Dr. Ancel Keys’s famous Minnesota Starvation Experiment11 placed volunteers on a diet of 1500 calories per day. Despite the study’s name, this diet restricted calories by 30 percent over the subjects’ usual diets—a degree of calorie restriction not dissimilar to many weight-loss diets recommended today. In response, the subjects’ basal metabolic rate dropped about 30 percent. They felt cold, tired, and hungry. When they resumed their typical diet, all their weight came right back. Reversing type 2 diabetes relies upon burning off the body’s excess glucose, so the daily calorie-restricted diet
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