The Minnesota Starvation Experiment
January 29th, 2014Via: io9:
Towards the end of World War II, word got through that certain people in occupied territories were eating a near-starvation diet. American researchers wanted to study the effects of starvation, so they recruited volunteers – and starved them some more.
The Minnesota Starvation Experiment pretty much lived up to its name. It was an early experiment in nutrition prompted by news about the conditions in Europe during World War II. The full horror of concentration camps was still to come, but word came in that people in war-torn territories were living on severely restricted diets. Everyone knew that things were going to get worse before they got better, and concerned researchers wanted to find out the effects of starvation and how to rehabilitate a severely starved person. In November of 1944, at The University of Minnesota, a study began on the effects of starvation.
