Recent History
June 1, 1921
L.H. Newburgh
The Use of a High Fat Diet in the Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus - Second Paper: Blood Sugar
Dr Newburg uses a high fat diet to treat diabetes
"We reported briefly the results of an investigation of the effect of a diet whose energy came largely from fat, to which was added sufficient protein to maintain nitrogen balance and the minimal carbohydrate necessitated in making up a diet that a human being can eat over a long period of time. It was shown that with such a diet, glycosuria was avoided in severe diabetics, and that acidosis was not produced. The twenty-eight cases contained in Table 1 show that a high fat diet such as we have used is capable of bringing the blood sugar down to normal and keeping it at that level during the period of observation."
The first paper stated the method employed and, in a general way, the results obtained. Freedom from glycosuria, however, does not necessarily mean normal glycemia. In this communication we shall deal with the effect of this type of diet on the blood sugar. Blood sugar determinations, sufficiently numerous to permit drawing conclusions concerning the effect of the diet on glycemia, are available in forty-five cases. We include in this group every case in which such a series of determinations has been made, and have omitted only those whose blood sugar determinations have been too few to be of significance. A few patients left the hospital on higher diets than those shown in the tables, but as corresponding blood sugar determinations are not available, the tables for such individuals stop with the last blood sugar reading. These cases are presented in four groups. The first three groups (Tables 1, 2 and 3), consisting of forty cases, show a satisfactory response of the blood sugar to the treatment. The fourth group (Table 4) comprises the five cases in which blood sugars did not reach a desirably low percentage. Of the forty satisfactory cases, those complicated by chronic nephritis have been brought together in Table 2, and those in which diets varied at times from our standard are presented in Table 3.
https://sci-hub.se/https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/533706
January 1, 1922
Clarence W. Lieb
THE EFFECTS OF AN EXCLUSIVE, LONG-CONTINUED MEAT DIET BASED ON THE HISTORY, EXPERIENCES AND CLINICAL SURVEY OF VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON, ARCTIC EXPLORER
Dr Lieb conducts a case study on Stefansson's experience in the north.
The dietetic observations and experiences of Vilhjalmur Stefansson during his career as an arctic explorer are worthy of careful scrutiny by students of nutrition. Because of his contributions, he is entitled to prominence in many departments of science, among them anthropology, geography, geology, oceanography, languages and comparative religions. Whether reading Stefansson's books, attending his lectures, or in private conversation with him, one is impressed not only by his broad knowledge of biology but also by the keenness of his observations and deductions in the domain of metabolism, particularly as applied to the science of practical dietetics. An anthropologist by training, an arctic explorer by choice, he became a student of nutrition by necessity. Perhaps there is no other man living today whose experimental studies have been so well controlled and done on so large a scale. His laboratory was the arctic circle, his experimental subjects human beings, and his experimental material, meat.
This paper reviews the medical history of this unique man. It is hoped that the facts gleaned from the study of his arctic dietetic regimen and body physiology may throw additional light on a subject about which our knowledge is still somewhat vague and controversial ; namely, protein metabolism.
During the month of September, 1922, I made a medical survey of Mr. Stefansson. He suggested at that time that the facts elicited from the studies might be of sufficient scientific interest to warrant publication. The present paper represents the work done on him at that time, amplified by a clinical survey of his condition some two years later.
The following facts regarding Stefansson's life in the Far North are noteworthy:
1. He spent altogether eleven and one-half years within the arctic circle.
2. He lived for a number of days, totaling nine years, on an exclusive meat diet.
3. He lived for nine successive months on an exclusive meat diet.
4. He reached his maximum weight while subsisting on meat (fish).
5. His sense of physical and mental well being was at its best during that period of his life. 6. He found that the exclusive meat diet worked as well when he was inactive as when active, and as well in hot weather as in cold.
7. Constipation was never present. One month's entire absence from exercise produced neither constipation nor muscular weakness.
8. His hair thickened, and his scalp became healthier.
9. Teeth decay was apparently much less rapid. Stefansson avers that not a single case of constipation was observed in 600 exclusively meat-eating Eskimos for a period of three years
Neither Stefansson nor any of his men, so far as we could determine, suffered any ill effects from long continued meat diet.
January 1, 1922
The Northern Copper Inuit - A History
The modernization of the Inuit of the Holman region is described. Inuit are lent a debt and can no longer engage in midwinter subsistence hunting when trapping foxes. Trapping was fully entrenched by the 1940's in the Holman region and people were eating sugar and flour instead of seals, caribou, and polar bears.
As the Inuit of the Holman region developed a taste for trade items such as tea, sugar, tobacco, and flour, they began to rely more heavily on fur trapping as a means to purchase these items. The transition from traditional ways was undoubtedly assisted by the Copper Inuit's contact with the western Inuit (or Walliningmiut), who had developed a reputation for being superb trappers. Increased dependence upon trapping, however, changed the Inuit economy. Since trappers had to tend their traplines during the winter, they had less time to devote to midwinter subsistence activities such as sealing, caribou hunting, and polar bear hunting. The more involved people became in trapping, the more dependent they became upon goods purchased at the trading posts. Moreover, the size of dogteams increased. In the early part of the century, anthropologist Diamond Jenness had noted that the typical Copper Inuit family rarely owned more than two or three dogs (Jenness 1922:118). Trapping, however, required greater mobility and hence a larger number of dogs per active trapper. Inuit families trapping for the fur trade had a larger number of dogs to care for and feed. Fortunately for them, the introduction of rifles and fishnets helped to increase their efficiency and trapper families were able to feed both themselves and their dogs.
This process of economic change occurred at different rates for the Holman and Coppermine regions. The Copper Inuit around Coppermine and Read Island made the transition much earlier than the people of Prince Albert Sound. By the 1940s, however, trapping was firmly entrenched in the Holman region.
Although the trading posts provided Inuit trappers with valued goods which presumably made their lives easier, the relationship between trapper and trader was not always to the benefit of the trapper. As Peter Usher (1965:62) notes:
The relationship of the Eskimo to the trader became virtually that of a bonded servant. To trap initially the Eskimo had to be supplied with traps, and generally a rifle and other gear. Having no means to pay for this outfit, he went in "debt" to the trader, and settled his account the following spring by bringing in his catch of furs. Both the availability of the white fox and its market price fluctuated considerably, and in some years the Eskimo was unable to pay his debts. This indebtedness prevailed for almost thirty years, until other sources of cash became available to the Eskimos.
January 1, 1922
The Northern Copper Inuit - A history
Jenness is amazed at the Copper Inuit's energy and patience and endurance, perhaps indicating the results of their superb diet, but also the skills needed to thrive in such an inhospitable place.
Early chroniclers of Copper Inuit culture were also impressed with their energy, patience, and endurance. As Jenness (1922:235) wrote:
The Copper Eskimos think nothing of spending 24 hours on a hunt, tramping continually over stony hills without a morsel of food, and with only a few short halts to rest their limbs and look about them. In Spring I've seen them spend whole days fruitlessly digging one hole after another through the thick ice of the lakes and drinking their lines without ever getting a bite. In Winter they sit for hours over there seal holes even in howling blizzard where the temperature is 30 and more below zero Fahrenheit. The patience instilled in them by hunting become so ingrained in their very natures and permeates all their social life, so that tolerance and forbearance are two of the most marked features in Eskimo Society.
January 1, 1923
Elliott P. Joslin
The Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus
Dr Joslin explains that Eskimos can "get along very comfortably upon 52 grams" of carbohydrate a day which "should greatly encourage diabetic patients"
Carbohydrate.-
From the preceding statements it will be seen that 55 per cent of the energy of the diet of the normal individual consists of carbohydrate . These figures are only approximate , but they leave no doubt as to how large a place sugar and starch occupy in the daily ration. (See p.415.) What percentage of carbohydrate is furnished by sugar is problematical . We do know, however, that the average individual was supposed to consume 84 pounds of cane sugar during the year 1921. This would amount to 105 grams, or 0.2 pounds, per day, which would amount to about one - fourth of the carbohydrate calories.
The proportion of carbohydrate in the normal diet varies in different countries, reaching its maximum in the tropics and its minimum in the arctic zones. The people in India take 484 grams carbohydrate daily , while the Eskimos get along very comfortably upon 52 grams . Table 159 is arranged by modifying somewhat a similar table of Lusk's. It shows well the adaptability of different races to different diets . That the Eskimos live upon 52 grams of carbohydrate daily should greatly encourage diabetic patients . All who treat diabetics should be very thankful that there is a race of Eskimos through which proof is afforded that it is perfectly possible to maintain life on a diet in which carbohydrate is largely replaced by fat. The composition of the diet also varies in the same race from time to time and this has been interestingly described by Mendel.
Attention has already been called to the increase in the consumption of sugar in the United States during the last century. Rübner noted that the consumption of meat per capita in Germany had risen three and one - half times during a hundred years prior to the war. The effects of undernutrition during the war were manifest generally in Europe and America, but the total dietary restriction obscures the results of qualitative changes. (See p115.)
Ancient History
Germany
50000
B.C.E.
Palaeolithic and Mesolithic kill-butchering sites: the hard evidence
The upper paleolithic is characterized by advanced hunting of large animals with various weapons, and planning to maximize easy prey
Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Hunting:
the archaeological record leaves us some direct evidence of man's hunting activities. At Meiendorf (Rust 1937) and Stellmoor (Rusf 1937), some bones of reindeer and birds still conserve weapon marks and a few pieces of silex have remained thrusted in mammalian bones; man kills reindeer with harpoons and sticks (fractured skulls), birds with bows and maybe slings. Three fractured skulls of red deer in Abri Pataud (Bouchud, 1975), and one bovid skull with a circular orifice in Saint Marcel (Allain, 1952) suggest the practice of the so called " co'up de merlin": man has delivered a blow similar to the one used today to butcher cattle. Probably the animal already immobilized (wounded or entrapped) was hit on the frontal with a big stone. At Kokorevo I (Siberia), a large scapula of bison is pierced by the upper end of a point made of bone (Boriskowksi, 1965). At High Furlong (Mesolithic), an elk was discovered with the marks of L7 wounds made by barbed points, of which two were found in the site, and by other arms. The animal had apparently been attacked at two distinct occasions: during the first one, hunters aimed at the legs to lame the animal (fig. 6), later hunters hit the thoracic region and the lungs to kill it. However the elk died in a little lake, perhaps imprisoned in the ice, and man had no access to the meat. The animal represents in fact a hunting loss (Hallam et a1.,1973).
Planning: very good. Many sites belong to Wpe e, were occupied periodically or seasonally and specialised in the capture of a particular game (e.g., horse, reindeeq, ibex). Game drive towards cliffs have been claimed and Solutre (Combier & Thevenot,1976) has long figured as an example, but the evidence is far from conclusive.
Scavenging: no doubt H. sapiens still killed or exploited animals in the occasional and opportunistic way of Lower Palaeolithic times. According to Lindner (Lindner,1941), hunters at Predmost utilised the carcasses of hundreds of mammoths that probably succumbed as a result of natural catastrophes, as food.
Food transport: selective transport of the most useful animal parts is claimed for many sites.
Specialised activities: sometimes the material is dislocated in distinct clusters that could reflect specialised activity areas as for example at Solutre (Combier & Thevenot, 1976). Site topography: some hunting sites were located in valleys enclosed by steep slopes as at Rascano (Gonziilez-Echegaray, 1979), Stellmoor (Rust, 1937), Meiendorf (Rust 1937), or at the foot of rocky cliffs at Solutr6 (Combier & Th6venot, 1,976).
4. Conclusions
Most of the Lower Palaeolithic sites analysed here belong to category a (butchering sites); other kind of concentrations are rare and difficult to ascertain. A number of hunting stations (category e) and a hunting stop (category f) form my sample for the age of Neanderthal man and related people. The Upper Palaeolithic is characterised by many hunting stations, while in Mesolithic times a hunting loss (category d ) was found as well as several sighting sites (category g). The foregoing distribution seems to reflect in a vague way an evolution from scavenging and haphazard opportunistic hunting to well organised, selective hunting activities. However, this reflection results no doubt in part from a priori assumptions concerning the evolution of hominid meat procurement often colouring the interpretations offered for the osseous "hard" data; these are frequently equivocal.
Vindija, 42000, Varaždin, Croatia
28500
B.C.E.
Neanderthal diet at Vindija and Neanderthal predation: The evidence from stable isotopes
The isotope evidence overwhelmingly points to the Neanderthals behaving as top-level carnivores, obtaining almost all of their dietary protein from animal sources
Archeological analysis of faunal remains and of lithic and bone tools has suggested that hunting of medium to large mammals was a major element of Neanderthal subsistence. Plant foods are almost invisible in the archeological record, and it is impossible to estimate accurately their dietary importance. However, stable isotope (13C and 15N) analysis of mammal bone collagen provides a direct measure of diet and has been applied to two Neanderthals and various faunal species from Vindija Cave, Croatia. The isotope evidence overwhelmingly points to the Neanderthals behaving as top-level carnivores, obtaining almost all of their dietary protein from animal sources. Earlier Neanderthals in France and Belgium have yielded similar results, and a pattern of European Neander- thal adaptation as carnivores is emerging. These data reinforce current taphonomic assessments of associated faunal elements and make it unlikely that the Neanderthals were acquiring animal protein principally through scavenging. Instead, these findings portray them as effective predators.
Stable Isotope Analyses.
Mammal bone collagen δ13C and δ15N values reflect the δ13C and δ15N values of dietary protein (14). They furnish a long-term record of diet, giving the average δ13C and δ15N values of all of the protein consumed over the last years of the measured individual's life. δ13C values can be used to discriminate between terrestrial and marine dietary protein in humans and other mammals (15, 16). In addition, because of the canopy effect, species that live in forest environments can have δ13C values that are more negative than species that live in open environments (17). δ15N values are, on average, 2–4‰ higher than the average δ15N value of the protein consumed (18). Therefore, δ15N values can be used to determine the trophic level of the protein consumed. By measuring the δ13C and δ15N values of various fauna in a paleo-ecosystem, it is possible to reconstruct the trophic level relationships within that ecosystem. Therefore, by comparing the δ13C and δ15N values of omnivores such as hominids with the values of herbivores and carnivores from the same ecosystem, it is possible to determine whether those omnivores were obtaining dietary protein from plant or animal sources.
Cheddar Reservoir, Cheddar BS26, UK
12000
B.C.E.
FOCUS: Gough’s Cave and Sun Hole Cave Human Stable Isotope Values Indicate a High Animal Protein Diet in the British Upper Palaeolithic
We were testing the hypothesis that these humans had a mainly hunting economy, and therefore a diet high in animal protein. We found this to be the case, and by comparing the human δ15N values with those of contemporary fauna, we conclude that the protein sources in human diets at these sites came mainly from herbivores such as Bos sp. and Cervus elaphus
We undertook stable isotope analysis of Upper Palaeolithic humans and fauna from the sites of Gough's Cave and Sun Hole Cave, Somerset, U.K., for palaeodietary reconstruction. We were testing the hypothesis that these humans had a mainly hunting economy, and therefore a diet high in animal protein. We found this to be the case, and by comparing the human δ15N values with those of contemporary fauna, we conclude that the protein sources in human diets at these sites came mainly from herbivores such as Bos sp. and Cervus elaphus. There are a large number ofEquus sp. faunal remains from this site, but this species was not a significant food resource in the diets of these Upper Palaeolithic humans.
If the humans hunted and consumed mainly horse, then their 15N values should be c. 3–5‰ (Equus 15N value of 0·7‰+enrichment of 2–4‰). Instead, their 15N values make more sense if they lived mostly off Bos and Cervus elaphus (Bos and Cervus values of c. 3‰+enrichment of 2–4‰=the observed values c. 6–7‰). It is also possible that other species, including Rangifer tarandus, were consumed by these individuals. Rangifer tarandus has 15N values similar to Cervus elaphus (Richards, 1998), and has more positive 13C values, which may explain the observed slight enrichment in the human 13C values. A number of artefacts made from Rangifer tarandus have been found at Gough’s, but there is no other evidence that this species was being exploited for food
Province of Crotone, Italy
500
B.C.E.
On the Sociology of Ancient Sport
One report states that a trainer named Pythagoras recommended a meat diet to the Olympic athletes he trained.
A lack of animal-derived protein seems to have been rectified early in history, as there are two reports of the introduction of meat into the athletes’ diet. One report states that a trainer named Pythagoras recommended a meat diet to the athletes he trained. https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/a-comparison-of-ancient-greek-and-roman-sports-diets-with-modern-day-practices-2473-6449-1000104.php?aid=69865
8 He [Pythagoras] is said to have been the first to train athletes on a meat diet. The first athlete he did this with was Eurymenes. Formerly they had trained on dried figs, moist cheese, and wheat. Some say that it was a trainer named Pythagoras and not the philosopher who was responsible for this innovative diet. For our Pythagoras prohibited killing, not to mention eating, life which possessed souls like our own.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers 8.12
Sport and Recreation
To all appearances medical knowledge in general and nutrition in particular was widespread in Pythagorean circles in Southern Italy, especially in Kroton. Burkert has pointed out that the fmaous doctor Alcmaeon came from the Pythagorean center of Kroton. From the akousmata (secret doctrines), which doubtless contain old religious traditions, we learn that the Pythagoreans were not originally strict vegetarians; the consumption of meat was permitted, with the exception of lamb and the meat of draft oxen. Burkert considers there is some likelihood that Pythagoras introduced a meat diet for athletes. He believes this tradition arose when Pythagorean vegetarianism had not yet been completely developed. In later times, when vegetarianism had prevailed, a second tradition has possibly been invented, in which it was not Pythagoras, the philosopher from Samos and Kroton, but a homonymous person who wrot the great 'trainer's recipe book'.
57: There are similar issues regarding the transmission in later sources of Pythagoras advising the successful heavy athlete Eurymenes of Samos to use a special meat-based diet instead of the dried figs and cheese he had previously been eating.
On the Sociology of Ancient Sport - page 43.
Mantineia 221 00, Greece
480
B.C.E.
A Comparison of Ancient Greek and Roman Sports Diets with Modern Day Practices
Dromeus, a long-distance runner, is said to have first thought of eating meat for training instead of just cheese and won multiple victories.
The second report is that of Pausanias, who writes of Dromeus, a long-distance runner from Stymphalos [23].
“...he won two victories in the dolichos at Olympia, the same number in the Pythian Games, three at the Isthmian and five at the Nemean. He is said to have first thought of eating meat (as part of his training diet). Until then the food for athletes was cheese fresh out of the basket.”
Clearly, if his success is anything to go by, then Dromeus had really found a winner’s diet. There are also reports of athletes eating meat from oxen, bulls, goats and deer, a very” red-meat” diet which is a rich form of protein. Moreover, with meat as a part of their diet, the performance of competing athletes would most certainly have improved noticeably.
5 A man named Dromeus from Mantineia was said to have been the first we know of to have won the pankration by default [ = akoniti]. Pausanias 6.11.4
Dromeus, Long-Distance Runner
There was a man from Stymphalos, named Dromeus, whose record as a long-distance runner was exceptional: he won two victories in the dolichos at Olympia, the same number in the Pythian Games, three at the Isthmian and five at the Nemean. He is said to have first thought of eating meat (as part of his training diet). Until then the food for athletes was cheese fresh out of the basket.
