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They Starved, We Forgot

11/4/2012

13 Comments

 
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In 1944, Ancel Keys recruited 36 men into what would be known as the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, to study the physiological and psychological effects of prolonged and severe dietary restriction. He detailed his findings in a 1400 page, two volume book entitled The Biology of Human Starvation. These men volunteered to starve themselves and suffer for the altruistic goal of contributing to science and improving our understand of the detrimental effects a lack of food may have on human health.

Shortly after the start of the experiment, the men quickly how realized how difficult it may be to take part in this study, as the predictable signs and symptoms crept in: constant hunger, decreased body temperature, lack of libido, and a total inability to think of anything but food. A large part of their mental energy - even in their dreams as they slept - was inexorably devoted to food and hunger. There was self-mutilation, depression, anxiety, and in one man, a desire to be infected by tuberculosis simply for the opportunity to be fed and satiated once again in the hospital.

One man in particular, offered a chilling expose of what it was like to live on such little food:

"How does it feel to starve? It is something like this: I'm hungry. I'm always hungry - not like the hunger that comes when you miss lunch but a continual cry from the body for food. At times I can almost forget about it but there is nothing that can hold my interest for long. I wait for mealtime. When it comes I eat slowly and make the food last as long as possible. The menu never gets monotonous even if it is the same each day or is of poor quality. It is food and all food tastes good. Even dirty crusts of bread in the street look appetizing and I envy the fat pigeons picking at them. No food is wasted and the sight of people wasting it in restaurants is intolerable.

...I'm weak. I can walk miles at my own pace in order to satisfy laboratory requirements but often I trip on cracks in the sidewalk....This lack of strength is a great frustration. In fact it is often a greater frustration than the hunger. I eagerly look forward to the day when I can go upstairs two at a time or maybe run to catch a streetcar
.

...Social graces, interests, spontaneous activity and responsibility take second place to concerns of food. I lick my plate unashamedly at each meal even when guests are present. I don't sit near guests, for then it is necessary to entertain and talk with them. That takes too much energy and destroys some of the enjoyment that comes from my food. I no longer have that ardent desire to help millions of starving people; rather I feel akin to them and hope that I as well as they will benefit from scientific refeeding."

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So what were they eating? 

“The major food items served were whole wheat bread, potatoes, cereals, and considerable amounts of turnips and cabbage. Only token amounts of meats and dairy products were provided." But what is most striking is how much food they were given to eat: 1570 calories per day.

1570 calories a day, which is 130 calories more than the globally recommended caloric intake for a 5'3", 200 pound sedentary female with a BMI of 35.5 told to lose 1 pound per week, according to the widely accepted Mifflin-ST Jeor equation. 

How did the caloric intake of a “starvation diet” almost 70 years ago become the standard of care today?

Reading through the Biology of Human Starvation, the similarities from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment and the stories from those that have registered for AWLR are just incredible. Many of those who have registered, detailed what it was like to eat a low fat, low calorie diet before they began their new way of eating. 

Body Temperature

As one subject described in 1944: 
"I’m cold. In July I walk downtown on a sunny day with a shirt and sweater to keep me warm. At night my well fed room mate, who isn’t in the experiment, sleeps on top of his sheets but I crawl under two blankets.”

And from AWLR: 
“I was cold even in the Florida summer, I could see all the veins in my hand, and I almost passed out during a training session at the gym.” 

“I was hungry all the time; I obsessed about food to the point that I planned every meal for several days in advance. I felt cold much of the time, especially at night.”


Skin

As Ancel Keys explained: 
“At 23 weeks…19 of the 31 subjects had developed brownish patchy pigmentation of the skin" and "[a] dry and scaly skin…was reported for 15 of the 31 subjects during the twenty-third week of semi-starvation."

From AWLR: 
"AND,  MY SKIN has improved 300%.  I used to have some brown skin tags on my face and shoulder and a large one on my scalp.  Low carb diet has made them FALL off, effortlessly.”

"Even the rough skin on the heels of my feet smoothed away!"

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People are universally hungry on a low calorie diet. We need to start listening to the people consuming these diets, and how it makes them feel, instead of blaming the patient and blindly citing the USDA’s dietary guidelines, which is molded by vicious lobbying interests and political partisanship. The food industry has a direct and powerful influence on the USDA and the dietary guidelines. If you don't believe this, read Dr. Nestle's Food Politics. If you don’t believe her, you can look at what happened when the USDA recently decided to begin an interoffice “Meatless Mondays” as a way of reducing their environmental impact. What followed was an outraged president of the National Cattleman’s Beef Association condemning this idea. In response, the USDA retreated with its tail between its legs.

And why does the United States Department of Agriculture, whose mission is to “keep America’s farmers and ranchers in business,” have any say in what we are supposed to be eating? Can someone say conflict of interest?

Despite all this, in the end we can only hope that the truth will prevail.  As people register from all over the world and cast their vote for or against the potential benefits of removing grain, wheat, and sugar from their diet, the real effects (at least according to our self reported data) will slowly reveal themselves.

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13 Comments
Dea Roberts link
11/4/2012 10:41:49 am

"Hunger Therapy" is what I call the use of calorie-restricted diets. How do you know if a given diet program or recommendation is Hunger Therapy? Just ask the question - what is the person supposed to do if they are hungry and their meal limit amount or day's limit amount has been reached? If the answer is "go hungry", then it's Hunger Therapy.
We need to resist and resist the use of the nasty and dismissive euphamism "calorie counting". A revolt, Please! I would love to see people rise up and challenge each and every time calorie restriction/"counting" is used without acknowledgement of the hunger that is inherent. How is it inherent - the word "restricted" has no meaning if you are to eat when you are hungry.
Thanks for another great post.

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Larry link
11/4/2012 10:55:17 am

Thanks for the comment! Yes, it is a tragedy. I wish the naturally thin health professionals that tell their overweight patients to eat a 1200 calorie diet to lose weight, and then yell at them when they don't follow it, would just try the diet themselves for 3 days. Then try a high fat high protein diet, and see the difference.

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Dea Roberts link
11/5/2012 02:56:30 am

Trouble is, naturally slim people are different - evidenced by their slimness. They don't necessarily feel the same subjective feelings and flat energy, at least in the short term, with calorie reduction. They might not notice any difference, at least in such a short term, between "balanced" and LCHF diet. Over time they would, of course, as ketosis would be a more comfortable state than semi-starvation with enough carbs to suppress ketosis. Make it a 90 day trial and you've got something there.

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Barb link
11/6/2012 03:49:55 am

I agree. People who are slender and who have never been overweight or obese are metabolically very different. Even losing weight may not change these metabolic differences. The obese and formerly obese seem to convert food to nutrients in the body differently and inefficiently by comparison.

Jimmers Kimmers
11/4/2012 11:43:50 am

> "1570 calories a day, which is 130 calories more than the
> globally recommended caloric intake for a 5'3", 200 pound
> sedentary female with a BMI of 35.5 told to lose 1 pound per
> week, according to the widely accepted Mifflin-ST Jeor
> equation.

> How did the caloric intake of a “starvation diet” almost 70
> years ago become the standard of care today?"

Neato. How many people in this starvation study were female?
How many were 5' 3" females?

How many were 5' 3" with 70+ pounds of excess weight to lose?

Oh, right, these were all men who required an average of 3200
calories a day to maintain weight for their build and activity
levels. 3200 to 1570 calories is obviously starvation.

A 5' 3" sedentary female doesn't need 3200 calories a day to
maintain a normal weight.

So there is no comparison at all. Thanks for the laughs.

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Alex
11/6/2012 12:32:25 am

Ha! Good point actually.....

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Dana
11/7/2012 12:22:17 pm

Go to any website that calculates basal metabolic rate for height, weight, gender, and age.

If you find one that tells you to eat 1570 calories a day to maintain BMR or the non-exercise-related activities of all your bodily organs, please tell us who is running the site, so we can denounce them publicly as quacks.

And please bear in mind that you have 70 pounds of FAT to lose, not 70 pounds of mere WEIGHT. You're going to feel awfully upset if you lose those 70 pounds on semi-starvation only to go get Bod Pod or DEXA and find out a third to half of it was your muscles and bones.

Any approach to fat loss that does not take into account the endocrine system is an approach doomed to fail where it really counts--the loss of mostly fat weight, not lean mass.

At least if you insist on eating 1600 calories a day, make it all protein and fat, or as near to all as you can get. Your body needs every building-block nutrient it can get. But it makes its own glucose.

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Jimmers Kimmers
11/4/2012 11:58:04 am

> “The major food items served were whole wheat bread, potatoes,
> cereals, and considerable amounts of turnips and cabbage."

Looks like starch, starch, starch, starch, and a non-starchy
vegetable.

Gary Taubes better get on this right away and find the
participants of this experiment alive today. He needs to inform
them that their endocrine systems are not working properly, as
clearly insulin didn't react to this severe carbohydrate load
and drive fat gain, but rather, allowed them to keep losing
weight.

I'm sure Garry Taubes will enlighten them of their endocrine
disorder after he finishes dealing with the 1.73 billion Asians
who also don't properly react to carbohydrates by insulin
driving fat gain.

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Hannah Schrøder
11/4/2012 06:34:02 pm

Gary Taubes actually mentions this study in his book Good Calories, Bad Calories. He acknowledges that severe calorie restriction will in fact result in weight loss. At some point, starvation will result in weight loss, regardless of what types of foods are being consumed. The point he's arguing isn't that you can't lose weight by starvation, it's that you starve in the process. You're hungry all the time. A diet that forces you to go hungry isn't maintainable in the long term, because the drive to eat when you're hungry is too strong. If you have access to food, eventually your hunger will make you stop starving yourself.

The difference with a low-carb diet is that you don't experience hunger. Gary made a comparison in his book between this starvation study and another study in which participants were allowed to eat as much as they wanted, as long as it was of proteins and fats and their carbohydrate intake did not go above a certain level. The people in these studies ended up eating around 1600 calories, which is not much more than those in the starvation study. And yet these people were eating as much as they wanted and not feeling hungry.

Whether or not you're hungry matters.

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Diana
11/4/2012 08:23:43 pm

>"1.73 billion Asians who also don't properly react to carbohydrates by insulin driving fat gain."
Actually now that Asians are eating a SAD diet they are experiencing the same metabolic syndrome the that we are. If you are in fact referencing their high rice intake while not getting fat that phenomenon has already been answered. Those people didn't eat any sugar, wheat or processed food. They did not have a compromised digestive system. It is imperative to understand that there is much more to health then "eat less carbs, loose weight." For more info go here: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-asian-paradox-how-can-asians-eat-so-much-rice-and-not-gain-weight

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Dana
11/7/2012 12:35:16 pm

Actually, people in Asia *have* been eating wheat for a very long time now. China first got wheat around 2000 BCE, and India had it in 6500 BCE--long, long before China. Japan seems to utilize less wheat in their traditional offerings, at least if the food I've seen in my town with a high Japanese immigrant community is properly representative (and it may not be), but wheat would have been a good deal later getting to them.

But again, as I told "Kimmer" CarbSane elsewhere on this page, there's more than one way to be metabolically ill. You could be slender and have fatty liver, or metabolic syndrome, or type 2 diabetes--and if your society is all focused on fat people, they will overlook you. Also people in that situation tend to think they're normal anyway and will put off going to the doctor for that reason.

I'm still fat, but last I knew my labs were OK. (I'm overdue for a yearly checkup.) But I've known slender people with what they thought was "hereditary" high blood pressure. But they were sugar junkies who also ate a lot of wheat; I'm sure it's no coincidence. High insulin is actually the culprit in most chronic hypertension. It causes the kidneys to retain sodium, messing up the body's fluid balance. And I didn't even get that from Gary Taubes. It's known science elsewhere.

Dana
11/7/2012 12:24:14 pm

Do you notice their ribs sticking out? They're burning muscle mass as well as whatever excess fat they might have had (probably not much, considering obesity was less common back then).

Hey, if that's how you want to look, knock yourself out.

And did you think Gary Taubes invented the idea of insulin as a fat-storage hormone?

P.S. Can you be any less sensitive to people who hurt themselves on the Kimmers diet? We all know you're CarbSane. Grow up.

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Dana
11/7/2012 12:27:29 pm

And as for the Asians, (1) India has one of the highest cardiovascular disease rates in the world; (2) Asians have stayed on traditional diets for longer than we have here, which includes animal organs and copious amounts of seafood which all protect to a degree from carb overdose; (3) Asians are more prone to near-sightedness, and I have heard reports from people adopting low-carb and Paleo diets that their myopic eyesight has *improved* following the change in their diets; and (4) last I heard, the diabetes rate is skyrocketing in Japan.

But you go on and believe what you want. While you're at it, for a lark, see if you can find online the complete nutritional information for white rice, then ask yourself if you could live on that indefinitely without dying of deficiency disease.

Fatness is only one way to become metabolically or chronically ill. There are slender people walking around out there right now with fatty livers and metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. They don't know they're sick because everyone focuses on fat people.

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