I attended a session of Philippine College for the Advancement in Medicine around Aug 23, 2012. One of the topics which I thought would be of interest to me was titled something like "The indigenous people's secret of health..". I thought that it would revolve more around esoteric aspects or herbalism. Lo and behold it was more a lifestyle topic.
It is strange in the sense that for many people in my other fields, whole food, exercise and other forms of clean living is actually a given and a standard. Apparently such things escaped the Medical Doctors education somewhere along the way. Much of the audience were medical professionals and I would count at least 80% of them that were health time bombs waiting to blow.
What was a sigh of relief is what the speaker (a known medical doctor) stated. Please note, it is not because of the information that she delivered but the acknowledgement that "they (indigenous people) are right and we (doctors) are wrong". The speaker talked about different subjects from sanitation, birthing in non-sterile conditions, overall health, walking 11km thru the forest to go to school, natural food, commercial milk, complex and simple carbohydrates, fats et al. How by civilized humans standards, these natives are so "pitiful" but in reality, they are so much healthier than urbanized humans.
Again, the information is irrelevant. The acknowledgement is momentous. Strange that they seem to be among the last to know the truth. I hope nobody thinks that the earth is flat. Still.