Ancel Keys

Ancel Keys
Born	Ancel Benjamin Keys (1904-01-26)January 26, 1904 Colorado Springs, Colorado
Died	November 20, 2004(2004-11-20) (aged 100) Minneapolis, Minnesota
Residence	United States
Citizenship	United States
Nationality	American
Fields	Human Nutrition, Public Health, epidemiology
Institutions	University of Minnesota
Alma mater	University of California at Berkeley, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Kings College, Cambridge
Academic advisors	August Krogh
Known for	Human Nutrition, K-ration, Mediterranean diet
Spouse	Margaret Keys

Ancel Benjamin Keys (January 26, 1904 – November 20, 2004) was an American scientist who studied the influence of diet on health. In particular, he hypothesized that different kinds of dietary fat have different effects on health.

He examined the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and was responsible for two famous diets: K-rations, formulated as balanced meals for combat soldiers in World War II, and the Mediterranean diet, which he popularized with his wife Margaret. Science, diet, and health were central themes in his professional and private lives.

In the midst of arguing against his work in her book The Big Fat Surprise (2014), journalist Nina Teicholz writes that if there is a Great Man theory of history, "In the history of nutrition, Ancel Keys was, by far, the Greatest Man."^[1]

Early life

Ancel Keys was born in Colorado Springs in 1904 to Benjamin Pious Keys (1883-1961) and Carolyn Emma Chaney (1885-1960), the sister of Lon Chaney.^[2] In 1906 they moved to San Francisco before the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake struck.^[3] Shortly after the disaster, his family relocated to Berkeley where he grew up. His intellect was well-known ever since a young age, as Lewis Terman, noted psychologist and inventor of the Stanford-Binet IQ Test, identified Keys as one of the 1528 intellectually "gifted" students that he studied at Stanford.^[3] During his youth, he left high school to pursue odd jobs, such as shoveling bat guano in Arizona, working as a powder monkey in a Colorado mine, working in a lumber camp,^[4] and even working as a crewmember on a ship to China.^[3] He eventually finished his secondary education and was admitted to the University of California at Berkeley in 1922.^[4]

Higher education

At the University of California, Berkeley, Keys initially studied chemistry, but was dissatisfied and took some time off to work as an oiler aboard the S.S. President Wilson (1st), which traveled to China.^[4] He then returned to Berkeley, switched majors, and graduated with a B.A. in economics and political science (1925) and M.S. in zoology (1928).^[4] For a brief time, he took up a job as a management trainee at Woolworth's, but returned to his studies at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla on a fellowship. In 1930 he received his Ph.D. in oceanography and biology.^[4] He was then awarded a National Research Council fellowship that took him to Copenhagen, Denmark to study under August Krogh at the Zoophysiological Laboratory for two years.^[4][5] During his studies with Krogh, he studied fish physiology and contributed numerous papers on the subject.^[5] Once his fellowship ended, he went to Cambridge but took some time off to teach at Harvard University, after which he returned to Cambridge and earned a second Ph.D. in physiology (1936).^[4]

Professional

Early physiology studies

While doing fish research at Scripps, Keys would use regressions to determine the weight of fish from their length, a pioneering use of biostatistics at the time.^[6] Once in Copenhagen (1931), he would continue to study fish physiology and developed techniques for gill perfusion that provided evidence that fish regulated their sodium by controlling chloride excretion through their gills.^[5][7][8] He would also use this perfusion method to study the effects of adrenaline and pitressin on gill fluid flow^[9] and osmotic regulation in fishes.^[10] He also designed an improved Kjeldahl apparatus which improved upon Krogh's earlier design and allowed for more rapid determination of nitrogen content in biological samples.^[11] This would prove useful for activities as diverse as determining the protein content in grasshopper eggs^[12] and anemia in humans.^[13]

While at Harvard's Fatigue Laboratory, he was inspired by his Cambridge mentor John Barcroft's ascent to the top of Tenerife's highest peak and his subsequent reports. Keys wrote up a proposal for an expedition to the Andes suggesting the study could have practical value for Chilean miners that worked at high altitudes.^[4] He was given the go-ahead and, in 1935, assembled a team to study the effects of high altitude on the body,^[3] such as how it affects blood pressure.^[2] He spent a couple of months at 9,500 feet and then five weeks at altitudes of 15,000 to 20,000 feet.^[4] He noted that there was no good way of predicting how well humans might adapt to high altitude, even if they adapted well to medium altitudes, which would be a problem for potential pilots in a time before pressure control.^[14] It was from these studies that he outlined the phenomenon of human physiological adaptation to environmental changes as a predictable event, a novel idea in a time when such things as blood pressure and resting heart rate were considered immutable.^[15][16]

Development of K-rations

An example of a K-ration dinner. All the components were intended to fit into a box which would fit into a soldier's pocket

In 1936 Keys was offered a position at the Mayo Foundation in Rochester, where he would continue to carry out his studies in physiology.^[14] He only lasted a year there, citing an intellectually stifling environment where research was secondary to clinical "doc business" and playing bridge.^[4] In 1937 he would leave the Mayo Foundation for the University of Minnesota to teach physiology;^[17] He also founded the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene there. His earlier research on human physiology eventually led to an assignment with the Army Quartermaster Corps, where they worked to develop a more portable and nonperishable ration that would provide enough calories to sustain soldiers (such as paratroopers) in the field for up to two weeks.^[18] This development did not begin without some turbulence. His colleague, Dr. Elsworth Buskirk, notes:

Once the basic design had been completed, the Navy, through the National Research Council, funded the testing of the K-rations on its soldiers to determine its feasibility as a temporary and mobile food source. The initial ingredients of the K-ration were procured at a local Minneapolis grocery store—hard biscuits, dry sausage, hard candy, and chocolate.^[3] The final product was different from Keys' original ingredients, but most of Keys initial suggestions made it to the final product.^[4] The rations weighed only 28 oz (790 g), but provided 3200 calories per day.^[17] Though a few sources claim the name was unrelated to Keys,^[19] many historical references support the claim that the K-ration was indeed named after him.^[4][18][20] The K-ration became such a success that it was often used for more than temporary sustenance, becoming a major staple of military nutrition.^[4][18]

Starvation studies

During World War II, Keys produced various studies related to human physical performance that were of interest to the military, such as studying the effects of testosterone on muscle work^[21] and vitamin supplementation as a performance enhancer on adequately fed soldiers,^[22][23] among many other similar studies. It was during the war that Keys and fellow researchers recognized the importance of knowing how to properly treat widespread starvation, since simple overfeeding for so many would be imprecise and there was a potential that the refeeding would fail.^[18] To gain insight into the physiology of starvation, in 1944 Keys carried out a starvation study with 36 conscientious objectors from Civilian Public Service as test subjects in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. At the time, conscientious objectors were being placed in virtual concentration camps, with a few functioning like the Civilian Public Service, so that recruiting them would prove easier than seeking out volunteers in the general population.^[15][18] The original pool of 400 responders was reduced to 36 selectees, of whom 32 would go on to complete the study.^[24] The main focus of the study was threefold: set a metabolic baseline for three months, study the physical and mental effects of starvation on the volunteers for six months, and then study the physical and mental effects of different refeeding protocols on them for three months.^[15] The participants would first be placed on the three month baseline diet of 3200 calories after which their calories were reduced to 1800 calories/day while expending 3009 calories in activities such as walking. The final three months were a refeeding period where the volunteers were divided into four different groups.^[15] The war came to an end before the final results of the study could be published, but Keys sent his findings to various international relief agencies throughout Europe^[4] and, by 1950, he completed publication of his two-volume 1385-page Biology of Human Starvation.^[15][18]

Seven Countries Study

His interest in diet and cardio-vascular disease (CVD) was prompted, in part, by seemingly counter-intuitive data: American business executives, presumably among the best-fed persons, had high rates of heart disease, while in post-war Europe CVD rates had decreased sharply in the wake of reduced food supplies. Keys postulated a correlation between cholesterol levels and CVD and initiated a study of Minnesota businessmen (the first prospective study of CVD).^[25] At a 1955 expert meeting at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Keys presented his diet-lipid-heart disease hypothesis with "his usual confidence and bluntness".^[26] He was severely criticized and this may have stimulated him to develop the Seven Countries Study.^[27]

After observing in southern Italy the highest concentration of centenarians in the world, Keys hypothesized that a Mediterranean-style diet low in animal fat protected against heart disease and that a diet high in animal fats led to heart disease. The results of what later became known as the Seven Countries Study appeared to show that serum cholesterol was strongly related to coronary heart disease mortality both at the population and at the individual level.^[28][29] As a result, in 1956 representatives of the American Heart Association appeared on television to inform people that a diet which included large amounts of butter, lard, eggs, and beef would lead to coronary heart disease. This resulted in the American government recommending that people adopt a low-fat diet in order to prevent heart disease.

Keys had concluded that saturated fats as found in milk and meat have adverse effects opposite to the beneficial effects of the unsaturated fats found in vegetable oils. This message was obscured for a 20-year period starting around 1985, when all dietary fats were considered unhealthy. This was driven largely by the hypothesis that all dietary fats cause obesity and cancer.^[30] Recent studies question "cardiovascular guidelines that encourage high consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids and low consumption of total saturated fats,"^[31] although Walter Willett, chairman of Harvard's nutrition department, has called this evidence "seriously misleading" and claims that it should be disregarded due to its many flaws and errors.^[32]

Keys was always considered an interventionist. He generally shunned food fads and vigorously promoted the benefits of the "reasonably low-fat diets" he contrasted with "the North American habit for making the stomach the garbage disposal unit for a long list of harmful foods."^[33] Because of his influence in dietary science, Keys was featured on the cover of the January 13, 1961 issue of Time magazine.

In a 1972 article (Journal of Chronic Diseases), Keys promoted Adolphe Quetelet's body mass index (BMI) as the best of various indices of obesity.

Ancel Keys died on November 20, 2004, two months before his 101st birthday. A year earlier, he had left Pioppi, his beloved village in the Cilento region located on the southwest coast of Italy, where he had spent 28 years of his life.^[34]

Personal life

When Keys was hired at the Mayo Foundation in 1936, he hired Margaret Haney (1909–2006) as a medical technologist.^[18] In 1939 they married and had three children: Carrie D'Andrea, Henry Keys, and Martha McLain (deceased, 1991).^[35] Together, they coauthored numerous books, including Eat Well and Stay Well (Doubleday, 1959) and The Benevolent Bean (Doubleday, 1967). They also traveled the world, traveling to places like Japan and South Africa to record data for Ancel's published works such as the Seven Countries Study.^[4]

Keys was an atheist.^[36]

References

•  This article incorporates public domain material from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report".

External links

• Blackburn, Henry. "Ancel Keys". University of Minnesota. Retrieved 2007-04-15.