Minnesota Starvation Experiment
Encyclopedia
The Minnesota Starvation Experiment, also known as the Minnesota Semi-Starvation Experiment, the Minnesota Starvation-Recovery Experiment and the Starvation Study, was a clinical study performed at the University of Minnesota
between November 19, 1944 and December 20, 1945. The investigation was designed to determine the physiological and psychological effects of severe and prolonged dietary restriction and the effectiveness of dietary rehabilitation strategies.
The motivation of the study was twofold: First, to produce a definitive treatise on the subject of human starvation
based on a laboratory simulation of severe famine
and, second, to utilize the scientific results produced to guide the Allied relief assistance to famine victims in Europe and Asia at the end of World War II
. It was recognized early in 1944 that millions of people were in grave danger of mass famine as a result of the conflict, and information was needed regarding the effects of semi-starvation—and the impact of various rehabilitation strategies—if postwar relief efforts were to be effective.
The study was developed in coordination with the Civilian Public Service
(CPS) and the Selective Service System
and utilized 36 men selected from a pool of over 200 CPS volunteers.
The study was divided into three phases: A twelve-week control phase, where physiological and psychological observations were collected to establish a baseline for each subject; a 24-week starvation phase, during which the caloric intake of each subject was drastically reduced—causing each participant to lose an average of 25% of their pre-starvation body weight; and finally a recovery phase, in which various rehabilitative diets were tried to re-nourish the volunteers. Two subjects were dismissed for failing to maintain the dietary restrictions imposed during the starvation phase of the experiment, and the data for two others were not used in the analysis of the results.
In 1950, Ancel Keys
and his colleagues published the results of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment in a two-volume, 1,385 page text entitled The Biology of Human Starvation (University of Minnesota Press). While this definitive treatise came too late to substantially impact postwar recovery efforts, preliminary pamphlets containing key results from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment were produced and used extensively by aid workers in Europe and Asia in the months following the cessation of hostilities.
was the lead investigator of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. He was responsible for the general supervision of the activities in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene and was directly responsible for the X-ray analysis and administrative work for the project. Keys founded the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene at the University of Minnesota in 1940 after leaving positions at Harvard’s Fatigue Laboratory and the Mayo Clinic. Starting in 1941, he served as a special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of War and worked with the Army to develop rations for troops in combat (K-rations). Keys served as Director for the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene for 26 years, and retired in 1972 after a distinguished 36-year career at the University of Minnesota.
Olaf Mickelsen was responsible for the chemical analyses conducted in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene during the Starvation Study, and the daily dietary regime of the CPS subjects—including the supervision of the kitchen and its staff. During the study, he was an associate professor of biochemistry and physiological hygiene at the University of Minnesota and received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1939.
Henry Longstreet Taylor had the major responsibility of recruiting the 36 CPS volunteers used in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, maintaining the morale of the participants and their involvement in the study. During the study he collaborated with Austin Henschel in conducting the physical performance, respiration and postural tests. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1941 and joined the faculty at the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene, where he held a joint appointment with the Department of Physiology. His research concentrated on problems in cardiovascular physiology, temperature regulation, metabolism and nutrition, aging and cardiovascular epidemiology.
Austin Henschel shared the responsibility of screening the CPS volunteers with Taylor for selection in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment and, in addition, had charge of the blood morphology and scheduling all the tests and measurements of the subjects during the course of the study. He was a member of the faculty in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene and the Department of Medicine at the University of Minnesota.
Josef Brožek (1914–2004) was responsible for psychological studies during the Starvation Study, including the psychomotor tests, anthropometric measurements and statistical analysis of the results. Brožek received his PhD from Charles University in Prague, Czechoslovakia
in 1937. He emigrated to the United States in 1939 and joined the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene at the University of Minnesota in 1941, where he served in a succession of posts over a 17-year period. His research in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene concerned malnutrition and behavior, visual illumination and performance, and aging.
s already inducted into public wartime service. Keys obtained approval from the War Department to select participants from the CPS.
In early 1944, a recruitment brochure was drafted and distributed within the network of CPS work camps throughout the United States. Over 400 men volunteered to participate in the study as an alternative to military service; of these, about 100 were selected for detailed examination. Drs. Taylor, Brožek, and Henschel from the Minnesota Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene traveled to the various CPS units to interview the potential candidates and administer physical and psychological tests to the volunteers. 36 men were ultimately selected who demonstrated evidence of the required mental and physical health, the ability to get along reasonably well within a group while enduring deprivation and hardship, and sufficient commitment to the relief and rehabilitation objectives of the investigation to complete the study. The subjects were all white males, with ages ranging from 22 to 33 years old. Of the 36 volunteer subjects, 25 were members of the Historic Peace Churches
(Mennonite
s, Church of the Brethren
and Quakers).
The 36 CPS participants in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment were: William Anderson, Harold Blickenstaff, Wendell Burrous, Edward Cowles, George Ebeling, Carlyle Frederick, Jasper Garner, Lester Glick, James Graham, Earl Heckman, Roscoe Hinkle, Max Kampelman
, Sam Legg, Phillip Liljengren, Howard Lutz, Robert McCullagh, William McReynolds, Dan Miller, L. Wesley Miller, Richard Mundy, Daniel Peacock, James Plaugher, Woodrow Rainwater, Donald Sanders, Cedric (Henry) Scholberg, Charles Smith, William Stanton, Raymond Summers, Marshall Sutton, Kenneth Tuttle, Robert Villwock, William Wallace, Franklin Watkins, W. Earl Weygandt, Robert Wiloughby and Gerald Wilsnack.
Control Period (12 weeks): This was a standardization period when the subjects received a controlled diet of approximately 3,200 calories of food each day. The diet of the subjects who were close to their “ideal” weight was adjusted so as to maintain caloric balance, while the diets of the underweight and overweight individuals was adjusted so as to bring them close to their ideal weight. On average, the group ended up slightly below their “ideal” weight. In addition, the clinical staff of the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene routinely conducted a series of anthropometric, physiological and psychological tests designed to characterize the physical and mental health of each participant under normal conditions.
Semi-Starvation Period (24 weeks): During the 6-month semi-starvation period, each subject’s dietary intake was cut to approximately 1,560 calories per day. Their meals were composed of foods that were expected to typify the diets of people in Europe during the latter stages of the war: potato
es, rutabaga
s, turnip
s, bread
and macaroni
.
Restricted Rehabilitation Period (12 weeks): The participants were divided into four groups of eight men; each group received a strictly-controlled rehabilitation diet, consisting of one of four different caloric energy levels. In each energy-level group, the men were further subdivided into subgroups receiving differing protein and vitamin supplements regimes. In this manner, the clinical staff examined various energy, protein and vitamin strategies for re-nourishing the subjects from the conditions of famine induced during the semi-starvation period.
Unrestricted Rehabilitation Period (8 weeks): For the final rehabilitation period, caloric intake and food content was unrestricted but carefully recorded and monitored.
During the starvation period, the subjects received two meals per day designed to induce the same level of nutritional stress for each participant. Since each subject had distinct metabolic characteristics, the diet of each man was adjusted throughout the starvation period to produce roughly a 25% total weight loss over the 24-week period. The researchers tracked each subject's weight as a function of time elapsed since the beginning of the starvation period. For each subject, the weight versus time plot was expected—as well as enforced—to form a particular curve, the prediction weight-loss curve, whose characteristics were decided prior to the commencement of the experiment. The postulated curves turned out to be quite predictive for most subjects. If a subject did veer off his curve in any given week, his caloric intake for the next week would be adjusted, by varying the amount of bread and potatoes, to bring him back to the curve; however, the required adjustments were usually minor. The shapes of the curves were chosen “based on the concept that the rate of weight loss would progressively decrease and reach a relative plateau” at the final weight. For each subject, the weight vs. time curve was taken to be quadratic in time (in fact, an upward-opening parabola
) with the minimum
located at 24 weeks, at which point the weight is supposed to be equal to the final target body weight (the minimum is where the curve has zero slope
; this corresponds to the “plateau” mentioned above). Mathematically, this means that the curve for each subject was given by
where
is the time (measured in weeks) elapsed since the beginning of the starvation period, 
is the subject’s weight at time 
, and 
is the final weight that the subject was supposed to reach at the end of the 24-week period. The constant 
is determined by the requirement that 
be the initial weight 
, i.e. by solving
for
; this gives
The authors expressed this in terms of the percent total weight loss
,
(which, as stated above, was supposed to be about 25% for all subjects), obtaining
Throughout the duration of the study each man was assigned specific work tasks, was expected to walk 22 miles each week and required to keep a personal diary. An extensive battery of tests was periodically administered, including the collection of metabolic and physical measurements; X-ray examinations; treadmill performance; and intelligence and psychological evaluation
.
Among the conclusions from the study was the confirmation that prolonged semi-starvation produces significant increases in depression, hysteria and hypochondriasis as measured using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) (a standardized test administered during the experimental period). Indeed, most of the subjects experienced periods of severe emotional distress and depression. There were extreme reactions to the psychological effects during the experiment including self-mutilation (one subject amputated three fingers of his hand with an axe, though the subject was unsure if he had done so intentionally or accidentally). Participants exhibited a preoccupation with food, both during the starvation period and the rehabilitation phase. Sexual interest was drastically reduced, and the volunteers showed signs of social withdrawal and isolation. The participants reported a decline in concentration, comprehension and judgment capabilities, although the standardized tests administered showed no actual signs of diminished capacity. There were marked declines in physiological processes indicative of decreases in each subject’s basal metabolic rate (the energy required by the body in a state of rest), reflected in reduced body temperature, respiration and heart rate. Some of the subjects exhibited edema (swelling) in their extremities, presumably due to the massive quantities of water the participants consumed attempting to fill their stomachs during the starvation period.
and bulimia nervosa
. As a result of the study it has been postulated that many of the profound social and psychological effects of these disorders may result from undernutrition, and recovery depends on physical re-nourishment as well as psychological treatment.
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
between November 19, 1944 and December 20, 1945. The investigation was designed to determine the physiological and psychological effects of severe and prolonged dietary restriction and the effectiveness of dietary rehabilitation strategies.
The motivation of the study was twofold: First, to produce a definitive treatise on the subject of human starvation
Starvation
Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy, nutrient and vitamin intake. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, death...
based on a laboratory simulation of severe famine
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...
and, second, to utilize the scientific results produced to guide the Allied relief assistance to famine victims in Europe and Asia at the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. It was recognized early in 1944 that millions of people were in grave danger of mass famine as a result of the conflict, and information was needed regarding the effects of semi-starvation—and the impact of various rehabilitation strategies—if postwar relief efforts were to be effective.
The study was developed in coordination with the Civilian Public Service
Civilian Public Service
The Civilian Public Service provided conscientious objectors in the United States an alternative to military service during World War II...
(CPS) and the Selective Service System
Selective Service System
The Selective Service System is a means by which the United States government maintains information on those potentially subject to military conscription. Most male U.S. citizens and male immigrant non-citizens between the ages of 18 and 25 are required by law to have registered within 30 days of...
and utilized 36 men selected from a pool of over 200 CPS volunteers.
The study was divided into three phases: A twelve-week control phase, where physiological and psychological observations were collected to establish a baseline for each subject; a 24-week starvation phase, during which the caloric intake of each subject was drastically reduced—causing each participant to lose an average of 25% of their pre-starvation body weight; and finally a recovery phase, in which various rehabilitative diets were tried to re-nourish the volunteers. Two subjects were dismissed for failing to maintain the dietary restrictions imposed during the starvation phase of the experiment, and the data for two others were not used in the analysis of the results.
In 1950, Ancel Keys
Ancel Keys
Ancel Benjamin Keys was an American scientist who studied the influence of diet on health. In particular, he hypothesized that different kinds of dietary fat had different effects on health....
and his colleagues published the results of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment in a two-volume, 1,385 page text entitled The Biology of Human Starvation (University of Minnesota Press). While this definitive treatise came too late to substantially impact postwar recovery efforts, preliminary pamphlets containing key results from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment were produced and used extensively by aid workers in Europe and Asia in the months following the cessation of hostilities.
Principal investigators
Ancel KeysAncel Keys
Ancel Benjamin Keys was an American scientist who studied the influence of diet on health. In particular, he hypothesized that different kinds of dietary fat had different effects on health....
was the lead investigator of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. He was responsible for the general supervision of the activities in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene and was directly responsible for the X-ray analysis and administrative work for the project. Keys founded the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene at the University of Minnesota in 1940 after leaving positions at Harvard’s Fatigue Laboratory and the Mayo Clinic. Starting in 1941, he served as a special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of War and worked with the Army to develop rations for troops in combat (K-rations). Keys served as Director for the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene for 26 years, and retired in 1972 after a distinguished 36-year career at the University of Minnesota.
Olaf Mickelsen was responsible for the chemical analyses conducted in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene during the Starvation Study, and the daily dietary regime of the CPS subjects—including the supervision of the kitchen and its staff. During the study, he was an associate professor of biochemistry and physiological hygiene at the University of Minnesota and received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1939.
Henry Longstreet Taylor had the major responsibility of recruiting the 36 CPS volunteers used in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, maintaining the morale of the participants and their involvement in the study. During the study he collaborated with Austin Henschel in conducting the physical performance, respiration and postural tests. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1941 and joined the faculty at the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene, where he held a joint appointment with the Department of Physiology. His research concentrated on problems in cardiovascular physiology, temperature regulation, metabolism and nutrition, aging and cardiovascular epidemiology.
Austin Henschel shared the responsibility of screening the CPS volunteers with Taylor for selection in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment and, in addition, had charge of the blood morphology and scheduling all the tests and measurements of the subjects during the course of the study. He was a member of the faculty in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene and the Department of Medicine at the University of Minnesota.
Josef Brožek (1914–2004) was responsible for psychological studies during the Starvation Study, including the psychomotor tests, anthropometric measurements and statistical analysis of the results. Brožek received his PhD from Charles University in Prague, Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
in 1937. He emigrated to the United States in 1939 and joined the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene at the University of Minnesota in 1941, where he served in a succession of posts over a 17-year period. His research in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene concerned malnutrition and behavior, visual illumination and performance, and aging.
Participant volunteers
An essential ingredient for the successful execution of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment was the availability of a sufficient number of healthy volunteers willing to subject themselves to the year-long invasion of privacy, nutritional deprivation and physical and mental hardship necessary to complete the study. From the outset, the experiment was planned in cooperation with the Civilian Public Service and the Selective Service System, with the intention of utilizing volunteers selected from the ranks of conscientious objectorConscientious objector
A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, and/or religion....
s already inducted into public wartime service. Keys obtained approval from the War Department to select participants from the CPS.
In early 1944, a recruitment brochure was drafted and distributed within the network of CPS work camps throughout the United States. Over 400 men volunteered to participate in the study as an alternative to military service; of these, about 100 were selected for detailed examination. Drs. Taylor, Brožek, and Henschel from the Minnesota Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene traveled to the various CPS units to interview the potential candidates and administer physical and psychological tests to the volunteers. 36 men were ultimately selected who demonstrated evidence of the required mental and physical health, the ability to get along reasonably well within a group while enduring deprivation and hardship, and sufficient commitment to the relief and rehabilitation objectives of the investigation to complete the study. The subjects were all white males, with ages ranging from 22 to 33 years old. Of the 36 volunteer subjects, 25 were members of the Historic Peace Churches
Peace churches
Peace churches are Christian churches, groups or communities advocating Christian pacifism. The term historic peace churches refers specifically only to three church groups among pacifist churches: Church of the Brethren, Mennonites including the Amish, and Religious Society of Friends and has...
(Mennonite
Mennonite
The Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist denominations named after the Frisian Menno Simons , who, through his writings, articulated and thereby formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders...
s, Church of the Brethren
Church of the Brethren
The Church of the Brethren is a Christian denomination originating from the Schwarzenau Brethren organized in 1708 by eight persons led by Alexander Mack, in Schwarzenau, Bad Berleburg, Germany. The Brethren movement began as a melding of Radical Pietist and Anabaptist ideas during the...
and Quakers).
The 36 CPS participants in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment were: William Anderson, Harold Blickenstaff, Wendell Burrous, Edward Cowles, George Ebeling, Carlyle Frederick, Jasper Garner, Lester Glick, James Graham, Earl Heckman, Roscoe Hinkle, Max Kampelman
Max Kampelman
Max Kampelman, born Max Kampelmacher , is former head of the American delegation to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. He was born in New York...
, Sam Legg, Phillip Liljengren, Howard Lutz, Robert McCullagh, William McReynolds, Dan Miller, L. Wesley Miller, Richard Mundy, Daniel Peacock, James Plaugher, Woodrow Rainwater, Donald Sanders, Cedric (Henry) Scholberg, Charles Smith, William Stanton, Raymond Summers, Marshall Sutton, Kenneth Tuttle, Robert Villwock, William Wallace, Franklin Watkins, W. Earl Weygandt, Robert Wiloughby and Gerald Wilsnack.
Goals and methods
The primary objective of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment was to study in detail the physical and psychological effects of prolonged, famine-like semi-starvation on healthy men, and their subsequent rehabilitation from this condition. To achieve these goals, the 12-month study was parsed into four distinct phases:Control Period (12 weeks): This was a standardization period when the subjects received a controlled diet of approximately 3,200 calories of food each day. The diet of the subjects who were close to their “ideal” weight was adjusted so as to maintain caloric balance, while the diets of the underweight and overweight individuals was adjusted so as to bring them close to their ideal weight. On average, the group ended up slightly below their “ideal” weight. In addition, the clinical staff of the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene routinely conducted a series of anthropometric, physiological and psychological tests designed to characterize the physical and mental health of each participant under normal conditions.
Semi-Starvation Period (24 weeks): During the 6-month semi-starvation period, each subject’s dietary intake was cut to approximately 1,560 calories per day. Their meals were composed of foods that were expected to typify the diets of people in Europe during the latter stages of the war: potato
Potato
The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...
es, rutabaga
Rutabaga
The rutabaga, swede , turnip or yellow turnip is a root vegetable that originated as a cross between the cabbage and the turnip; see Triangle of U...
s, turnip
Turnip
The turnip or white turnip is a root vegetable commonly grown in temperate climates worldwide for its white, bulbous taproot. Small, tender varieties are grown for human consumption, while larger varieties are grown as feed for livestock...
s, bread
Bread
Bread is a staple food prepared by cooking a dough of flour and water and often additional ingredients. Doughs are usually baked, but in some cuisines breads are steamed , fried , or baked on an unoiled frying pan . It may be leavened or unleavened...
and macaroni
Macaroni
Macaroni is a variety of moderately extended, machine-made, dry pasta made with durum wheat. Macaroni noodles do not contain eggs, and are normally cut in short, hollow shapes; however, the term refers not to the shape of the pasta, but to the kind of dough from which the noodle is made...
.
Restricted Rehabilitation Period (12 weeks): The participants were divided into four groups of eight men; each group received a strictly-controlled rehabilitation diet, consisting of one of four different caloric energy levels. In each energy-level group, the men were further subdivided into subgroups receiving differing protein and vitamin supplements regimes. In this manner, the clinical staff examined various energy, protein and vitamin strategies for re-nourishing the subjects from the conditions of famine induced during the semi-starvation period.
Unrestricted Rehabilitation Period (8 weeks): For the final rehabilitation period, caloric intake and food content was unrestricted but carefully recorded and monitored.
During the starvation period, the subjects received two meals per day designed to induce the same level of nutritional stress for each participant. Since each subject had distinct metabolic characteristics, the diet of each man was adjusted throughout the starvation period to produce roughly a 25% total weight loss over the 24-week period. The researchers tracked each subject's weight as a function of time elapsed since the beginning of the starvation period. For each subject, the weight versus time plot was expected—as well as enforced—to form a particular curve, the prediction weight-loss curve, whose characteristics were decided prior to the commencement of the experiment. The postulated curves turned out to be quite predictive for most subjects. If a subject did veer off his curve in any given week, his caloric intake for the next week would be adjusted, by varying the amount of bread and potatoes, to bring him back to the curve; however, the required adjustments were usually minor. The shapes of the curves were chosen “based on the concept that the rate of weight loss would progressively decrease and reach a relative plateau” at the final weight. For each subject, the weight vs. time curve was taken to be quadratic in time (in fact, an upward-opening parabola
Parabola
In mathematics, the parabola is a conic section, the intersection of a right circular conical surface and a plane parallel to a generating straight line of that surface...
) with the minimum
Maxima and minima
In mathematics, the maximum and minimum of a function, known collectively as extrema , are the largest and smallest value that the function takes at a point either within a given neighborhood or on the function domain in its entirety .More generally, the...
located at 24 weeks, at which point the weight is supposed to be equal to the final target body weight (the minimum is where the curve has zero slope
Slope
In mathematics, the slope or gradient of a line describes its steepness, incline, or grade. A higher slope value indicates a steeper incline....
; this corresponds to the “plateau” mentioned above). Mathematically, this means that the curve for each subject was given by
-
-
,
-
where
is the time (measured in weeks) elapsed since the beginning of the starvation period, is the subject’s weight at time , and is the final weight that the subject was supposed to reach at the end of the 24-week period. The constant is determined by the requirement that be the initial weight , i.e. by solving
for
; this gives-
-
.
-
The authors expressed this in terms of the percent total weight loss
,
(which, as stated above, was supposed to be about 25% for all subjects), obtaining
-
-
.
-
Throughout the duration of the study each man was assigned specific work tasks, was expected to walk 22 miles each week and required to keep a personal diary. An extensive battery of tests was periodically administered, including the collection of metabolic and physical measurements; X-ray examinations; treadmill performance; and intelligence and psychological evaluation
Psychological evaluation
A psychological evaluation or mental examination is an examination into a person's mental health by a mental health professional such as a psychologist. A psychological evaluation may result in a diagnosis of a mental illness...
.
Results
The full report of results from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment was published in 1950 in a two-volume, 1,385 page text entitled The Biology of Human Starvation (University of Minnesota Press). The 50-chapter work contains an extensive analysis of the physiological and psychological data collected during the study, and a comprehensive literature review.Among the conclusions from the study was the confirmation that prolonged semi-starvation produces significant increases in depression, hysteria and hypochondriasis as measured using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) (a standardized test administered during the experimental period). Indeed, most of the subjects experienced periods of severe emotional distress and depression. There were extreme reactions to the psychological effects during the experiment including self-mutilation (one subject amputated three fingers of his hand with an axe, though the subject was unsure if he had done so intentionally or accidentally). Participants exhibited a preoccupation with food, both during the starvation period and the rehabilitation phase. Sexual interest was drastically reduced, and the volunteers showed signs of social withdrawal and isolation. The participants reported a decline in concentration, comprehension and judgment capabilities, although the standardized tests administered showed no actual signs of diminished capacity. There were marked declines in physiological processes indicative of decreases in each subject’s basal metabolic rate (the energy required by the body in a state of rest), reflected in reduced body temperature, respiration and heart rate. Some of the subjects exhibited edema (swelling) in their extremities, presumably due to the massive quantities of water the participants consumed attempting to fill their stomachs during the starvation period.
Related work
One of the crucial observations of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment discussed by a number of researchers in the nutritional sciences—including Ancel Keys—is that the physical effects of the induced semi-starvation during the study well approximates the conditions experienced by patients afflicted with a range of eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosaAnorexia nervosa
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight and an obsessive fear of gaining weight. Although commonly called "anorexia", that term on its own denotes any symptomatic loss of appetite and is not strictly accurate...
and bulimia nervosa
Bulimia nervosa
Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by binge eating and purging or consuming a large amount of food in a short amount of time, followed by an attempt to rid oneself of the food consumed, usually by purging and/or by laxative, diuretics or excessive exercise. Bulimia nervosa is...
. As a result of the study it has been postulated that many of the profound social and psychological effects of these disorders may result from undernutrition, and recovery depends on physical re-nourishment as well as psychological treatment.
See also
- Civilian Public ServiceCivilian Public ServiceThe Civilian Public Service provided conscientious objectors in the United States an alternative to military service during World War II...
- Human subject research
- Ancel KeysAncel KeysAncel Benjamin Keys was an American scientist who studied the influence of diet on health. In particular, he hypothesized that different kinds of dietary fat had different effects on health....
- Eating Disorders
- StarvationStarvationStarvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy, nutrient and vitamin intake. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, death...
- DietingDietingDieting is the practice of eating food in a regulated fashion to achieve or maintain a controlled weight. In most cases dieting is used in combination with physical exercise to lose weight in those who are overweight or obese. Some athletes, however, follow a diet to gain weight...
Further reading
- The Good War and Those That Refused to Fight It, an ITVS film presentation, produced by Paradigm Productions, a non-profit media organization based in Berkeley, California. Directed by Rick Tejada-Flores and Judith Ehrlich. Copyright 2000.
- “C.O.s”, Time Magazine, 30 July 1945.
External links
- “The Fat of the Land” Time Magazine, 13 January 1961.