An ecological interdependence of diet and disease? A study of infection in one tribe consuming two different diets.

The nature and incidence of infections were studied in two groups of Turkana living in the same area but eating different diets; one consumed milk only and the other a combination of fish and milk. The only apparent and significant nutritional difference between the two groups was mild iron deficiency in the milk drinkers. Episodes of fever, symptomatic infection with malaria and brucellosis, molluscum contagiosum and common warts, episodes of diarrhea, and serological evidence of infection with Entamoeba histolytica were significantly increased in Turkana eating fish. We suggest that this phenomenon may result from a disruption of a long-standing ecological compromise between the all-milk diet of the Turkana and the pathogenic organisms.