High Carbohydrates and Low Calories. Where Have We Seen This?
Twelve men were put on 1400-2100 calorie diets while a second group of twelve was also studied for comparison purposes. Francis Benedict of the Carnegie Institute wanted to find out if he could lower body weights by 10 percent and get the men to maintain the new body weights for another two months.
The results were published in a seven-hundred page report called, Human Vitality and Efficiency Under Prolonged Restricted Diet. The men lost the weight but they complained constantly of hunger and of being cold. Several found it nearly impossible to keep warm even with an excessive amount of clothing. They also experienced a 30-percent decrease in metabolism. If they consumed more than 2100 calories in a day, a third to a half less than they ate prior to the experiment, they regained the weight they lost. There were significant decreases in blood pressure and pulse rate; they suffered from anemia, they were unable to concentrate and there was a marked weakness during physical activity. They experienced a decrease in sexual interest and expression. The effects of the diet were confirmed in the second group of men who manifested all of these symptoms after only a few days of dieting.
The men were warned not to overeat after the dieting but all of them “invariably over-ate.” In particular, the cravings for sweets and accessory foods of all kinds (read: snacks) were indulged. They regained all lost body weight and body fat in less than two weeks. Within another three weeks, they gained eight pounds on average. Basically they were all heavier after the experiment than when they started.
In 1944, Ancel Keys and colleagues at the University of Minnesota set out to replicate Benedict’s work and explore the effects of semi-starvation diets in the hopes of studying the effects of starvation Allied troops would experience as they liberated Europe. They used thirty-two conscientious objectors over twenty-four weeks followed by another twelve to twenty-four weeks of rehabilitation. These men consumed 1,570 calories per day split between two meals. They ate whole wheat bread, potatoes, cereals, and considerable amounts of turnips and cabbage. Only token amounts of meats and dairy products were provided. The amounts were 400 calories of protein, 270 calories of fat and 900 calories of carbohydrates. This amount was roughly half the calories the subject consumed to maintain their weight prior to the experiment.
The experiment was expected to yield 20 percent weight loss or forty pounds in a two-hundred pound person aided by walking five to six miles per day, which would burn another two to three hundred calories. These men lost on average 12 pounds of fat in the first 12 weeks and they lost three more pounds of body fat by the end of twenty-four weeks. Weight loss was not the only physiological response to the diet. Nails grew slowly, hair fell out, very little bleeding after a wound, pulse rates and basal metabolism were markedly reduced, reflexes slowed and very little could make the men perform overt action. They described themselves in terms of “growing old” and they were constantly cold just like Benedicts subjects. Keys conscientious objectors reduced their total energy output by over half in response to a diet that gave them half of what they preferred. Keys and colleagues described this as a reasonable response to calorie deprivation.
The complaints of the men are contained in fifty pages of the two-volume final report by Keys and his colleagues, The Biology of Human Starvation. The men constantly talked about food and they compulsively collected recipes and studied cookbooks. They chewed gum, drank coffee and water to excess and they watered down their soups to make them last. The anticipation of being fed made their hunger worse. They dreaded waiting in line for their meals and threw tantrums when the cafeteria staff seemed slow. After two months, they enacted a buddy system because the subjects could no longer be trusted to leave the laboratory without breaking their diets. One subject failed to lose weight while two others exhibited behavior bordering on psychosis. During week eight, the subject who failed to lose weight binged on sundaes, milk shakes, penny candies, and broke down crying with talk of suicide and threats of violence. He was committed to the psychiatric ward at the University Hospital.
Another subject lasted until week seven and suffered a complete lack of willpower. He ate several cookies, a bag of popcorn, and two overripe bananas before he could regain control. A third subject took to chewing forty packs of gum a day. Two others were dropped from the study since their weights failed to drop. They were suspected of cheating.
Keys relaxed the dietary restriction and gave them men 3,000 calories but hunger remained unappeased. The depression deepened for many of the subjects. In the very first week of rehabilitation, another subject cracked. His personality deterioration culminated in two attempts at self-mutilation.
Even during the final week when the subjects were allowed to eat to their heart’s content, they remained perversely unsatisfied. They were eating 8,000 calories per day but many insisted they were still hungry even though they were incapable of ingesting more food. Once again the men regained weight remarkably fast. By the end of the rehabilitation period, the subjects added an average of 10 pounds of fat to their pre-experiment levels. They weighed five percent more than when they arrived in Minneapolis the year before. They had 50 percent more body fat.
3 Responses
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
on June 10, 2009 at 8:56 am
Permalink
[...] Zeroing In On Health – The Blog! » High Carbohydrates and Low … [...]
on June 10, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Permalink
[...] three more pounds of body fat by the end of twenty-four weeks. See the original post here: Zeroing In On Health – The Blog! » High Carbohydrates and Low … Share and [...]
on June 27, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Permalink
[...] Zeroing In On Health – The Blog! High Carbohydrates and Low … [...]