ArticleNutrition journal2011
Why were "starvation diets" promoted for diabetes in the pre-insulin period?
Article in Nutrition journal, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Metreleptin improves blood glucose in patients with insulin receptor mutations.The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism · 2013Trial
- Therapeutic potential of Aloe vera in diabetes mellitus treatment: an update.Saudi pharmaceutical journal : SPJ : the official publication of the Saudi Pharmaceutical Society · 2026Review
- Review
- Review
- Evolution of the diagnostic value of "the sugar of the blood": hitting the sweet spot to identify alterations in glucose dynamics.Physiological reviews · 2023Review
- High glutamine suppresses osteogenesis through mTORC1-mediated inhibition of the mTORC2/AKT-473/RUNX2 axis.Cell death discovery · 2022Article
- Reduction in the Dietary VA Status Prevents Type 2 Diabetes and Obesity in Zucker Diabetic Fatty Rats.Biomolecules · 2022Article
- One hundred years of insulin therapy.Nature reviews. Endocrinology · 2021Review
- 100 years of physiology, discrimination and wonder.Diabetic medicine : a journal of the British Diabetic Association · 2021Review
- Behavioral Sciences in the Optimization of Pharmacological and Non-Pharmacological Therapy for Type 2 Diabetes.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- 100 years on: the impact of the discovery of insulin on clinical outcomes.BMJ open diabetes research & care · 2021Review
- Carbohydrate restriction for diabetes: rediscovering centuries-old wisdom.The Journal of clinical investigation · 2021Review
- Carbohydrate Restriction in Type 1 Diabetes: A Realistic Therapy for Improved Glycaemic Control and Athletic Performance?Nutrients · 2019Review
- The Discovery of Insulin: An Important Milestone in the History of Medicine.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2018Review
- Review
- History of insulin.Journal of community hospital internal medicine perspectives · 2012Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In the decade before the discovery of insulin, the prominent American physicians Frederick Allen and Elliott Joslin advocated severe fasting and undernutrition to prolong the lives of diabetic patients. Detractors called this "starvation dieting," and some patients did indeed starve to death. Allen and Joslin promoted the therapy as a desperate application of animal experimentation to clinical treatment, and texts still describe it that way. This justification was exaggerated. The public record contains only the briefest account of relevant animal experiments, and clinical experience at the time provided little indication that severe undernutrition had better outcomes than low carbohydrate diets then in use.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.