Fred Kummerow in his laboratory in 2014. (Rick Danzl/ News-Gazette via Associated Press)
Fred A. Kummerow in 2013 at the University of Illinois. Sally Ryan for The New York Times
In 1953, Professor Kummerow, at the time a professor of food technology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, set up his lab in the animal sciences building on campus.
His daily diet included
a breakfast of eggs scrambled in butter.
He drank three glasses of whole milk a day and
regularly ate meat and cheese,
along with fruits, vegetables and grains.
He avoided processed foods and french fries.
Dr. Kummerow maintained a research laboratory until he was 101. (My Note: Not only he lived a long life but he lived an active life. This is typical of most countries in cold climates. People live long and active lives. In India, for example, even if someone lives a long life, they live a crippled life, they are not able to do much of their own work. I think this is typical of all tropical countries. Like the old Chinese medical text says, people in cold climates live longer lives compared to hot climates.)
***
Early in his career, Dr. Kummerow helped develop a cure for pellagra, a chronic disease that killed more than 100,000 Americans between 1900 and 1940, primarily in the South. The disease was caused by a vitamin deficiency, which Dr. Kummerow solved by adding niacin to grits and other foods.
Dr. Kummerow, who maintained a research laboratory until he was 101, was a biochemist who specialized in the study of lipids, or compounds containing fats. He also had an interest in the study of nutrition, dating to his days as a student, when he had to care for laboratory rats. (My note: His entire career was dedicated to one subject. That's how focused people in research in the US typically are. They are true experts of their field. But the drawback is they may not appreciate a counter-view point, especially since they have sunk so much time into their field).
Most trans fats are created through an industrial process in which hydrogen is added to vegetable oils, making them solid at room temperature.
“Partially hydrogenated” oils can be stored longer without spoiling and can be used in margarine, for deep-fat frying and in countless forms of processed foods.
To Dr. Kummerow, they were “a diet of sudden death.”
In his laboratory, he examined the arteries of people who had died from heart attacks and strokes, discovering that they were often clogged with the residue of trans fats. In his experiments with pigs, he found the same results: If they were fed artificially produced fats, their arteries hardened and filled with plaque.
“By the time they were 3 years old,” Dr. Kummerow told NPR in 2014, “they had exactly the same kind of structure in their coronary arteries as the people who had died of heart disease.”
He reported his findings in hundreds of papers, but his research was ignored and denigrated for years. His studies of heart disease were often dismissed because he was a mere chemist and not a cardiologist.
Dr. Kummerow also maintained that cholesterol from animal products produced essential amino acids and that its nutritional risk had been greatly exaggerated. Instead, he urged people to avoid margarine, commercially produced crackers and cookies, soft drinks and fried foods.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/fred-a-kummerow-scientist-who-raised-early-warnings-about-trans-fats-dies-at-102/2017/06/03/5d33a946-47d6-11e7-bcde-624ad94170ab_story.html?utm_term=.d92ba1ed086c
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/science/fred-kummerow-dead-biochemist-ban-trans-fatty-acids.html?_r=0
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