“During World War II, 36 conscientious objectors participated in a study of human starvation conducted by Ancel Keys and his colleagues at the University of Minnesota. The Minnesota Starvation Experiment, as it was later known, was a grueling study meant to gain insight into the physical and psychologic effects of semistarvation and the problem of refeeding civilians who had been starved during the war. During the experiment, the participants were subjected to semistarvation in which most lost <25% of their weight, and many experienced anemia, fatigue, apathy, extreme weakness, irritability, neurological deficits, and lower extremity edema.”
I had heard about the “Minnesota starvation study” in my random reading, but didn’t know anything about it. So I went looking for more info on it.
What I found out amazed me!
In 2003-2004, 18 of the original 36 volunteers were interviewed about the experiment. If you are interested in how important proper nutrition is to us all, or if you simply want to read a fascinating story that will illustrate again how amazing humans can be, click below to download the PDF document and read.
Minnesota Starvation Study (270kb pdf)