Good Calories, Bad Calories

What Dr. Spock taught: Spock 1946:361; Spock 1957:436; Spock 1968:449; Spock 1976:493; Spock 1985:536; Spock and Rothenberg 1992:380. 50 million copies: Pace 1998. “All popular ‘slimming regimes’…”: Davidson and Passmore 1963:389. “The first thing…”: Brody 1985:18.

Brody recommending potatoes, etc.: Brody 1985:18–20. “We need to eat…”: Brody 1981a:97. “…at the height of fashion…”: Brody 1985:78. “the previous nutritional advice…”: James 1983:20. Footnote. See Barr et al. 1953b; Eppright et al. 1955; Blix 1964; Wilson 1969; McLean, Baird, and Howard 1969; Apfelbaum 1973.

“bizarre concepts…”: Anon. 1973:1419.

Charlotte Young: C. M. Young 1976 (“The diets developed by Ohlson…,” 364; “No adequate explanation…,” 365).

“people who cut down…”: Squires 1985.

“sparingly”: USDA 1992.

“There is always an easy solution…”: Mencken 1982:443.

Less red meat, fewer eggs: Putnam et al. 2002. Fat intake has dropped: USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion 1998. Fall in cholesterol levels: Gregg et al. 2005.

Ten-year study of heart-disease mortality: Rosamond et al. 1998. See also Rosamond et al. 2001; McGovern et al. 2001. AHA statistics: Thom et al. 2006.

Percentage of smokers has dropped: National Center for Health Statistics 2004.

Incidence of obesity increasing: National Center for Health Statistics 2005:9, 275 (table 73). Diabetes rates: Fox et al. 2006; Cowie et al. 2006.

“What we see instead…”: Interview, William Harlan.

Best-selling diet books: Mackarness 1958; Taller 1961; Stillman and Baker 1968; Atkins 1972; Tarnower and Baker 1978; Sears and Lawren 1995; Eades and Eades 1996; Steward et al. 1998; Agatston 2003.

Fixated on cholesterol: This idea came from David Kritchevsky, who, among other accomplishments, authored the first textbook on cholesterol, published in 1958.

Series of expert reports: USDA and USDHEW 1980; USDHHS 1988; NRC 1989; U.K. Department of Health 1994.

“Each science…”: Whitehead 1980:14–15.

“If science is to progress…”: Feynman 1967:148.

PART ONE: THE FAT-CHOLESTEROL HYPOTHESIS

Epigraph. “Men who have excessive faith…”: Bernard 1957:38.

CHAPTER ONE:

THE EISENHOWER PARADOX

Epigraph. “In medicine…”: Bernard 1957:55.

The details of Eisenhower’s heart attack: Lasby 1997:70–80.

White’s press conference and Ike’s recovery: Ibid.:83–93.

Eisenhower’s weight, cholesterol, and blood pressure: Ibid.:257–58; interview, George Mann.

Ten times a year: Lasby 1997:70. Eisenhower’s diet and Snyder’s responses: Ibid.:258–59.

“He eats nothing…”: Ibid.

“He was fussing…”: Ibid.:260.

Keys made the cover of Time: Anon. 1961 (“…know the facts,” 52). First official endorsement: AHA 1961.

Eisenhower’s half-dozen heart attacks: Lasby 1997:293–323.

“great epidemic”: White 1971:220.

“drastic development…”: Mayer 1975a:138. Decline in deaths due to eating less fat: See, for instance, Sykowski et al. 1990; Hunink et al. 1997; NCEP 2002:II–26.

Osler wrote in 1910: Cited in Cassidy 1946. “If it had been common…”: White 1971:52. “part and parcel…” and “…cripples and kills…”: White 1945:475.

Herrick, the ECG, and the early history of cardiology: Liebowitz 1970:146–76. “Medical diagnosis…” and “…after the publication…”: Levy 1932.

Census numbers: Cooper 1972; Preston et al. 1972. Fortune article: Anon. 1950. Cassidy’s point: Cassidy 1946.

Mitigating against the “epidemic”: Levy 1932. See also Tunstall Pedoe 1984.

AHA 1957 report: Page et al. 1957 (“great difference…,” 165).

Between 1949 and 1968: Harper 1996. See also Harper 1983. Proportion of heart-disease deaths dropping: Harper 1996; interviews, Harry Rosenberg, chief of mortality statistics, National Center for Health Statistics, and Thomas Thom, a statistician at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. WHO committee report: Lozano et al. 2001 (“…the apparent increase…,” 14). About the situation in the United States, see also Woolsey and Moriyama 1948.

NHI 1949 allocations: Haseltine 1949. NHI 1960 research budget is from NIH, n.d., NIH Almanac.

“a private organization…”: White 1971:114. 1945 charitable contributions: Anon. 1945. Rome Betts: Moore 1983:57.

AHA fund-raising campaign and its success: Anon. 1948a; Anon. 1948b; Davies 1950; Moore 1983:77. “great epidemic…”: White 1971:220.

Compelling arguments: Mann 1957; Page et al. 1957; Harper 1983. “unobserved publications”: Kritchevsky 1992. “They don’t fit…”: Interview, David Kritchevsky.

“The present high level…”: Keys 1953.

“The simple fact…”: Select Committee 1977a:1. CSPI pamphlet: Brewster and Jacobson 1978. “Within this century…”: Brody 1985:2.

Keys’s argument: Keys 1953.

History of food disappearance statistics: USDA 1953; Call and Sanchez 1967.

“Until World War II…”: Interview, David Call.

Historians of dietary habits: See, for instance, Schwartz 1986:46; Cummings 1940:10–24. One French account: Levenstein 1999. USDA 1830s estimate: Appen 1933, cited in Cummings 1940:15. “with plenty of beef-steaks…”: Trollope 1932.