hello my name is Jim Graham I'd like to tell you about an experience that I had during World War two as a guinea pig in an experiment in semi-starvation during the war there was a lot of concern for the people in Europe who were starving not just those in prison camps and concentration camps but also the general population who were suffering from food shortages in making plans for relief activities after the war there were a lot of questions that needed answers what do you feed a starving person to bring him or her back to health what's the most economical use of food materials when supplies are severely limited we knew fairly well what a starved person looked like and what starvation did to the human body but until this time there had never been an opportunity to measure exactly what changes take place in the body under starvation conditions nor had there ever been any scientific tests to determine what best to feed a star person to bring him or her back to health so dr. Ansell Keyes who was director of the laboratory of physiological hygiene at the University of Minnesota proposed an experiment lasting one year using volunteers from among the several thousand conscious objectors doing alternative public service throughout the United States I was one of those conscientious objectors early in 1944 our call went out for volunteers for those of us who were working in various civilian public service projects I had already spent a couple of years with the Forest Service planting trees and fighting forest fires this call for volunteers sounded like an opportunity to provide a worthwhile service not just to our country but to all humanity I was one of more than 100 volunteers of those 140 were selected to go to Minneapolis for clinical tests and and I was one of the final 36 chosen to take part in the experiment the criteria for selection were one we had to be in good health and free from chronic diseases or disabling defects 2 we had to be in good mental health 3 we had to be able to get along with others under periods of stress and lastly we had to have an interest in studying and preparing ourselves for relief and rehabilitation work after the war in the middle of November 1944 we 36 reported to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis we were shown to our quarters where we were to live for the next year located under one wing of the University Stadium here on the upper floor we had our dormitory style sleeping quarters a comfortable lounge library and classrooms on the ground floor the laboratory of physiological hygiene had all of its equipment testing rooms treadmills chemical analysis labs and so forth our meals were taken at a cafeteria of one of the residence halls a little over a mile away the experiment itself were divided into three parts first 12 weeks of normal diet then 24 weeks of semi-starvation and ending with 12 weeks of rehabilitation a total of 48 weeks just four weeks short of a full year during the first three months of the control period the standardization period we were all on the same diet but with different amounts according to the individual body requirements the amounts were carefully measured to determine how much each of us normally needed I started out at about 3500 calories a day which you might think would be enough for someone my size I'm 6 foot 2 and normally weigh about 175 pounds but even at that level I lost weight because I was fairly active one of my hobbies is folk dancing which I taught regularly at a local church furthermore this was the middle of winter so I was into all the winter sports especially ice skating since I was losing weight they kept increasing my food allotment at the end of the 12 weeks I was at 3,700 calories a day and still losing weight but not so rapidly all this time we were expected to participate in our normal activities sports activities social activities and we were expected to do 15 hours of signed work in the laundry or maintenance work clerical work or in the chemical lab we were expected to carry on an educational program studying preparing ourselves for relief and rehabilitation work after the war and this included taking some courses at the University as well as special classes that were given in the laboratory at the end of the control period after being on the same diet for three months we were put through two weeks of tests and measurements these were the same tests that would be repeated at intervals throughout the experiment they measured everything you could imagine they measured height weight chest size stomachs eyes blood volume specific gravity you get specific gravity by weighing underwater in the swimming pool they measured eyesight hand-eye coordination bone density lung capacity and capacity for work they took blood samples urine samples stool samples sperm samples and bone marrow samples they did electrocardiograms and skin biopsies and measured our basal metabolism they observed the functioning of the stomach by feeding us a bowl of oatmeal laced with barium sulfate and then following its progress by x-ray and fluoroscope they measured the tendency towards fainting using a tilt table they measured movement during sleep in addition to all these physiological tests we were given various psychological tests and I should point out that throughout the experiment we had weekly meetings with a psychologist and each of us kept a diary after going through all the tests and determining our normal measurements and normal body functions on February 12 1945 we began our 24 weeks of semi-starvation only two meals a day from now on and only three daily menus number one on Monday number two on Tuesday number three on Wednesday and start over again with number one on Thursday and so forth the diet was designed to represent as nearly as possible the food found in Central European countries during famine we had whole wheat bread potatoes cereals and lots of turnips and cabbage only token amounts of meats and dairy products the average daily intake was 1570 calories and that included about 50 grams of protein and 30 grams of fat the fifteen hundred and seventy calories was an average some of us had less some had more we were expected to lose about 1/4 of our body weight during the next six months each of us was assigned a weight loss goal and given a graph showing the radix it at which we were expected to lose weight we were expected to lose weight fairly rapidly at first and then it would level off towards the ends of six months each morning we were weighed and if we were losing weight too fast we'd be assigned extra bread and potatoes or we were not losing weight fast enough our allotment of bread and potatoes was reduced at the beginning this was a rather interesting experience we were losing weight of course but for the first few weeks we still had quite a bit of energy we were expected to continue all activities as before to the extent that we could we had to walk a minimum of 22 miles per week plus a half hour on the treadmill each week we had to spend 15 hours a week on our assigned jobs at the lab and of course keep up our classes it wasn't long however before we began losing our will to do anything that required energy the days began to drag out each day getting longer and longer and there seemed to be no end of starvation in sight six months seemed like forever each morning we would get up step on the scales and check our weight against the chart of expected weight loss to see if maybe we might be entitled to some extra bread and potatoes I'd look in the mirror and see that my eyes looked hollow my cheeks were only a thin covering for the bones in my face and my hair was getting thinner if I tried to smile it was just a grimace I didn't feel like smiling in the first place and I never laughed my muscles were almost gone my bones protruded and sitting on a hard chair was uncomfortable even for a few minutes most of us carried around pillows to sit on I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without stopping to rest once or twice on the way up I felt like an old man probably looked like one since I made no effort to stand up straight I thought about food all the time I started collecting cookbooks you know the kind with beautiful color pictures of delicious looking dishes I felt cold all the time even though it was the middle of summer nothing felt better than to find a nice warm spot in the sunshine and do nothing but lie there and soak up the heat of the Sun luckily we have been able to do our ice-skating when we felt strong and the worst of the starvation was in the middle of summer most of us suffered from edema the collecting of liquid in the body some more than others I always woke up in the morning with my face puffy on the side I was lying on sometimes my ankles and knees were property but my edema was not as bad as that of several others whose flesh bulged over their shoes by the end of the day we became very irritable and intolerant little things seemed to annoy us we were no longer polite with each other or with visitors it seemed as if the veneer of civilization had been removed leaving Bear the animal underneath we didn't enjoy having guests because it was an effort to entertain them and we were not usually very diplomatic about showing our feelings about it food occupied our thoughts all the time at mealtime each one had his special way of dealing with the food a couple of the fellows would eat their food quickly and then leave the cafeteria and try to forget about it most of the rest of us dawdled over our food some would mix her food altogether others would savor each bite of each item on the plate we've been told before the experiment that the food might become monotonous since there were only three menus but it was far from monotonous it was food and any food tasted good to this day I find one of the tastiest foods is a simple boiled potato it's delicious any food looked good even the dirty crusts of bread in the street looked appetizing and we envied the fat pigeons pecking at them wasting food is a crime we thought the waste of food and restaurants was intolerable about two months into the semi starvation period one of the participants broke down he was coming back from a walk downtown one of our measured routes for our required 22 miles per week was downtown Minneapolis and back on the way back one day he lost his self-control stopped at an ice cream shop for a dish of ice cream once he'd started he couldn't stop he went on an eating binge a little further down the street he stopped again for an ice cream sundae and then after that it was a series of sundaes and malted milks before returning to the lab to report that he broken the diet it would have to be removed from the program the next day we established a buddy system from that time onward we never left the lab except in the company of another participant or a member of the staff those who were working in the kitchen asked to be assigned to other jobs one of the first effects of semi-starvation was the loss of interest in women a couple of the fellows continued to date longer than the rest of us but fry we found out afterwards they were having a sort of competition to see who could last the longest they weren't really interested in the girls sometimes we go to the movies but even that became more of an effort than it was worth the best parts contain scenes of people eating if the picture was funny we couldn't laugh and this love scenes were absolutely boring the human body is a marvelous machine you adjust itself automatically to a lower food intake body weight reduces of course but also heart size lung capacity stomach size everything slows down particularly the metabolism rate but the changes we noticed most were psychological changes tests showed that our mental ability did not change significantly we still have the ability to solve mental problems but our will to make the effort to solve intellectual problems was very low about halfway through the semi-starvation period we were given a relief dinner instead of two meals we had just one that day the total calories for that day was about 2300 calories we'd been asked what menu we'd would like to have then we were served a delicious meal of chicken and dressing with potatoes and gravy a lot of other things and we ended up with strawberry shortcake for dessert that night we suddenly discovered that everybody was getting up in the night to urinate in the morning we all weighed in several pounds lighter apparently the extra protein from the chicken dinner had triggered the loss of body fluids that were causing edema a few days later we were all back to our pre relief meal weights but wondering how much we really weighed as we approach the end of the semi-starvation period our spirits rose on July 29 1945 was the day semi-starvation was to end and we were to begin eating again it was also my 23rd birthday for the rehabilitation period we were divided into four groups the lowest group received an additional 400 calories the second group an additional 800 calories the third group 1200 calories and the highest group received 1600 calories in addition to the average 15 70 that we had been receiving so now the four groups range from a little under 2,000 calories to 3,000 170 for the highest group to find out the importance of proteins and vitamins in the rehabilitation of persons webstar our groups were further subdivided so that some received a protein supplement and some did not some received a multiple vitamin pill every day and the rest received a placebo that is a pill with no vitamins in it well was high for a few days that that did not last long when we discovered that the food we were getting was not enough to satisfy hunger and we were not even beginning to gain weight in fact for the first few weeks we lost weight as pounds of edema fluids were being replaced by healthy flesh signs of recovery were so slow in coming that we became even more despondent than during semi-starvation therefore after six weeks our food rations were increased another 800 calories now the four groups averaged two thousand seven hundred three thousand one hundred seventy three thousand five seventy and three thousand nine seventy calories per day even those getting nearly 4,000 calories gained weight very slowly by the end of three months rehabilitation none of us had yet reached normal weight the war came to an end while we were still in the experiment Germany surrendered in May and Japan surrendered in August our experiment didn't end until October thousands of star people were being released from concentration camps and prison camps questions were being asked about the best ways to feed these people unfortunately dr. keyes could only give tentative answers based on preliminary results of the experiment definite answers would have to wait until our experiment ended in October the first conclusions announced by dr. keyes was that starve people of Europe and Asia must be rehabilitated physically before talking to them about democracy a reference to the psychological effects of starvation he also said that the Minnesota experiment showed that supplements and vitamins or proteins were not necessary here I'm quoting dr. keyes in a speech he made in Chicago enough food must be supplied to allow tissues destroyed during starvation to be rebuilt our experiments have shown that in an adult man no appreciable rehabilitation can take place on a diet of 2,000 calories a day the proper level is more like 4,000 calories for some months the character of the rehabilitation diet is also important but unless calories are abundant then extra proteins and minerals of little value in quote these were generalizations while the experiment was just coming to a close the medical staff spent the next three or four years analyzing the extensive data collected and published the final report in 1950 almost 5 years later the report is over 1,300 pages in too thick volumes it gives all the details of the changes that took place in our bodies physical chemical and biological but it also showed that the greatest changes were psychological depression and apathy changed more than body weight after the experiment was over I was still hungry for a long time even when I could eat all I wanted I would finish a meal and still feel hungry my stomach just would not hold anymore for months I carried candy bars or cookies in my pocket and munched continually naturally I got fat in six months I went from a low of 122 pounds to a high of 225 pounds it took me three years to get back to normal weight and normal eating habits in conclusion I would like to say that I have experienced hunger and the apathy and depression that goes with it we lived in sanitary quarters under the constant care of doctors most people in areas of famine died of other diseases because of the body's inability to resist disease furthermore we knew that it would all be over on a certain date I often think how horrible it would be to be starving and never know when it would end if ever you