This was interesting and unexpected. I ran across the work of Dr. Walter Kempner. He was a refuge from NAZI Germany that came to America finding work at Duke Medical school. There he conducted dietary work specializing in reversing type 2 diabetes and kidney disease. He created a bland high carb, rice and fruit diet, at least for the initial phase of the eating plan for patients. He was famous in his day with wealthy individuals and celebrities flocking to his clinics (Rice Houses) to control their diabetes, kidney disease and loose weight. He is viewed as helping create Duke Medical school into becoming a well known dietary pioneering school.
His dietary plan, and some pictures of some patients can be seen at:
http://rawfoodsos.com/2015/10/06/in-defense-of-low-fat-a-call-for-some-evolution-of-thought-part-1/
excerpt from a long article:
"...Here’s one for the Paradox Files.
In the 1930s, a man by the name of
Walter Kempner fled an increasingly Jew-hostile Germany and landed square in the halls of Duke University… where he proceeded to
totally blow the medical community’s mind. His mission: treat kidney disease. His solution: put renal-failing folks on a special diet low in sodium, protein, and fat—a menu devised from
in vitro experiments he’d done on kidney tissue.
At the time, very few researchers believed that food could have any effect on kidney disease. Or high blood pressure. Or diabetes. Or heart disease. Or most other chronically wrong-going things in the body. As with Ancel Keys, who was pretty much
laughed out of the WHO conference where he presented his “fat causes heart disease” idea, Kempner spent the first chunk of his career swimming upstream in a river of skepticism.
But his colleagues’ dubiousness didn’t last long. After placing patient after so-called-hopeless patient on his unique regimen, it became clear that Kempner’s diet worked.
Really ridiculously well. And it became equally clear that the kidney wasn’t the only body part made happy by the new cuisine. Obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart failure, coronary artery disease, psoriasis, and arthritis often saw major improvement or total reversal as a result of the diet. During the course of his career, Kempner treated over
18,000 patients with the above conditions—all by changing what went on the stabby end of their forks.
So what was in this mystical diet of his? Brace yourself!
- White rice
- Fruit
- Fruit juice
- Refined table sugar
- In some cases, vitamin supplements (A, D, thiamine, riboflavin, and niacin)
…And not a darned thing else. Kempner summed up the details himself in a 1974 article,
readable here:
A patient takes an average of 250 to 350 gm. of rice (dry weight) daily; any kind of rice may be used provided no sodium, chloride, milk, etc. has been added during its processing. … All fruit juices and fruits are allowed, with the exception of nuts, dates, avocados and any dried or canned fruit or fruit derivatives to which substances other than white sugar have been added. Not more than one banana a day should be taken. White sugar and dextrose may be used ad libitum; on an average a patient takes about 100 grams daily, but, if necessary, as much as 500 grams daily should be used. Tomato and vegetable juices are not allowed.
In other words, it was the CARBPOCALYPSE. Along with feasting on impressive amounts of white rice, people were averaging 100 grams of pure sugar a day, and some ate over a
pound of it. That’s up to 2,000 calories from refined sugar alone—the same amount deliciously packed into 25 Cadbury Creme Eggs.
(Wisely, Kempner knew his diet was at no risk of being crowned Dietary Homecoming Queen. He apparently described it as a “monotonous and tasteless diet which would never become popular,” and whose only saving grace was the fact that it worked. And as I mentioned in my AHS presentation, he apparently
whipped some of his patients in order to help them comply, as—in his words—”the risk to their life was so great that it warranted harshness.” Ouch!)
Here’s a breakdown of how the diet panned out, macronutrient-wise. Image from Duke University files; red graffiti my own doing, to indicate percent of total calories:
...What’s
really noteworthy is that the diet wasn’t automatically calorie restricted. In fact, some patients had to increase their energy intake to help them gain weight, or to stabilize their weight if they were losing too much. That’s important, because it means we can’t write this off as a diet that improved biomarkers solely by inducing weight loss (
Twinkie Diet, I bow in your general direction). It also means that many people
spontaneously ate less than they needed when stuffing their faces with unlimited amounts of starch and sugar…
as long as fat intake was super low.
If this seems totally baffling and Twilight-Zoney, that’s because it is. According to my calculations, there is an 84% chance that you are now Googling “rice diet Snopes” or contacting my mother to inquire about my recent psychotic break (joke’s on you; she thinks I’m great!). I urge you to keep reading, though, because we’re about to get to the ooey, gooey data at the center of this carb-filled Tootsie Pop..."
