I’m happy to announce that I’m working on a new project which is centered around a dietary intervention study in Greenland. The overall objective of the study is to investigate a traditional Inuit diet compared to a westernized diet in Greenland Inuit. The reason we are examining this is that the lifestyle of Inuit in Greenland is undergoing a transition from a fisher-hunter society, with a physically active lifestyle and a diet based on the food available from the natural environment, to a westernized society. Parallel to this, a rapid increase in the prevalence of lifestyle diseases such as type 2 diabetes and obesity has been observed[1]. What we are especially interested in is whether switching to a more traditional Inuit diet could improve glycemic control and thus prevent the development of type 2 diabetes.
Studies of Greenland Inuit before the 1980s found a low prevalence of type 2 diabetes compared to Western populations, however, recent population studies in Greenland have found a higher prevalence of pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes[2,3]. This might in part be explained by the transition in lifestyle, but in addition, a genetic variant increasing the susceptibility to type 2 diabetes have been found to be prevalent in the Greenland Inuit [4], thus further increasing their risk of type 2 diabetes. Therefore, the objective of our study is also to assess whether this gene modifies the effect of following a traditional Inuit diet.
What is a traditional Inuit diet? This is of course hard to examine but multiple studies have tried to assess this in Greenland throughout the last 100 years. They have found that the traditional food of the Greenland Inuit included sea mammals, fish, seafood, and to a lesser degree terrestrial animals and game birds. The sea mammals include walrus, seal meat and blubber, dried whale meat and skin. Fish are local and include halibut, cod, char, salmon and trout, and seafood such as mussels, shrimps, or crab. The terrestrial animals and game birds include lamb, caribou, musk ox, hare, guillemot, eider duck, and eggs from these birds[5–8]. This result is the traditional Inuit diet being higher in fat and protein and lower in carbohydrate compared to a westernized/Danish diet. We have designed the traditional western diet so that it will contain meat from chicken, cow, and pig, as well as having a high amount of cereal products, bread, pasta and rice (carbohydrate).
The study is designed to be a 4-week cross-over intervention study, meaning that each participant has to follow both dietary interventions for 4 weeks in a random order. The study is expected to provide relevant information in relation to whether diet has a role in preventing type 2 diabetes in Greenland and also whether this might be dependent on which genes you have. We have obtained ethical approval for the project and we are currently working on getting all the practical stuff in order so we can begin recruiting participants. The project will start in Nuuk this April, fingers crossed.
The study was initiated by Marit Eika Jørgensen, Lotte Lauritzen and I. The project is a collaboration between researchers at the University of Copenhagen, Steno Diabetes Center Copenhagen, University of Southern Denmark and University of Greenland. It is funded by The Novo Nordisk Foundation who plays no role in the design, methods, data management and analysis or in the decision to publish the results of the study.
References
[1] Hansen JC, Deutch B, Odland JØ. Dietary transition and contaminants in the Arctic: emphasis on Greenland. Int J Circumpolar Health 2008;67:1–98. doi:10.1080/22423982.2007.11864604.
[2] Jørgensen ME, Bjeregaard P, Borch-Johnsen K. Diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance among the inuit population of Greenland. Diabetes Care 2002;25:1766–71.
[3] Jørgensen ME, Borch-Johnsen K, Witte DR, et al. Diabetes in Greenland and its relationship with urbanization. Diabet Med 2012;29:755–60. doi:10.1111/j.1464-5491.2011.03527.x.
[4] Moltke I, Grarup N, Jørgensen ME, et al. A common Greenlandic TBC1D4 variant confers muscle insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Nature 2014;512:190–3. doi:10.1038/nature13425.
[5] Bjerregaard P, Jeppesen C. Inuit dietary patterns in modern Greenland. Int J Circumpolar Health 2010;69:13–24.
[6] Deutch B, Dyerberg J, Pedersen HS, et al. Traditional and modern Greenlandic food — Dietary composition, nutrients and contaminants. Sci Total Environ 2007;384:106–19. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2007.05.042.
[7] Bang HO, Dyerberg J, Hjøorne N. The composition of food consumed by Greenland Eskimos. Acta Med Scand 1976;200:69–73.
[8] Jeppesen C, Bjerregaard P, Jørgensen ME. Dietary patterns in Greenland and their relationship with type 2 diabetes mellitus and glucose intolerance. Public Health Nutr 2014;17:462–70. doi:10.1017/S136898001300013X.
EATING SCIENCE 