I just received and read the 1953 article by A.W. Pennington in
NEJM, in which he describes the principles of his dietary
treatment of obesity.  As Anchell states in _The Steak Lovers'
Diet_, Pennington's theory is indeed that, for reasons unknown,
obese people have higher levels of pyruvate, which interferes
with the mobilization of stored fat.  Thus, for Pennington,
obesity is a disorder of fat mobilization more than fat storage.

The article is in fact an interesting overview of the thinking
about obesity at the time, but the most striking thing to me is
that Pennington's main argument is that it is *ketosis* that
corrects the fat mobilization problem.  The foods that he lists
are indeed the Anchell non-meat foods, but he doesn't say
anything about them other than that using these foods in amounts
of no more than 60g of carb per day achieves ketosis in most
people.

So, there is some dissonance between what Pennington says and
what Anchell says, since liberal use of potatoes could easily
push one over 60g of carbs.

Pennington mentions in passing (This was before the low-fat
anti-Atkins era) that the ketogenic diet is protein-sparing and
generally reduces cholesterol, over the course of time.  He
claims a typical reduction of total cholesterol of 51mg/dl after
a year.

Todd Moody
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