The Rice Diet started as a radical treatment for
malignant hypertension
A hypertensive emergency is very high blood pressure with potentially life-threatening symptoms and signs of acute damage to one or more organ systems (especially brain, eyes, heart, aorta, or kidneys). It is different from a hypertensive urgency ...
before the advent of
antihypertensive drugs
Antihypertensives are a class of medication, drugs that are used to treat hypertension (high blood pressure). Antihypertensive therapy seeks to prevent the complications of high blood pressure, such as stroke and myocardial infarction. Evidence sug ...
; the original diet included strict dietary restriction and hospitalization for monitoring. Some contemporary versions have been greatly relaxed, and have been described as
fad diets
A fad diet is a diet that becomes popular for a short time, similar to fads in fashion, without being a standard dietary recommendation, and often making unreasonable claims for fast weight loss or health improvements. There is no single defin ...
.
Origin and original form
The Rice Diet Program was founded in 1939 by (1903-1997), a German physician and refugee from the Nazis, who was at that time associated with
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
.
Kempner had many patients with
malignant hypertension
A hypertensive emergency is very high blood pressure with potentially life-threatening symptoms and signs of acute damage to one or more organ systems (especially brain, eyes, heart, aorta, or kidneys). It is different from a hypertensive urgency ...
with kidney failure, and there were no good treatments for those patients. He believed that the kidney had two functions, one excretory and the other metabolic, and "he theorized that if the protein and electrolyte load on the kidney was reduced to a minimum, the kidney might better perform its more essential metabolic role. The details of his reasoning are obscure, but he began to treat patients with malignant hypertension with a diet composed of nothing but rice and fruit, and amazingly, they rapidly improved."
[
Kempner's implementation was very strict, but also careful - patients were hospitalized for several weeks at the beginning of treatment. The initial treatment was stopping all medication and putting the patient on a diet consisting of "white rice, sugar, fruit, fruit juices, vitamins and iron, and provided about 2000 calories, 20 grams of protein, and 700β1000 ml of liquid as fruit juices. Sodium content was extremely low, about 150 milligrams per day, and chloride content about 200 milligrams per day." If results were good, after several months small amounts of lean meat and vegetables were added to the diet.
Kempner obtained remarkable results, and he was invited to present them at a meeting of the ]New York Academy of Medicine
The New York Academy of Medicine (the Academy) is a health policy and advocacy organization founded in 1847 by a group of leading New York metropolitan area physicians as a voice for the medical profession in medical practice and public health ...
in 1946. His presentation survives and "presents clear and unambiguous evidence, including blood pressure charts, retinal photographs, chest radiographs, electrocardiograms and laboratory results, documenting the benefits of his diet."[
Kempner described his diet as "a monotonous and tasteless diet which would never become popular.... Kempner's only defense of its use was the fact that βit works,β and that the diet was preferable to the alternative of certain death"][
]
Controversy
Kempner admitted in statements before his death that he whipped patients who avoided his rice diet. In 1993, a former patient Sharon Ryan sued him.["Report: 'Rice Diet' Doctor Beat Patients"](_blank)
''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
''. Retrieved November 30, 2018. Ryan accused Kempner of keeping her as a "virtual sex slave" for nearly two decades. According to the lawsuit, Kempner "persuaded Ryan to drop out of college, moved her into a home he owned, hired her to work for the clinic, and maintained a sexual relationship with Ryan by isolating her from the outside world". The lawsuit ended with a confidential settlement. In 1997, the ''Raleigh News & Observer'' reported that, by 1975, Duke University Medical Center (now Duke University Hospital
Duke University Hospital is a 957-acute care bed academic tertiary care facility located in Durham, North Carolina. Established in 1930, it is the flagship teaching hospital for the Duke University Health System, a network of physicians and hosp ...
), knew that Kempner had used a riding crop on several patients and reprimanded him, though he continued to be associated with the university. None of these charges were proven in court. Dr Kempner denied the accusations of having a sexual relationship with this patient. " Dr Kempner had whipped this patient on several occasions, and had also whipped several other patients in an effort to motivate them. In all instances, the patients had either themselves suggested or had consented in advance to this punishment for breaking the diet" These events received a great deal of sensationalist media attention.
Contemporary forms
Kempner retired from the Duke Faculty in 1974, but consulted until 1992. The commercialization of drugs to treat hypertension reduced both demand for the program and the need to make it strict in order to prevent death. In 2002 the program became independent of Duke University, and in 2013 the Rice House Healthcare Program opened in Durham, North Carolina.[ The Rice House Healthcare Program is an inpatient facility where people are put on a diet akin to the original diet and are monitored.
The rice diet has influenced some contemporary advocates of the ]plant-based diet
A plant-based diet is a diet consisting mostly or entirely of plant-based foods. Plant-based diets encompass a wide range of dietary patterns that contain low amounts of animal products and high amounts of plant products such as vegetables, fru ...
. For example, physician John A. McDougall
John A. McDougall (born May 17, 1947) is an American physician and author. He has written a number of diet books advocating the consumption of a low-fat vegan diet based on starchy foods and vegetables.
His eponymous diet, called ''The McDouga ...
has commented regarding the research of Walter Kempner that "all who have followed in his footsteps, including Nathan Pritikin, Dean Ornish
Dean Michael Ornish (born July 16, 1953) is an American physician and researcher. He is the president and founder of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, and a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Unive ...
, Neal Barnard, Caldwell Esselstyn
Caldwell may refer to:
People
* Caldwell (surname)
* Caldwell (given name)
* Caldwell First Nation, a federally recognized Indian band in southern Ontario, Canada
Places
Great Britain
* Caldwell, Derbyshire, a hamlet
* Caldwell, East ...
, and myself, owe homage to this man and his work."
The rice diet has been popularized in a modulated form through several modern books. Judy Moscovitz in her book ''The Rice Diet Report'', allows fruit, vegetables and various carbohydrates. Kitty and Robert Rosati authors of ''The Rice Diet Solution'' describe their diet as a "low-sodium, good-carb, detox diet". It is based on the consumption of carbohydrates such as whole grain
A whole grain is a grain of any cereal and pseudocereal that contains the endosperm, germ, and bran, in contrast to refined grains, which retain only the endosperm.
As part of a general healthy diet, consumption of whole grains is associated w ...
s, fruits, vegetable
Vegetables are parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. The original meaning is still commonly used and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including the flowers, fruits, stems, ...
s, and beans.
Criticism
The modern version of the rice diet has been categorized as a fad diet with possible disadvantages including a boring food choice, flatulence
Flatulence, in humans, is the expulsion of gas from the intestines via the anus, commonly referred to as farting. "Flatus" is the medical word for gas generated in the stomach or bowels. A proportion of intestinal gas may be swallowed environm ...
, and the risk of feeling too hungry.
Most people cannot follow the rice diet over extended periods, as it is too restrictive. Loren Cordain
Loren Cordain (born October 24, 1950) is an American scientist who specializes in the fields of nutrition and exercise physiology. He is notable as an advocate of the Paleolithic diet.
Education
Loren Cordain obtained a B.S. in Health Science ...
has commented that "the tenets of the Rice Diet are inconsistent with the best science of the 21st century".
Nutritionist Yvette Quantz has suggested that although the rice diet has some good short-term benefits in the long term it does not provide "enough calories or protein for most people to sustain."[Iliades, Chris. (2009)]
"The Rice Diet"
Everyday Health
Everyday Health Group is a digital media company which owns websites and produces content relating to health and wellness for consumers and medical professionals. For consumers, its brands include Everyday Health, Diabetes Daily, Migraine Again, ...
. Retrieved December 2, 2018.
Notes
References
Further reading
* ''The Rice Diet Report'', Judy Moscovitz (1988)
* ''Heal Your Heart, The New Rice Diet Program'', Kitty Gurkin Rosati (1996)
* ''The Rice Diet Cookbook'', Kitty Gurkin Rosati (2007)
* ''Walter Kempner and the Rice Diet: Challenging Conventional Wisdom'', Newborg Barbara (2011)
External links
The Rice Diet Solution at WebMD
The Rice House Healthcare Program home page
{{Diets, state=collapsed
Diets
Fad diets
Rice