Sami lifestyle and health - risk associations of a low whole-grain diet
Lena Nilsson1, Bethany Van Guelpen2
The influence of various dietary patterns, such as the Mediterranean diet and high-protein, low carbohydrate diets, on health has received considerable attention in recent years.The Sami people, indigenous people of Scandinavia and Northern Finland, are known to have a lower incidence of total cancer and a somewhat different incidence pattern concerning cardiovascular disease compared with non-Sami people. Previous studies have reported a high level of physical activity, a high intake of boiled coffee and protein, and a low intake of fibre and whole grain as characteristics of the traditional Sami lifestyle.
The aim of this project is to relate the traditional Sami diet pattern, and selected dietary elements typical to the Sami lifestyle, to the risk of cancer and cardiovascular endpoints in population based data from Northern Sweden, Norway and Finland. The studies will have a nested case-referent or case-cohort design, and the Swedish data will be based on subjects from the population-based cohorts of the Northern Sweden Health and Disease Study with food frequency questionnaire data available. These include the Västerbotten Intervention Study (VIP) and the WHO Multinational Monitoring of Trends and Determinants in Cardiovascular Disease (MONICA), both of which contribute to the European Prospective Investigation into Nutrition and Cancer (EPIC). A Sami-diet-score will be constructed based on VIP food frequency questionnaires filled in by reindeer herding and non-reindeer herding Sami, as well as on semi-quantitative interviews with elderly Sami people concerning the dietary habits and lifestyle of their parents.
We hope that this study will give rise to a better understanding of the health impacts of specific dietary components, such as whole grain, as well as dietary patterns, such as local ancient diets. Since the traditional Sami lifestyle is rapidly being replaced by a more western lifestyle, it is crucial that Sami dietary patterns that might be associated with health effects are identified before they disappear.
Download a PowerPoint-presentation of the project here.
1PhD Student, Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Nutritional Research, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
2PhD, Main supervisor, Department of Medical Biosciences, Pathology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.