Whole-food Plant-based Diets and Impact on Heart Disease Mortality
A common accusation regarding Keys is that he made his claims regarding diet and nutrition without the benefit of studies. There are numerous studies both before and after this paper performed by Keys and other researchers.
Some examples are listed below.
- Cornelius de Langen worked as a doctor in the Dutch East Indies from 1916-1922. He linked diet, serum cholesterol and heart disease by comparing diets of native Javanese and Europeans. He also noted low cholesterol content of bile and the rarity of gallstone in Javanese. He performed possibly the first intervention trial relating to diet and serum cholesterol. Five Javanese men were fed a diet rich in eggs, butter and meat for three months. Their mean serum cholesterol rose 30% from 3.3 mmol/L (128 mg/dL). 1
- Lester Morrison in 1946 also linked diet, cholesterol and heart disease before Keys. His study consisted of one hundred people, mostly men. Every second person was assigned to a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet. The others were told to maintain their usual diet. By the end of twelve years, 19 of the fifty patients treated with the diet survived. All of the fifty control patients had died by the twelfth year. 2 ~ 3
- Dr John Gofman,
a nuclear physicist, was a leading pioneer researcher in the field of lipoproteins who was familiar with Anitschkow’s work. His work showed that serum cholesterol and low-density lipoproteins were both indicators of coronary heart disease risk. This work and other evidence convinced Gofman that blood cholesterol, and the dietary determinants of blood cholesterol, were important in atherosclerosis. His wife, Dr Helen Gofman (a medical doctor) co-authored a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet book that was published in 1951—prior to Keys’s 1953 paper. John Gofman wrote the preface for the book. 4 - Ancel Keys, in 1947-48, commenced a study of 281 Minnesota business and professional men, then aged 45 to 55 and clinically “healthy.” The Minnesota Business and Professional Men study showed that, “the incidence of coronary heart disease tended to be higher among men above the median at first examination in relative weight, body fatness, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and serum cholesterol concentration but these segregations were not statistically significant except with serum cholesterol” 5.
Netherlands suffered greatly during the “Hunger Winter” (Hongerwinter) of 1944–1945 that caused 20,000 to 25,000 deaths due to the Nazi embargo on food shipments that lasted until early May 1945.
Otherwise, for the people of northern Europe (Poland, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands) deaths from cardiovascular disease dropped subtantially during the war.
In Norway the people had an adequate supply of fresh vegetables, potatoes, fish and whole cereals. Mortality dropped by 30% compared to the pre-war level in both men and women. 6
One result of the British naval blockade of the North Sea during WWI was that over 400,000 Germans died due to malnutrition from 1914 to 1918. 7
Dr. Mikkel Hindhede (1862-1945) was the manager of the Danish National Laboratory for Nutrition Research in Copenhagen during World War I.
Note that he wrote this is in 1920.Denmark converted to a diet “mostly of milk, vegetables and bran” and “the people received sufficient nutrition“. 8
As research has also shown that man can retain full vigor for a year or longer on a diet of potatoes and fat and for half a year or more on a diet of barley and fat, reliance was placed on our potatoes and the large barley crop, which was given to man and not to the pigs, as heretofore, with the result that the pigs died of starvation, but the people received sufficient nutrition.
Our principal foods were bran bread, barley porridge, potatoes, greens, milk and some butter. Pork production was very low; hence the farmers ate all the pork they raised, and the people of the cities and towns got little or no pork. Beef was so costly that only the rich could afford to buy it in sufficient amount.
This result was not a surprising one to me. Since 1885, when I began my experiments with a low-protein diet (mostly vegetarian), I have been convinced that better physical conditions resulted from this standard of living…As the result of extensive studies in this field I am convinced that over-nutrition, the result of palatable meat dishes, is one of the most common causes of disease.
While not all readers will agree with what I have said, no one can dispute the fact that the people of Denmark have no cause to regret that during the war their diet consisted mostly of milk, vegetables and bran. If Central Europe had adopted a similar diet, I doubt that anyone would have starved.
Deaths from diabetes decreased in England and Wales during both World War 1 and World War 2. 9
Last updated on Thursday 30 April 2026 at 09:19 by administrators
Post Type: postFootnotes
- Truswell, A. S. (2010) Cholesterol and Beyond: The Research on Diet and Coronary Heart Disease 1900-2000. Springer Netherlands.
- Morrison, L. M. (1955) A Nutritional Program for Prolongation of Life in Coronary Atherosclerosis. Journal of American Medical Association. 159 (15), 1425–1428.
- Morrison, L. M. (1960) Diet in Coronary Atherosclerosis. Journal of American Medical Association. 173 (8), 880–884.
- Dobbin, E. V. et al. (1951) The Low-Fat, Low-Cholesterol Diet. Doubleday, Garden City, NY.
- Keys, A. et al. (1963) Coronary heart disease among Minnesota business and professional men followed fifteen years. Circulation. 28 (3), 381–395.
- Strom, A. & Jensen, R. A. (1951) Mortality from Circulatory Diseases in Norway 1940-1945. The Lancet. 1 (3), 126–129.
- Winkler, W. & Grebler, L. (1940) The Cost of the World War to Germany and to Austria-Hungary. Yale University Press.
- Hindhede, M. (1920) The Effect of Food Restriction During War on Mortality in Copenhagen. Journal of the American Medical Association. 74 (6), 381–382.
- Young, F. G. & Richardson, K. C. (1949) Discussion on the cause of diabetes. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine. 42 (5), 321–330.
WHO's recommendations on saturated fat are out of date, expert team says.
However, the study has been funded by the dairy and beef industries.
Discover how industry-funded research is deceiving the public.
However, the study has been funded by the dairy and beef industries.
Discover how industry-funded research is deceiving the public.
Carbohydrates DO NOT cause diabetes
Truth and Belief
Discover why researchers, popular commentators and the food industry is more concerned with maintaining corporate profits than ensuring that we have valid health information.Who is going to get wealthy by encouraging people to eat their fruit and vegetables?
Featured Posts
Why Consume a WFPB Diet?Brief Overview of WFPB Diets
Introduction
Breast, Endometrium and Ovarian Cancers
Taiwan, Buddhists and Moderation
What If It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie?
Autoimmune Diseases, Biomimicry and Type 1 Diabetes
Do Vegetarians Live Longer?
Impact of a Gluten-Free Diet
Wheat and William Davis
Glucose Tolerance
When Vegan Diets Do Not Work
7th-day Adventists and Moderation
Worried about eating eggs?
How Cooking Changed Us
Deception from The BMJ
Endometriosis is Curable
Changes to our Health Indicators
Cause of Type 2 Diabetes
