How to prevent dementia: does this Amazonian tribe hold the key? It has an 80% lower incidence than in the West

What’s good for the heart is good for the brain; studies show the Tsimané tribe has very good heart health and only about 1 per cent of its elders have dementia

A farming, fishing and foraging lifestyle helps the Tsimané keep heart and brain disease at bay, as does healthy eating, walking and community living

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The Tsimané indigenous people of the Bolivian Amazon have some of the healthiest hearts on the planet and very low rates of dementia, giving clues as to how to prevent it. Photo: Instagram / @unesco

Published: 7:15pm, 15 Apr 2024Updated: 7:16pm, 15 Apr 2024

This is the 34th instalment in a series on dementia, including the research into its causes and treatment, advice for carers, and stories of hope.

The Tsimané are an indigenous people from the Bolivian Amazon in South America. You have probably never heard of them. I had not. I had to look up how to pronounce Tsimané: chee-mah-nay.

They are a tiny population – only about 9,000 individuals spread across 80 villages and living in communities of 20 to 30 families.

And yet this small group is extraordinary. A few years ago, scientists studied them to understand their exceptional heart health: 85 per cent had almost no evidence of the calcification of the arteries that is the marker for atherosclerosis. Even those who did have some had very little.

A Tsimané man monitors a burning field in the Bolivian Amazon. The Tsimané have some of the healthiest hearts on the planet, according to cardiologist Dr Randall Thompson from Kansas City, Missouri, US. Photo: AP

Atherosclerosis causes the hardening of the arteries that plagues Western communities and keeps them popping statins to control cholesterol.

The Tsimané’s exceptional heart health is thought to be the consequence of a farming, fishing and foraging lifestyle. This includes a diet high in carbohydrates – from eating staples such as rice, plantains and maize – and a lot of walking.

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