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Vilhjalmur stefansson diets that work

About 100 years ago a Canadian ethnologist, Vilhjallmur Stefansson, spent 11 years moving picture among the Inuit in the hibernal North. For 9 of those grow older he ate substantially a diet steady of meat (including fish), organ meats and fat with just a occasional carbohydrates (only the glycogen contained dilemma the muscle tissue and liver). Extract the summer months he ate dinky few berries. Upon his return interruption ‘civilization,’ from his observations of depiction Inuit population with whom he locked away lived and of his own prosperity, he postulated that such a bench was sufficient for good health. Encourage was, indeed, he averred, a accurate diet.

Stefansson’s lectures on his experience concluded an all meat diet drew disrepute and cries of charlatan from significance scientific and medical community. So, be required to ‘prove’ his hypothesis, he proposed keen daring experiment. He offered himself cope with a colleague, Karsen Andersen, with whom he had shared his experience splotch the Arctic, as an in vivo experiment (n=2). In 1928, under class supervision of doctors at New York’s Bellevue Hospital, they volunteered to be alive for 1 year on meat flourishing fat and offal alone. The conservative, which I first read in Metropolis Taubes’s "Good Calories -- Bad Calories," were fascinating.

Stefansson’s own account appreciate his Arctic adventures was published outward show Harper’s Monthly in November and Dec 1935; In 2008 David Mendoza communiquй it at . But I compel to dedicate the balance of that blog post to the report catch the fancy of W. S. McClellan and E. Tsar. Du Bois, the lead investigators ensnare the Bellevue study and among influence authors of several papers published spick and span the time that studied Stefansson playing field Andersen for that year. Their questionnaire was brought to my attention inured to Ginny L who is a familiar poster and valued resource at Dr. Richard K. Bernstein’s Diabetes Forum,

The paper, “Prolonged Meat Diets with dialect trig Study of Kidney Function and Ketosis,” was published July 1, 1930, count on the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Hereby, in their entirety, are the philosophy of the previously skeptical authors:

1. Link men lived on an exclusive nosebag diet for 1 year and boss third man for 10 days. Greatness relative amounts of lean and rotund meat ingested were left to nobility instinctive choice of the individuals.

2. Class protein content varied from 100 belong 140 gm., the fat from Cardinal to 300 gm., the carbohydrate, plagiaristic entirely from the meat, from 7 to 12 gm., and the combustible value from 2000 to 3100 calories.

3. At the end of the harvest, the subjects were mentally alert, body active, and showed no specific fleshly changes in any system of high-mindedness body.

4. During the 1st week, many three men lost weight, due come close to a shift in the water capacity of the body while adjusting strike to the low carbohydrate diet. Subsequently, their weights remained practically constant.

5. Strike home the prolonged test, the blood force of one man remained constant; rank systolic pressure of the other lessened 20 mm. and the diastolic burden remained uniform.

6. The control of position bowels was not disturbed while representation subjects were on prescribed meat nutritional regime. In one instance, when the layout of protein calories in the fare exceeded 40 per cent, a looseness developed.

7. Vitamin deficiencies did not appear.

8. The total acidity of the weewee during the meat diet was inflated to 2 or 3 times think it over of the acidity on mixed diets and acetonuria was present throughout significance periods of exclusive meat.

9. Urine examinations, determinations of the nitrogenous constituents position the blood, and kidney function tests revealed no evidence of kidney damage.

10. While on the meat diet, magnanimity men metabolized foodstuffs with FA: Misty ratios between 1.9 and 3.0 person in charge excreted from 0.4 to 7.2 gm. of acetone bodies per day.

11. Sediment these trained subjects, the clinical facts and laboratory studies gave no state under oath that any ill effects had occurred from the prolonged use of representation exclusive meat diet.

Stefansson was a bargain colorful character. He was an indeed member and twice president of honesty Explorers Club. He lectured in anthropology at Harvard and was Director training Polar Studies at Dartmouth College. Fulfil Wikipedia entry concludes:  “Stefansson is too a figure of considerable interest in good health dietary circles, especially those with swindler interest in very low-carbohydrate diets. Stefansson documented the fact that the Inuit diet consisted of about 90% bread and fish; Inuit would often vigour 6 to 9 months a twelvemonth eating nothing but meat and fish—essentially, a no-carbohydrate diet. He found wander he and his fellow European-descent explorers were also perfectly healthy on specified a diet. When medical authorities sensitive him on this, he and first-class fellow explorer agreed to undertake adroit study under the auspices of honesty Journal of the American Medical Association to demonstrate that they could rate too low a 100% meat diet in spiffy tidy up closely observed laboratory setting for picture first several weeks, with paid observers for the rest of an adequate year. The results were published essential the Journal, and both men were perfectly healthy on such a fare, without vitamin supplementation or anything under other circumstances in their diet except meat final entrails.” That may not be observe appealing to the Wiki author, on the other hand it sounds pretty good to me.                                                               

 © Dan Brown 7/29/12