Project Summary: >> [Background Music] In the first food trial, we want to find out if eating like an ape can radically change your health in just 12 days. Nine volunteers whose lives are at risk will go back to nature and live in a zoo. They'll have to munch their way through half a ton of raw fruit and veg, watched over by a nutritionist who will insist that they change their ways. >> We're going back 6 million years ago where man and the great ape diverged. >> Could it save their lives? >> Please step on the scale for me. >> Our nine volunteers may look healthy enough, but their diets could be killing them. Tests reveal that each one of them has dangerously high blood pressure and cholesterol levels, a leading cause of heart disease and strokes. We want to find out if changing their diet for just 12 days will make any difference to their risky state of health. Our brave volunteers will live in huts in this specially designed enclosure, just meters away from the great apes. And the new residents are already provoking interest. Can turning back the clock and eating like our nearest relatives, the apes, reverse the negative effects of our modern diet? Like apes, our ancestors ate what they could forage, mostly plants, nuts, and berries. And our early ancestor's bodies adapted over time to suit this primitive diet. They lived like this for millions of years until early humans learned to hunt and eat meat. And it's only in our recent evolutionary history that we started to ladle on the saturated fat, salt, sugar. Scientists believe that many of our modern health problems stem from a mismatch between what we ate as we evolved and the food we eat now. To get the calories they need, they will have to eat all of the food in this basket, 5-kilos of raw fruit and veg every single day. >> So that's the mushrooms. >> Look. >> Oh come on. >> That be the salt. That's all you need to have. >> The only salt in the diet comes from a solitary olive soaked in brine. >> That's it. Does it look okay? >> Yeah. >> It doesn't look enough. >> No. >> Well, there is -- there's 2300 calories there. >> Some of these calories will come from nuts and peas. A valuable source of protein. >> Not with the skin. >> You're suppose to eat the skin. >> Look at this [inaudible] broccoli. >> Don't worry, I have it covered. I've got plenty to share. >> Oh good. I was so looking forward to that. >> I've got half the forest in here. >> It's time to reveal whether eating like an ape has worked. >> Oh. That smells lovely. >> Good evening everybody. >> Before the trial, the group was eating 36 grams of saturated fats a day, each. The evolutionary diet has brought that down to a mere 10-grams. Now they're about to find out whether changing their diet for just 12 days has given them back their health. >> John, I just want to let you know, you've done fantastically. Your cholesterol's come down by 17%. So well done. Hillary, on this diet, your cholesterol has come down by 22%. >> Wow. >> From 6 to 4.7. Fantastic news. Mark, your cholesterol has come down by 19% -- >> At the start of the diet, Mark also had worryingly high levels of insulin in his blood. He risks becoming diabetic if he doesn't make lasting changes. >> -- And furthermore, your insulin has come down from 20.7 when you came in to 8. So congratulations. That's the transcript of the video above. write a a page letter to a friend topersuade a friend or family member with a chronic disease such as diabetes or heart disease that they should change their eating habits in order to become healthier. Make sure you include proven facts to persuade your friend or family member why they should change their eating habits.