Minnesota Starvation Experiment

The Minnesota Starvation Experiment, also known as the Minnesota Semi-Starvation

Experiment, the Minnesota Starvation-Recovery Experiment and the Starvation Study, was a
clinical study performed at the University of Minnesota between November 19, 1944 and December
20, 1945. The investigation was designed to determine the physiological and psychological effects of
severe and prolonged dietary restriction and the effectiveness of dietary rehabilitation strategies.
The motivation of the study was twofold: first, to produce a definitive treatise on the subject of
human starvation based on a laboratory simulation of severe famine and, second, to use the
scientific results produced to guide the Allied relief assistance to famine victims in Europe and Asia
at the end of World War II. It was recognized early in 1944 that millions of people were in grave
danger of mass famine as a result of the conflict, and information was needed regarding the effects
of semi-starvation—and the impact of various rehabilitation strategies—if postwar relief efforts were
to be effective.
The study was developed in coordination with the Civilian Public Service (CPS) and the Selective
Service System and used 36 men selected from a pool of over 200 CPS volunteers.[1]:46
The study was divided into three phases: A twelve-week control phase, where physiological and
psychological observations were collected to establish a baseline for each subject; a 24-week
starvation phase, during which the caloric intake of each subject was drastically reduced—causing
each participant to lose an average of 25% of their pre-starvation body weight; and finally a recovery
phase, in which various rehabilitative diets were tried to re-nourish the volunteers. Two subjects
were dismissed for failing to maintain the dietary restrictions imposed during the starvation phase of
the experiment, and the data for two others were not used in the analysis of the results.
In 1950, Ancel Keys and his colleagues published the results of the Minnesota Starvation
Experiment in a two-volume, 1,385 page text entitled The Biology of Human Starvation (University of
Minnesota Press).[2] While this definitive treatise came too late to substantially impact postwar
recovery efforts, preliminary pamphlets containing key results from the Minnesota Starvation
Experiment were produced and used extensively by aid workers in Europe and Asia in the months
following the cessation of hostilities.[1]:183–184

Principal investigators[edit]
Ancel Keys was the lead investigator of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. He was responsible
for the general supervision of the activities in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene and was
directly responsible for the X-ray analysis and administrative work for the project. Keys founded the
Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene at the University of Minnesota in 1940 after leaving positions at
Harvard's Fatigue Laboratory and the Mayo Clinic. Starting in 1941, he served as a special assistant
to the U.S. Secretary of War and worked with the Army to develop rations for troops in combat (K-
rations).[1]:30–31 Keys served as Director for the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene for 26 years, and
retired in 1972 after a distinguished 36-year career at the University of Minnesota.
Olaf Mickelsen was responsible for the chemical analyses conducted in the Laboratory of
Physiological Hygiene during the Starvation Study, and the daily dietary regime of the CPS subjects
—including the supervision of the kitchen and its staff. During the study, he was an associate
professor of biochemistry and physiological hygiene at the University of Minnesota and received his
Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin in 1939.
Henry Longstreet Taylor had the major responsibility of recruiting the 36 CPS volunteers used in the
Minnesota Starvation Experiment, maintaining the morale of the participants and their involvement in
the study. During the study he collaborated with Austin Henschel in conducting the physical
performance, respiration and postural tests. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota
in 1941 and joined the faculty at the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene, where he held a joint
appointment with the Department of Physiology. His research concentrated on problems in
cardiovascular physiology, temperature regulation, metabolism and nutrition, aging and
cardiovascular epidemiology.
Austin Henschel shared the responsibility of screening the CPS volunteers with Taylor for selection
in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment and, in addition, had charge of the blood morphology and
scheduling all the tests and measurements of the subjects during the course of the study. He was a
member of the faculty in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene and the Department of Medicine at
the University of Minnesota.
Josef Brožek (1914–2004)[3] was responsible for psychological studies during the Starvation Study,
including the psychomotor tests, anthropometric measurements and statistical analysis of the
results. Brožek received his PhD from Charles University in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1937. He
emigrated to the United States in 1939 and joined the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene at the
University of Minnesota in 1941, where he served in a succession of posts over a 17-year period.
His research in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene concerned malnutrition and behavior, visual
illumination and performance, and aging.

Participant volunteers[edit]
An essential ingredient for the successful execution of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment was the
availability of a sufficient number of healthy volunteers willing to subject themselves to the year-long
invasion of privacy, nutritional deprivation and physical and mental hardship necessary to complete
the study. From the outset, the experiment was planned in cooperation with the Civilian Public
Service and the Selective Service System, with the intention of using volunteers selected from the
ranks of conscientious objectors already inducted into public wartime service. Keys obtained
approval from the War Department to select participants from the CPS.
In early 1944, a recruitment brochure was drafted and distributed within the network of CPS work
camps throughout the United States. Over 400 men volunteered to participate in the study as an
alternative to military service; of these, about 100 were selected for detailed examination. Drs.
Taylor, Brožek, and Henschel from the Minnesota Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene traveled to
the various CPS units to interview the potential candidates and administer physical and
psychological tests to the volunteers. 36 men were ultimately selected who demonstrated evidence
of the required mental and physical health, the ability to get along reasonably well within a group
while enduring deprivation and hardship, and sufficient commitment to the relief and rehabilitation
objectives of the investigation to complete the study. The subjects were all white males, with ages
ranging from 22 to 33 years old.
Of the 36 volunteer subjects, 15 were members of the Historic Peace
Churches (Mennonites, Church of the Brethren and Quakers). Others there
included Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and one of each who was Jewish, Episcopalian,
Evangelical & Reformed, Disciples of Christ, Congregational, and Evangelical Mission Covenant,
along with two participants without a declared religion.[4]
The 36 CPS participants in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment were: William Anderson, Harold
Blickenstaff, Wendell Burrous, Edward Cowles, George Ebeling, Carlyle Frederick, Jasper Garner,
Lester Glick, James Graham, Earl Heckman, Roscoe Hinkle, Max Kampelman, Sam Legg, Phillip
Liljengren, Howard Lutz, Robert McCullagh, William McReynolds, Dan Miller, L. Wesley Miller,
Richard Mundy, Daniel Peacock, James Plaugher, Woodrow Rainwater, Donald Sanders, Cedric
(Henry) Scholberg, Charles Smith, William Stanton, Raymond Summers, Marshall Sutton, Kenneth
Tuttle, Robert Villwock, William Wallace, Franklin Watkins, W. Earl Weygandt, Robert Wiloughby
and Gerald Wilsnack.