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 effects of severe and prolonged dietary restriction and the effectiveness of dietary rehabilitation strategies.

The purpose of the study was twofold: first, to produce a definitive treatise on the physical and psychological effects of prolonged, famine-like semi-starvation on healthy men, as well as subsequent effectiveness of dietary rehabilitation from this condition 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, 1941–1947) of conscientious objectors and the Selective Service System and used 36 men selected from a pool of over 200 CPS volunteers.

The study was divided into four phases: A twelve-week baseline control phase; a 24-week starvation phase, causing each participant to lose an average of 25% of his pre-starvation body weight; and two recovery phases, in which various rehabilitative diets were tried. The first rehabilitative stage was restricted by eating 2,000–3,000 calories a day. The second rehabilitative phase was unrestricted, letting the subjects eat as much food as they wanted.

Among the conclusions from the study was the confirmation that prolonged semi-starvation produces significant increases in depression, hysteria and hypochondriasis; most of the subjects experienced periods of severe emotional distress and depression. Participants exhibited a preoccupation with food, both during the starvation period and the rehabilitation phase. Sexual interest was drastically reduced, and the volunteers showed signs of social withdrawal and isolation.

Preliminary pamphlets containing key results from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment were used by aid workers in Europe and Asia in the months after World War II. In 1950, Ancel Keys and colleagues published the results in a two-volume, 1,385 page text entitled The Biology of Human Starvation (University of Minnesota Press).

This study was independent of the much broader Warsaw Ghetto Hunger Study performed in 1942 in the Warsaw Ghetto by 28 doctors of The Jewish Hospital in Warsaw. Their results were published in 1946.

Physiologist Ancel Keys was the lead investigator of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. He was directly responsible for the X-ray analysis and administrative work and the general supervision of the activities in the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene which he had founded at the University of Minnesota in 1940 after leaving positions at the Harvard 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, the K-rations. Keys was Director for the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene for 26 years, retired in 1972 and died in 2004 at the age of 100.