A physiologist at the University of Minnesota, Keys did the studies that linked fat-laden diets to heart disease. His research led to his 1959 book, Eat Well and Stay Well. Earlier this year Dr. Darwin Labarthe, a cardiovascular epidemiologist at Atlanta’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, praised Keys, noting “There is no single person whose contribution to understanding the causation and potential for prevention of heart disease has matched Ancel’s.”
Yet Keys is perhaps better known to the public as the creator of portable meal packs for soldiers in World War II: “K-rations”. Keys didn’t call them that; the Army did, presumably naming the meals after their inventor. In 1944, Keys worked with volunteers to learn about human starvation; his results were helpful in bringing starving Europeans back to health after the war.
Then, his post-war studies found that one of the best diets was eaten in Greece and Italy; he dubbed it the “Mediterranean diet” and started to promote it in the 1970s. Keys lived his philosophy too: when he died in Minneapolis on November 20 he was 100 years old. Did his diet allow him to reach 100? “Very likely,” he said during his 100th birthday celebrations in January. Ever the scientist, though, he quickly added, “But no proof.”