrus fat/meat in a cool dark room for 4 months time, and consume it raw. much of the diet is consumed raw and frozen. they have to hunt for food over the summer and I guess store it frozen over winter, as the ocean freezes over.
however some of the diet appears to be cooked. they boiled all the organs of the walrus to eat when it was freshly killed.
they determined that these people can burn 4000 calories per day. I think it was from the arm band monitor they had on one of the hunters. but in general these people have active lifestyles.
they collect some type of berries. I couldn't make out the name, sounded like crayberries? in any case, they are a dark purple/black colour, and look plump and round like blueberries. traditionally they are used to relieve stomach problems.
the brothers themselves wanted to test diet on their lipid values. one took on the traditional diet of meats and fats, mostly raw, and the other took on all the processed food he could find there. of course at the end of a week or it may have been 10 days, the one eating the traditional diet had improved lipids, and the one consuming processed junk had poorer lipid values. they were surprised at how quickly diet had an effect.
the two brothers, once rowed for Oxford, they tried rowing a boat in the water. a female there was physically able to out perform them at something they had both specialized in at one time.
the men there, while fishing, had their hands in the icy cold water. they still kept warm to the touch of someone else. meanwhile the brothers had cold hands not even in the water.
they killed a whale, and the doctors were inspecting the organs as it was being butchered. the whale had completely smooth heart valves. very healthy. meanwhile its skin was full of parasites, lice, barnacles, etc.
here's about 10 mins of the beginning of the show,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q56UlEqINZA
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