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No case of cancer was found in one tribe living in a remote region bordered by Pakistan, India and China after 60 years of medical observation.

Similarly, in two native populations of Eskimaux, no cases of cancer were reported during a period of at least 80 years after observation by medicos, missionaries, teachers, traders and others, who observed them attempting to discover the incidence of cancer.

However it is important to note that a number of cancer victims have been found among those Eskimaux who left their aboriginal dietary habits for a westernized diet.

The interesting comparison is that the first, the Karakorums of West Pakistan, maintain virtually a vegetarian diet while the Eskimaux maintain essentially a meat diet.

Ernst T Krebs Jnr made these observations in an article called “The Nitrilosides in Plants and Animals”, privately published by the John Beard Memorial Foundation in 1964.

Nitriloside is the term referring to a naturally occurring or synthetic compound which upon hydrolysis (a chemical reaction or process in which a chemical compound reacts with water) yields a molecule of a molecule of a non-sugar, or aglycone, a molecule of free hydrogen cyanide, and one or more molecules of sugar or its acid.

He considered four nitrilosides in the paper, amygdalin, dhurrin, lotaustralin and linamarin. For the purposes of the study they may be considered identical and varying essentially only the the percent of free HCN they produce upon hydrolysis by beta-glucosidase.

The diet of the Karakorums is mainly buckwheat, peas, broad beans, Lucerne, turnips, lettuce, sprouting pulse or gram, apricots including their seeds, cherries and cherry seeds, and berries of various sorts.

In order to avoid romanticizing it is worth noting that the Karakorums often suffer from goiter caused by iodine deficiency.

Though the Eskimaux follow primarily a meat diet, a berry, extraordinarily rich in nitrilosides, grows abundantly in Arctic areas. Rubus spectabilis is commonly known as salmon-berry, cloud berry or buffalo berry. It is incorporated into pemmican, a concentrated food consisting of dried pulverized meat, dried berries, and rendered fat, and eaten all seasons of the year.

In addition, the caribou is important in the diet of the Erskimaux. The frozen contents of the rumen or paunch of the caribou are used as a salad and considered a delicacy. The caribou largely feed on arrow grass (triglochin maritama) which is richer in nitrilosides that any common grass. 1 kilogram of arrow grass contains some 30,000 mg of nitrilosides.

Liver cancer is virtually unknown among the Bantu people of South Africa. But once they migrate to urban areas or the mines they adopt a diet consisting almost exclusively of low grade carbohydrates, mainly for economic reasons. Among the urbanized Bantu, liver cancer is responsible for 95% of all deaths from cancer.

Ernst Krebs concluded, “Cancer is generally considered a chronic disease. So far no chronic or metabolic disease has ever found a prophylactic or therapeutic resolution except through normally occurring accessory food factors…. It is not probable that cancer will prove the first exception.”

Dean Burk quotes Albert Schweitzer’s preface to Alexander Berglas’ “Nature, Cause and Cure”, Pasteur Institute, Paris, 1957;

“On my arrival in Gabon in 1913 I was astonished to encounter no cases of cancer. I saw none among the natives two hundred miles from the coast…I can not of course say positively that there was no cancer at all, but, like other frontier doctors, I can only say that if any cases existed they must have been quite rare.”

“This absence of cancer seemed to me due to the difference in nutrition of the natives compared to the Europeans, the most significant difference being that the natives two hundred miles from the coast consumed no salt.”

Dean Burk continues by pointing out that the greater incidence of cancer along the coast was not due to salt but to the Europeanized food with which the salt was used.

He goes on to discuss the native American populations, the differences in their diet and the 98% lower incidence of cancer when compared to the white populations. (Burk, private papers)

The reasonable person would observe that on one hand there are a number of factors different between a modern urbanized lifestyle and that of aboriginal populations living in their natural environment. Pollution, the use of chemicals in food preparation and the exposure to radio waves are some examples.

However given the striking difference in the incidence of cancer between aboriginal populations in their natural environment and modern urbanized populations one can only suspect that diet must play an important role.