Ancel+Keys

=Ancel Keys=

Overview
Ancel Benjamin Keys was born on January 26, 1904. He was an American scientist who studied the influence of diet on health. Keys attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he received a B.A. in economics and political science, an M.S. in biology, and is a '30 University of California, San Diego Alumus receiving a Ph.D. in oceanography and biology from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He earned a second Ph.D. in physiology at Cambridge in 1938. In 1936, he became a professor at the University of Minnesota, where he established the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene.

Central Issue
During World War II, Keys studied starvation and sustenance diets using 32 conscientious objectors from Civilian Public Service as test subjects in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, and eventually producing his two-volume //Biology of Human Starvation// in 1950. Keys was responsible for K-Rations used in World War II. The K-ration was an individual daily combat food ration which was introduced by the United States Army during World War II. It was originally intended as an individually packaged daily ration for issue to airborne troops, tank corps, motorcycle couriers, and other mobile forces for short durations. The K ration provided three courses: breakfast, lunch and supper. In the 1960s Keys was able to convince a sizable part of the US public that replacing saturated by unsaturated fat would reduce blood cholesterol and the incidence of coronary heart dise ase. The resulting changes in the composition of food fats led to a doubling of the proportion of the unsaturated fatty acid, linoleic acid, in the body fat of Americans between 1960 and 1975. Rates of coronary heart disease in the US began to fall from 1968 onwards, and about half of the decline was ascribed to changes in lifestyle including diet.  ==Conclusion== 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. Keys' studies and recommendations have had a substantial impact on changes in the U.S. diet that may have caused a downward trend on Cardio Vascular Disease. Because of his influence in dietary science, Keys was featured on the cover of the January 13, 1961 issue of //Time// magazine. Ancel Keys died on November 20, 2004, two months before his 101st birthday.


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