Re: The original article is called "The Biology of Human Starvation"

I found a review in a on page 251 of the American Journal of Public Health, February 1951 (vol 41), a year after it's publication.

The review reads...

The Biology of Human Starvation -By Ancel Keys, Josef Brozek, Austin Hensckel, Olaf Mickelsen, and Henry Longstreet Taylor.

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1950. 2 vols. 1385 pp. Price, $24.00.

This is a massive and a magnificent piece of work. Basically. it is a report on the biological aspects of human starvation as shown by numerous actual tests on 32 healthy young men. These individuals, ranging in age from 20 to 33 years and exhibiting better than average intelligence, were selected from more than 100 conscientious objectors. Beginning late in 1944 the 36 first chosen were placed on a carefully supervised dietary regimen, which included a control period of 12 weeks, then 24 weeks of semi-starvation in which caloric intake was adjusted to bring about an average weight loss of 24 per cent, and finally 12 weeks of rehabilitation. Two of the 36 subjects were dropped from the experiment during the semi-starvation period and two more fell by the wayside at the end of this part of the test.

The results of this valuable experiment, the first really scientific study of its type, are discussed in great detail in the 50 chapters of this book, which is divided into sections dealing with the background, the morphology, the biochemistry, the physiology, the psychology, and special problems such as edema, anorexia nervosa, infectious diseases and undernutrition, diabetes, tuberculosis, cancer, and rehabilitation. In addition, there are about 300 pages of appendices, setting forth the methods used, detailed data on this Minnesota experiment, and discussions of wartime diets and famines.

The book is, however, much more than a report on the Minnesota experiment. In every chapter there is a most comprehensive review of the pertinent scientific literature, some of which seems to be in a state of considerable confusion. The bibliography lists no less than 2,400 references, all of which were carefully consulted, according to the authors. More than this, each chapter includes a discussion of the general principles of the particular topic, so that the book actually is an excellent text on nutritional and general physiology. There are also numerous suggestions for further investigations and research, since existing data do not answer all of the problems of malnourishment and cachexia. This study, limited to young men over a relatively short period of time, obviously does not reveal what might happen to women, to children, or to the aged under the same or more severe conditions of undernutrition, such as are experienced in famines and in wartime.

The book is beautifully printed and bound, and contains almost no typographical errors. It has 565 tables, 150 graphs and pictures, and an excellent index. Although some portions, giving a mass of technical details, are not exactly light reading, all of it is enlightening and informative, and other parts are brilliant and even thrilling. It is a book to be studied over a considerable
course of time.

In the three forewords, contributed by Sir Jack Drummond, Dr. Russell M. Wilder, and one jointly by Drs. C. G. King and R. R. Williams, it is stated that this book is an outstanding contribution in the field of human nutrition and that it will have widespread use, encomia with which the reviewer is in full agreement. The book will be indispensable to anyone concerned with human nutrition and should be of interest and value to physicians, health officers, authorities on military medicine, and social workers. It is a landmark in its field.

JAMES A. TOBEY

PDF of this review here http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1526048&blobtype=pdf - scroll down to the bottom right corner. It's the same text as above though.

I'll see if I can get the original study on thepiratebay (joke) Tweet