1901 | Nutrition
Nutrition
Obesity and heart disease are observed for the first time to have a strong correlation.
The hydrogenation process invented by Wilhelm Normann turns polyunsaturated fats into saturated fats that will be linked to heart disease when it is found that the human liver can synthesize serum cholesterol from saturated fats (see medicine [Anichkov], 1913).
Horace Fletcher gains international scientific attention when his personal physician Ernest Van Someren, 30, reads a paper to the British Medical Association claiming that by thoroughly masticating his food Fletcher has reduced his intake of protein and "significantly and objectively increased his well-being" (see 1899). Van Someren asserts that the practice has cured Fletcher of "gout, incapacitating headaches, frequent colds, boils on the neck and face, chronic eczema of the toes . . . , frequent massive dyspepsia," and, even worse, "loss of interest" in life and in his work (see 1902).
Beriberi kills thousands in the Philippines following introduction of polished white rice by U.S. occupation authorities (see 1896; Grijns, 1906).