In addition to his role in establishing modern cardiovascular disease (CVD)
epidemiology, Ancel Keys (born on January 26, 1904) is closely associated with two famous
"diets," one loathed by soldiers and the other beloved by health-conscious and
taste-conscious diners. As an advisor to the U.S. Department of Defense during World War
II, he formulated balanced meals for combat soldiers that became known as K rations.
Later, Keys and his wife, Margaret, popularized the Mediterranean diet with a series of
best-selling books. Science, diet, and health have been central themes of his professional
and private lives.
Keys attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he received a B.A. in
economics and political science (1925), an M.S. in biology (1929), and a Ph.D. in
oceanography and biology (1930). 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. Keys directed the laboratory from 1939 until his
retirement in 1975.
During World War II, Keys studied starvation and subsistence diets, eventually
producing his two-volume Biology of Human Starvation (1950). His interest in diet
and CVD was prompted, in part, by seemingly counterintuitive data: American business
executives, presumably among the best-fed persons, had high rates of heart disease, while
in post-war Europe, CVD rates had decreased sharply in the wake of reduced food supplies.
Keys postulated a correlation between cholesterol levels and CVD and initiated a study of
Minnesota businessmen (the first prospective study of CVD) (1), culminating in what came
to be known as the Seven Countries Study (2). These studies found strong associations
between the CVD rate of a population and average serum cholesterol and per capita intake
of saturated fatty acids.
From the early 1950s, Keys actively promoted his findings to an increasingly
health-conscious public. The resulting "cholesterol controversy" revealed sharp
divisions in post-war scientific culture over whether the statisticians' "strong
associations" could provide scientific certainty. This controversy left greater
opportunity for competing food industry groups, health promotion associations, food
faddists, physicians, and insurance companies to use the ambiguities and methodologic
quibbles inherent in such studies to pursue their own agendas. In its simplest form, the
debate over dietary fat and CVD pitted "interventionists" against those calling
for further studies--preferably clinical or laboratory studies.
Keys always has been considered an interventionist. He generally has shunned food fads
and vigorously promotes the benefits of "reasonably low-fat diets," instead of
following "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 and the resulting downward trend in CVD.
References
Keys A, Taylor HL, Blackburn H, Brozek J, Anderson JT, Simonson E. Coronary heart
disease among Minnesota business and professional men followed 15 years. Circulation
1963;28:381-95.
Keys A. Seven countries: a multivariate analysis of death and coronary heart disease.
London: Harvard University Press, 1980.
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