Hugh Macdonald Sinclair
Encyclopedia
Hugh Macdonald Sinclair, FRCP
(4 February 1910 – 22 June 1990) was a doctor, medical researcher, and expert in human nutrition
. He is most widely known for claiming that what he called "diseases of civilization
" such as coronary heart disease
, cancer
, diabetes, inflammation
, stroke
s and skin disease are worsened by "bad fats".
monarch of Finland, Woldonius, and the St Clair cousins of William the Conqueror
. His great grandfather was the Rt. Hon. Sir John Sinclair Bt MP, founder and President of the British Board of Agriculture
, whose second wife was the Hon. Diana Macdonald, the only daughter of Alexander, Lord Macdonald of the Isles. His godfather and cousin was Sir Archibald Sinclair, Viscount Thurso
, leader of the Liberal Party
and Secretary of State for Air
in Churchill’s
wartime cabinet. His maternal grandfather was Sir John Jackson, the eminent engineer.
Hugh was born in Duddington House, Edinburgh
, Scotland, which was rented from the Duke of Abercorn
.
, where he was from 1923 to 1929, being awarded the Headmaster’s Natural Science Prize, 1928, and the Senior Science Prize, 1929.
In that year, he went up to Oriel College, Oxford, to read Animal Physiology, in which he duly achieved a First three years later, when he was appointed Departmental Demonstrator in Biochemistry and then Senior Demy at Magdalen College, Oxford
. He succeeded in gaining the Gotch Memorial Prize in 1933.
He went on to study Clinical Medicine at University College Hospital Medical School
, London, 1933-1936, resulting in the qualifications of LMSSA, MA, BM, and BCh, as well as in gold and silver medals. In parallel he was Lecturer in Physiology at University College, London.
He was awarded a Radcliffe Travelling Fellowship, which allowed him to make an extensive visit during the summer of 1937 to many of the laboratories in the US and Canada engaged in nutritional research, but he had to curtail his travels because he had been elected Official Fellow and Tutor in Physiology and Biochemistry at Magdalen College, followed by appointment as University Lecturer and Demonstrator in Biochemistry, 1937-1947.
in the Department of Biochemistry, seeking countermeasures to poison gas
, but the nutritional status of the population and how to assess it began to occupy Hugh more and more. Through his complex network of contacts, proposals were drawn up and submitted for what eventually became known as the Oxford Nutrition Survey. The Ministry of Health agreed to them, as did the Regional Medical Council to two local counties. Strong support came from the Rockefeller Foundation
, much of which was instigated by Dr Hugh Smith. Eventually Oxford University accepted responsibility and made Hugh Director of the Survey. Problems of funding and staffing (the staff comprised up to 24) are daunting, but those of obtaining, assembling, and analysing data are no less. Hugh had more than enough to do.
Data to be collected included: anthropometric
measurements, clinical assessment, physiological determinations on blood (haemoglobin
, clotting time, red and white cell counts, phosphate, total vitamin B1
, cocarboxylase, vitamin C
, vitamin B2
, nicotinic acid
), urine (nitrogen, vitamin C, and vitamin B1 levels on two samples taken 4 hours apart), and visual dark adaptation
.
Hugh decided that what Sir William Jameson, Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, would find most useful were "half-page" survey-backed assurances that the indications were that the nation’s nutritional status was satisfactory, rather than detailed papers, suitable for submission to recognised peer review
ed scientific journals. This decision is one that Hugh no doubt much regretted subsequently, when it led to persistent criticism.
Part of the work of the Oxford Nutrition Survey was carried out by a small mobile team, which was sent to industrial towns, such as Accrington
, Merthyr
, Chesterfield
, and Dundee
. It was experience in organising and managing all the facets of this work that made Hugh the most clearly qualified person to be invited by the Dutch Government in exile to conduct surveys of the nutritional status of the Dutch population affected by the famine of the last months of the war in Europe. Following hectic preparations, Hugh and his team went to Holland as the Nutrition Survey Group SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force
), just before the German surrender. He found a base in Leiden, where 26,000 biochemical analyses were said to have been carried out in just two weeks. The pace was hectic without doubt for the Oxford team and for their Dutch colleagues, but the situation was dire. The actual state of the famine needed to be assessed, treatment and response recorded, and the results set out to inform future action in parallel circumstances. Medically, the best treatment needed to be discovered and applied.
For his achievements, Hugh was appointed a Chevalier of the order of Oranje-Nassau by the Queen of the Netherlands
.
In consequence, it is not surprising that Hugh was invited in 1945 to take the mobile laboratories to Düsseldorf
, where he set up the headquarters for the Nutrition Survey Group for the British Control Commission. Hugh again achieved extraordinary feats of organisation, setting up five teams in different cities, under leaders drawn from his colleagues in Oxford and from elsewhere. Hugh was made an honorary Brigadier and was subsequently awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom
with Silver Palm.
The Oxford Nutrition Survey was closed formally in 1946 and the Nutrition Survey Group was ended in 1947. Instead of the Department of Human Nutrition, which Hugh had expected to be able to set up after the war, he was designated Director of the Laboratory of Human Nutrition, which was allocated a few Nissen hut
s at the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, which had recently been released by the U.S. forces. The Laboratory inherited most of the equipment and some of the staff of the Survey, but not the accommodation. Hugh’s powers of organisation were again much in demand. Hugh was appointed as the first University Reader in Human Nutrition in 1951. In 1954, Hans Adolf Krebs
succeeded Sir Rudolph Peters as Professor and Head of the Department of Biochemistry, to which the Laboratory was transferred and closed shortly thereafter.
, entitled "Deficiency of essential fatty acids and atherosclerosis, etcetera". The causes of death that had increased most in previous years were lung cancer
, coronary thrombosis
, and leukaemia
and Hugh believed essential fatty acid
(EFA) deficiency to be important in all three. EFA deficiency causes extra deposition of cholesterol
esters in the epidermis. Hugh thought the tetraenoic arachidonic acid
to be the most important EFA. Its biosynthesis requires vitamin B6
. Hardening of fats reduces EFAs and changing to low-extraction flour diminishes the vitamin B6 content. Improvers, such as chlorine dioxide
, destroy any EFA present, as well as vitamin E
, which would protect it.
The cholesterol thus esterified with abnormal fatty acids is less easily eliminated and so leads to atheroma
. Phospholipid
s containing abnormal fatty acids are also less easily eliminated and so are retained in the plasma
and increase the coagulability of blood
, thereby contributing to coronary and cerebral thrombosis
. The deficiency of normal phospholipids in the epidermis and gut makes their structure faulty and so may contribute to seborrhoeic eczema and peptic ulcer
. Similarly, deficiency of normal phospholipids or the presence of abnormal phospholipids in the nervous system
leads to defective structure, including demyelination, which would cause multiple (disseminated) sclerosis
and possibly mental disease
. Deficiency of EFAs may increase susceptibility to X-irradiation
and chemical carcinogen
s, the former in conjunction with the latter leading to leukaemia and the latter to carcinoma
of the bronchus
and to the predominance of carcinoma of the stomach in males, the male requirement for EFAs being about five times that of the female.
Much of the letter is speculative and some of the comments are injudicious. Nevertheless, it constituted a landmark and led to correspondence for more than a year. Apart from this paper, in this period, Hugh had published on a variety of topics, including nutritional deficiency in general and in more specific aspects, such as the relation of deficiencies of vitamin A and essential fatty acids to follicular hyperkeratosis in rats, lesions of mucocutaneous zone
s in the rat in pyridoxine
deficiency, ascorbic acid
in hypervitaminosis A
in guinea pigs, polycythaemia
in the rat in pyridoxine deficiency, skin permeability in deficiency of essential fatty acids, vitamin deficiencies in alcoholism
, vitamins and the nervous system, and nutritional neuropathy in chronic thiamine
deficiency in the rat.
In 1958, the first election period for Hugh’s Readership ended, but he was not reappointed, presumably because his contribution to the traditional scientific literature was judged to be insufficient, in spite of the broad sweep and originality of his thinking.
(1940–1943), but he did not press his case as hard as he might have done, mainly as a consequence of the shock of the death in a car crash of his sister, Catherine. He had already lost his brother to heart disease about 6½ years earlier, in 1954. Lord Woolton died in 1964 and Lord Bossom in 1965.
Hugh continued to be granted recognition in other ways. Thus he was Cutter Lecturer at Harvard
in 1951, Master of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
for 1967–1968, awarded an Honorary DSc from Baldwin-Wallace College
in 1968, Sanderson-Wells Lecturer in London in 1969, and President of the McCarrison Society 1983–1990.
in 1953. In 1966, he lectured in Trondheim
, where he renewed his interest. In 1976, he was able to spend some time joining the expedition of Drs Bang and Dyerberg in northwest Greenland
, which led to his most widely known experiment, in which he put himself on an Inuit diet, consisting solely of seal, fish (including molluscs and crustaceans), and water for 100 days, starting in March, 1979. Many analyses were done, extreme disaggregation of platelets, with bleeding times rising from 3 to over 50 min, with spontaneous haemorrhages, being observed. Inuit are known to suffer from nosebleed
. The experiment was a dramatic demonstration of the importance of long-chain fatty acids of fish oils in decreasing the aggregation of platelets and thus the incidence of thrombosis.
, where he continued to give lectures right up to the year he died. The text of the most significant of these is incorporated into the book by Dr Walker (1990).
At times, Hugh entertained hopes that he might found his institute at Nuneham Park, a mansion in extensive grounds, near Oxford
, but gradually he realised that the most practical way forward would be to use his home, Lady Place, Sutton Courtenay
, also near Oxford, which had been purchased by his mother in 1933.
In 1972, The Memorandum and Articles of Association of The Association for the Study of Human Nutrition Limited were signed, the subscribers being Professor Hugh Sinclair, Professor Francis Aylward, Professor Sir Richard Doll
, FRS, Mr. Arthur Elliott-Smith, FRCS, Sir David Paton Cuthbertson, FRSE, Professor Herbert Kay, FRS, and John Talbot, Solicitor. The Association was subsequently registered as a charity. Hugh became its Director. Soon the name was changed to The International Institute of Human Nutrition and later to The International Nutrition Foundation. Lord Porritt was invited to join the Council, the composition of which changed over the years:
http://mccarrisonsociety.org.uk/founders-of-nutrition-othermenu-149/cleave-othermenu-144, Neil Painter, Hugh Trowellhttp://mccarrisonsociety.org.uk/founders-of-nutrition-othermenu-149/trowell-othermenu-145, and Cicely Williams. Much of his time was occupied in trying to raise funds, but to a very large extent the functioning of the institute in the temporary accommodation arranged at Lady Place was dependent on personal donations from Hugh. Eventually, he left all his estate to the Foundation. The Council of Management decided not to pursue itself the build-up of research at Lady Place, but to see whether a university would wish to further Hugh’s aspirations by founding a chair in Human Nutrition. Accordingly, proposals were invited and a panel of international experts in nutrition was appointed to assess the relative merits of the proposals submitted. In the final round, there were three contenders, Oxford Brookes University
, The University of Oxford, and The University of Reading. The last proved successful and, in due course, the Foundation was wound up and the Hugh Sinclair Unit of Human Nutrition was established at the University of Reading. In 1995, Dr Christine Williams was appointed as the first Hugh Sinclair Professor and the appointment of other staff followed swiftly.
Thus Hugh Sinclair’s devotion and dedication to human nutrition has borne fruit and the research and teaching that is carried out in the Unit bearing his name is making substantial progress, its contribution increasing year by year.
The above account of Hugh Sinclair’s life and achievements has been largely based on the publications of Ewin (2001) and Gale and Lloyd (1990).
(the Sinclair home) was used by University of Reading
after Sinclair's death in 1990. It was destroyed when a fire ripped through the house on 28th August 1998 (a local man was subsequently cleared of arson charges). An estate of private houses was built on the site in 2000, with a half-timbered apartment block occupying the precise location of the mansion.
Royal College of Physicians
The Royal College of Physicians of London was founded in 1518 as the College of Physicians by royal charter of King Henry VIII in 1518 - the first medical institution in England to receive a royal charter...
(4 February 1910 – 22 June 1990) was a doctor, medical researcher, and expert in human nutrition
Nutrition
Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet....
. He is most widely known for claiming that what he called "diseases of civilization
Lifestyle diseases
Lifestyle diseases are diseases that appear to increase in frequency as countries become more industrialized and people live longer...
" such as coronary heart disease
Coronary heart disease
Coronary artery disease is the end result of the accumulation of atheromatous plaques within the walls of the coronary arteries that supply the myocardium with oxygen and nutrients. It is sometimes also called coronary heart disease...
, cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
, diabetes, inflammation
Inflammation
Inflammation is part of the complex biological response of vascular tissues to harmful stimuli, such as pathogens, damaged cells, or irritants. Inflammation is a protective attempt by the organism to remove the injurious stimuli and to initiate the healing process...
, stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
s and skin disease are worsened by "bad fats".
Early life
Hugh Macdonald Sinclair was the third of the four children of Colonel Hugh Montgomerie Sinclair and Rosalie Sybil Jackson. Through his father, he was descended from the VikingViking
The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...
monarch of Finland, Woldonius, and the St Clair cousins of William the Conqueror
William I of England
William I , also known as William the Conqueror , was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II...
. His great grandfather was the Rt. Hon. Sir John Sinclair Bt MP, founder and President of the British Board of Agriculture
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was a United Kingdom government department created by the Board of Agriculture Act 1889 and at that time called the Board of Agriculture, and then from 1903 the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, and from 1919 the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries...
, whose second wife was the Hon. Diana Macdonald, the only daughter of Alexander, Lord Macdonald of the Isles. His godfather and cousin was Sir Archibald Sinclair, Viscount Thurso
Archibald Sinclair, 1st Viscount Thurso
Archibald Henry Macdonald Sinclair, 1st Viscount Thurso KT, CMG, PC , known as Sir Archibald Sinclair, Bt between 1912 and 1952, and often as Archie Sinclair, was a British politician and leader of the Liberal Party....
, leader of the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
and Secretary of State for Air
Secretary of State for Air
The Secretary of State for Air was a cabinet level British position. The person holding this position was in charge of the Air Ministry. It was created on 10 January 1919 to manage the Royal Air Force...
in Churchill’s
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
wartime cabinet. His maternal grandfather was Sir John Jackson, the eminent engineer.
Hugh was born in Duddington House, Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, Scotland, which was rented from the Duke of Abercorn
Duke of Abercorn
The title Duke of Abercorn was created in the Peerage of Ireland in 1868 and bestowed upon James Hamilton, 2nd Marquess of Abercorn.This article also covers the Earls and Marquesses of Abercorn, all named after Abercorn, West Lothian, in Scotland.-History:...
.
Education
He followed his older brother, John, to Stone House School and then to WinchesterWinchester College
Winchester College is an independent school for boys in the British public school tradition, situated in Winchester, Hampshire, the former capital of England. It has existed in its present location for over 600 years and claims the longest unbroken history of any school in England...
, where he was from 1923 to 1929, being awarded the Headmaster’s Natural Science Prize, 1928, and the Senior Science Prize, 1929.
In that year, he went up to Oriel College, Oxford, to read Animal Physiology, in which he duly achieved a First three years later, when he was appointed Departmental Demonstrator in Biochemistry and then Senior Demy at Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...
. He succeeded in gaining the Gotch Memorial Prize in 1933.
He went on to study Clinical Medicine at University College Hospital Medical School
University College Hospital
University College Hospital is a teaching hospital located in London, United Kingdom. It is part of the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is closely associated with University College London ....
, London, 1933-1936, resulting in the qualifications of LMSSA, MA, BM, and BCh, as well as in gold and silver medals. In parallel he was Lecturer in Physiology at University College, London.
He was awarded a Radcliffe Travelling Fellowship, which allowed him to make an extensive visit during the summer of 1937 to many of the laboratories in the US and Canada engaged in nutritional research, but he had to curtail his travels because he had been elected Official Fellow and Tutor in Physiology and Biochemistry at Magdalen College, followed by appointment as University Lecturer and Demonstrator in Biochemistry, 1937-1947.
Oxford Nutrition Survey
At the beginning of the war in 1939, Hugh joined a Ministry of Supply team under Professor Rudolph PetersRudolph Peters
Sir Rudolph Albert Peters was a British biochemist. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1935. His effort investigating the mechanism of arsenic war gases was deemed crucial in maintaining battlefield effectiveness facing the threat of lewisite attacks...
in the Department of Biochemistry, seeking countermeasures to poison gas
Chemical warfare
Chemical warfare involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons. This type of warfare is distinct from Nuclear warfare and Biological warfare, which together make up NBC, the military acronym for Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical...
, but the nutritional status of the population and how to assess it began to occupy Hugh more and more. Through his complex network of contacts, proposals were drawn up and submitted for what eventually became known as the Oxford Nutrition Survey. The Ministry of Health agreed to them, as did the Regional Medical Council to two local counties. Strong support came from the Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...
, much of which was instigated by Dr Hugh Smith. Eventually Oxford University accepted responsibility and made Hugh Director of the Survey. Problems of funding and staffing (the staff comprised up to 24) are daunting, but those of obtaining, assembling, and analysing data are no less. Hugh had more than enough to do.
Data to be collected included: anthropometric
Anthropometry
Anthropometry refers to the measurement of the human individual...
measurements, clinical assessment, physiological determinations on blood (haemoglobin
Hemoglobin
Hemoglobin is the iron-containing oxygen-transport metalloprotein in the red blood cells of all vertebrates, with the exception of the fish family Channichthyidae, as well as the tissues of some invertebrates...
, clotting time, red and white cell counts, phosphate, total vitamin B1
Thiamine
Thiamine or thiamin or vitamin B1 , named as the "thio-vitamine" is a water-soluble vitamin of the B complex. First named aneurin for the detrimental neurological effects if not present in the diet, it was eventually assigned the generic descriptor name vitamin B1. Its phosphate derivatives are...
, cocarboxylase, vitamin C
Vitamin C
Vitamin C or L-ascorbic acid or L-ascorbate is an essential nutrient for humans and certain other animal species. In living organisms ascorbate acts as an antioxidant by protecting the body against oxidative stress...
, vitamin B2
Riboflavin
Riboflavin, also known as vitamin B2 or additive E101, is an easily absorbed micronutrient with a key role in maintaining health in humans and animals. It is the central component of the cofactors FAD and FMN, and is therefore required by all flavoproteins. As such, vitamin B2 is required for a...
, nicotinic acid
Niacin
"Niacin" redirects here. For the neo-fusion band, see Niacin .Niacin is an organic compound with the formula and, depending on the definition used, one of the forty to eighty essential human nutrients.Niacin is one of five vitamins associated with a pandemic deficiency disease: niacin deficiency...
), urine (nitrogen, vitamin C, and vitamin B1 levels on two samples taken 4 hours apart), and visual dark adaptation
Adaptation (eye)
In ocular physiology, adaptation is the ability of the eye to adjust to various levels of darkness and light.-Efficacy:The human eye can function from very dark to very bright levels of light; its sensing capabilities reach across nine orders of magnitude. This means that the brightest and the...
.
Hugh decided that what Sir William Jameson, Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, would find most useful were "half-page" survey-backed assurances that the indications were that the nation’s nutritional status was satisfactory, rather than detailed papers, suitable for submission to recognised peer review
Peer review
Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
ed scientific journals. This decision is one that Hugh no doubt much regretted subsequently, when it led to persistent criticism.
Part of the work of the Oxford Nutrition Survey was carried out by a small mobile team, which was sent to industrial towns, such as Accrington
Accrington
Accrington is a town in Lancashire, within the borough of Hyndburn. It lies about east of Blackburn, west of Burnley, north of Manchester city centre and is situated on the mostly culverted River Hyndburn...
, Merthyr
Merthyr Tydfil
Merthyr Tydfil is a town in Wales, with a population of about 30,000. Although once the largest town in Wales, it is now ranked as the 15th largest urban area in Wales. It also gives its name to a county borough, which has a population of around 55,000. It is located in the historic county of...
, Chesterfield
Chesterfield
Chesterfield is a market town and a borough of Derbyshire, England. It lies north of Derby, on a confluence of the rivers Rother and Hipper. Its population is 70,260 , making it Derbyshire's largest town...
, and Dundee
Dundee
Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland and the 39th most populous settlement in the United Kingdom. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea...
. It was experience in organising and managing all the facets of this work that made Hugh the most clearly qualified person to be invited by the Dutch Government in exile to conduct surveys of the nutritional status of the Dutch population affected by the famine of the last months of the war in Europe. Following hectic preparations, Hugh and his team went to Holland as the Nutrition Survey Group SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force
Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force
Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force , was the headquarters of the Commander of Allied forces in north west Europe, from late 1943 until the end of World War II. U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was in command of SHAEF throughout its existence...
), just before the German surrender. He found a base in Leiden, where 26,000 biochemical analyses were said to have been carried out in just two weeks. The pace was hectic without doubt for the Oxford team and for their Dutch colleagues, but the situation was dire. The actual state of the famine needed to be assessed, treatment and response recorded, and the results set out to inform future action in parallel circumstances. Medically, the best treatment needed to be discovered and applied.
For his achievements, Hugh was appointed a Chevalier of the order of Oranje-Nassau by the Queen of the Netherlands
Wilhelmina of the Netherlands
Wilhelmina was Queen regnant of the Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1890 to 1948. She ruled the Netherlands for fifty-eight years, longer than any other Dutch monarch. Her reign saw World War I and World War II, the economic crisis of 1933, and the decline of the Netherlands as a major colonial...
.
In consequence, it is not surprising that Hugh was invited in 1945 to take the mobile laboratories to Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
, where he set up the headquarters for the Nutrition Survey Group for the British Control Commission. Hugh again achieved extraordinary feats of organisation, setting up five teams in different cities, under leaders drawn from his colleagues in Oxford and from elsewhere. Hugh was made an honorary Brigadier and was subsequently awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom
Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the President of the United States and is—along with thecomparable Congressional Gold Medal bestowed by an act of U.S. Congress—the highest civilian award in the United States...
with Silver Palm.
The Oxford Nutrition Survey was closed formally in 1946 and the Nutrition Survey Group was ended in 1947. Instead of the Department of Human Nutrition, which Hugh had expected to be able to set up after the war, he was designated Director of the Laboratory of Human Nutrition, which was allocated a few Nissen hut
Nissen hut
A Nissen hut is a prefabricated steel structure made from a half-cylindrical skin of corrugated steel, a variant of which was used extensively during World War II.-Description:...
s at the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, which had recently been released by the U.S. forces. The Laboratory inherited most of the equipment and some of the staff of the Survey, but not the accommodation. Hugh’s powers of organisation were again much in demand. Hugh was appointed as the first University Reader in Human Nutrition in 1951. In 1954, Hans Adolf Krebs
Hans Adolf Krebs
Sir Hans Adolf Krebs was a German-born British physician and biochemist. Krebs is best known for his identification of two important metabolic cycles: the urea cycle and the citric acid cycle...
succeeded Sir Rudolph Peters as Professor and Head of the Department of Biochemistry, to which the Laboratory was transferred and closed shortly thereafter.
Letter to The Lancet
In 1956 Hugh made his most widely known contribution to nutrition in the form of a letter to The LancetThe Lancet
The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is one of the world's best known, oldest, and most respected general medical journals...
, entitled "Deficiency of essential fatty acids and atherosclerosis, etcetera". The causes of death that had increased most in previous years were lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
, coronary thrombosis
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
, and leukaemia
Leukemia
Leukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
and Hugh believed essential fatty acid
Essential fatty acid
Essential fatty acids, or EFAs, are fatty acids that humans and other animals must ingest because the body requires them for good health but cannot synthesize them...
(EFA) deficiency to be important in all three. EFA deficiency causes extra deposition of cholesterol
Cholesterol
Cholesterol is a complex isoprenoid. Specifically, it is a waxy steroid of fat that is produced in the liver or intestines. It is used to produce hormones and cell membranes and is transported in the blood plasma of all mammals. It is an essential structural component of mammalian cell membranes...
esters in the epidermis. Hugh thought the tetraenoic arachidonic acid
Arachidonic acid
Arachidonic acid is a polyunsaturated omega-6 fatty acid 20:4.It is the counterpart to the saturated arachidic acid found in peanut oil, Arachidonic acid (AA, sometimes ARA) is a polyunsaturated omega-6 fatty acid 20:4(ω-6).It is the counterpart to the saturated arachidic acid found in peanut oil,...
to be the most important EFA. Its biosynthesis requires vitamin B6
Vitamin B6
Vitamin B6 is a water-soluble vitamin and is part of the vitamin B complex group. Several forms of the vitamin are known, but pyridoxal phosphate is the active form and is a cofactor in many reactions of amino acid metabolism, including transamination, deamination, and decarboxylation...
. Hardening of fats reduces EFAs and changing to low-extraction flour diminishes the vitamin B6 content. Improvers, such as chlorine dioxide
Chlorine dioxide
Chlorine dioxide is a chemical compound with the formula ClO2. This yellowish-green gas crystallizes as bright orange crystals at −59 °C. As one of several oxides of chlorine, it is a potent and useful oxidizing agent used in water treatment and in bleaching....
, destroy any EFA present, as well as vitamin E
Tocopherol
Tocopherols are a class of chemical compounds of which many have vitamin E activity. It is a series of organic compounds consisting of various methylated phenols...
, which would protect it.
The cholesterol thus esterified with abnormal fatty acids is less easily eliminated and so leads to atheroma
Atheroma
In pathology, an atheroma is an accumulation and swelling in artery walls that is made up of macrophage cells, or debris, that contain lipids , calcium and a variable amount of fibrous connective tissue...
. Phospholipid
Phospholipid
Phospholipids are a class of lipids that are a major component of all cell membranes as they can form lipid bilayers. Most phospholipids contain a diglyceride, a phosphate group, and a simple organic molecule such as choline; one exception to this rule is sphingomyelin, which is derived from...
s containing abnormal fatty acids are also less easily eliminated and so are retained in the plasma
Blood plasma
Blood plasma is the straw-colored liquid component of blood in which the blood cells in whole blood are normally suspended. It makes up about 55% of the total blood volume. It is the intravascular fluid part of extracellular fluid...
and increase the coagulability of blood
Coagulation
Coagulation is a complex process by which blood forms clots. It is an important part of hemostasis, the cessation of blood loss from a damaged vessel, wherein a damaged blood vessel wall is covered by a platelet and fibrin-containing clot to stop bleeding and begin repair of the damaged vessel...
, thereby contributing to coronary and cerebral thrombosis
Thrombosis
Thrombosis is the formation of a blood clot inside a blood vessel, obstructing the flow of blood through the circulatory system. When a blood vessel is injured, the body uses platelets and fibrin to form a blood clot to prevent blood loss...
. The deficiency of normal phospholipids in the epidermis and gut makes their structure faulty and so may contribute to seborrhoeic eczema and peptic ulcer
Peptic ulcer
A peptic ulcer, also known as PUD or peptic ulcer disease, is the most common ulcer of an area of the gastrointestinal tract that is usually acidic and thus extremely painful. It is defined as mucosal erosions equal to or greater than 0.5 cm...
. Similarly, deficiency of normal phospholipids or the presence of abnormal phospholipids in the nervous system
Nervous system
The nervous system is an organ system containing a network of specialized cells called neurons that coordinate the actions of an animal and transmit signals between different parts of its body. In most animals the nervous system consists of two parts, central and peripheral. The central nervous...
leads to defective structure, including demyelination, which would cause multiple (disseminated) sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory disease in which the fatty myelin sheaths around the axons of the brain and spinal cord are damaged, leading to demyelination and scarring as well as a broad spectrum of signs and symptoms...
and possibly mental disease
Mental illness
A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
. Deficiency of EFAs may increase susceptibility to X-irradiation
X-ray
X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...
and chemical carcinogen
Carcinogen
A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that is an agent directly involved in causing cancer. This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes...
s, the former in conjunction with the latter leading to leukaemia and the latter to carcinoma
Carcinoma
Carcinoma is the medical term for the most common type of cancer occurring in humans. Put simply, a carcinoma is a cancer that begins in a tissue that lines the inner or outer surfaces of the body, and that generally arises from cells originating in the endodermal or ectodermal germ layer during...
of the bronchus
Bronchus
A bronchus is a passage of airway in the respiratory tract that conducts air into the lungs. The bronchus branches into smaller tubes, which in turn become bronchioles....
and to the predominance of carcinoma of the stomach in males, the male requirement for EFAs being about five times that of the female.
Much of the letter is speculative and some of the comments are injudicious. Nevertheless, it constituted a landmark and led to correspondence for more than a year. Apart from this paper, in this period, Hugh had published on a variety of topics, including nutritional deficiency in general and in more specific aspects, such as the relation of deficiencies of vitamin A and essential fatty acids to follicular hyperkeratosis in rats, lesions of mucocutaneous zone
Mucocutaneous zone
A mucocutaneous zone is a region of the body in which mucosa transitions to skin. Mucocutaneous zones occur in animals, at the body orifices.In humans, mucocutaneous zones are found at the lips, nostrils, conjunctivae, urethra, vagina , foreskin , and anus.At a mucocutaneous zone, epithelium...
s in the rat in pyridoxine
Pyridoxine
Pyridoxine is one of the compounds that can be called vitamin B6, along with pyridoxal and pyridoxamine. It differs from pyridoxamine by the substituent at the '4' position. It is often used as 'pyridoxine hydrochloride'.-Chemistry:...
deficiency, ascorbic acid
Ascorbic acid
Ascorbic acid is a naturally occurring organic compound with antioxidant properties. It is a white solid, but impure samples can appear yellowish. It dissolves well in water to give mildly acidic solutions. Ascorbic acid is one form of vitamin C. The name is derived from a- and scorbutus , the...
in hypervitaminosis A
Hypervitaminosis A
Hypervitaminosis A refers to the effects of excessive vitamin A intake.-Presentation:Effects include* Birth defects* Liver problems* Reduced bone mineral density that may result in osteoporosis* Coarse bone growths...
in guinea pigs, polycythaemia
Polycythemia
Polycythemia is a disease state in which the proportion of blood volume that is occupied by red blood cells increases...
in the rat in pyridoxine deficiency, skin permeability in deficiency of essential fatty acids, vitamin deficiencies in alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, vitamins and the nervous system, and nutritional neuropathy in chronic thiamine
Thiamine
Thiamine or thiamin or vitamin B1 , named as the "thio-vitamine" is a water-soluble vitamin of the B complex. First named aneurin for the detrimental neurological effects if not present in the diet, it was eventually assigned the generic descriptor name vitamin B1. Its phosphate derivatives are...
deficiency in the rat.
In 1958, the first election period for Hugh’s Readership ended, but he was not reappointed, presumably because his contribution to the traditional scientific literature was judged to be insufficient, in spite of the broad sweep and originality of his thinking.
Recognition
Hugh thus was no longer a member of the Department of Biochemistry, but he continued to tutor at Magdalen and, because of his reputation as an inspiring and entertaining speaker, he was invited to lecture widely. He tried hard to raise support for his research, and, more grandly, for an Institute of Human Nutrition, from his wide circle of contacts, in particular Lord Bossom and through him Lord Woolton, the war-time Minister of FoodMinister of Food
The Minister of Food Control and the Minister of Food were British government ministerial posts separated from that of the Minister of Agriculture. A major task of the latter office was to oversee rationing in the United Kingdom arising out of World War II...
(1940–1943), but he did not press his case as hard as he might have done, mainly as a consequence of the shock of the death in a car crash of his sister, Catherine. He had already lost his brother to heart disease about 6½ years earlier, in 1954. Lord Woolton died in 1964 and Lord Bossom in 1965.
Hugh continued to be granted recognition in other ways. Thus he was Cutter Lecturer at Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 1951, Master of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
The Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. Originally, apothecaries were members of the Grocers' Company and before this members of the Guild of Pepperers formed in London in 1180...
for 1967–1968, awarded an Honorary DSc from Baldwin-Wallace College
Baldwin-Wallace College
Baldwin–Wallace College is a liberal arts college in Berea, Ohio, founded in 1845. It is home to the Riemenschneider-Bach Institute and the Baldwin–Wallace Conservatory of Music, an internationally renowned music school. The college is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Students receive a...
in 1968, Sanderson-Wells Lecturer in London in 1969, and President of the McCarrison Society 1983–1990.
Inuit diet experiment
Hugh first wrote about the diet of the InuitInuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
in 1953. In 1966, he lectured in Trondheim
Trondheim
Trondheim , historically, Nidaros and Trondhjem, is a city and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. With a population of 173,486, it is the third most populous municipality and city in the country, although the fourth largest metropolitan area. It is the administrative centre of...
, where he renewed his interest. In 1976, he was able to spend some time joining the expedition of Drs Bang and Dyerberg in northwest Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
, which led to his most widely known experiment, in which he put himself on an Inuit diet, consisting solely of seal, fish (including molluscs and crustaceans), and water for 100 days, starting in March, 1979. Many analyses were done, extreme disaggregation of platelets, with bleeding times rising from 3 to over 50 min, with spontaneous haemorrhages, being observed. Inuit are known to suffer from nosebleed
Nosebleed
Epistaxis or a nosebleed is the relatively common occurrence of hemorrhage from the nose, usually noticed when the blood drains out through the nostrils...
. The experiment was a dramatic demonstration of the importance of long-chain fatty acids of fish oils in decreasing the aggregation of platelets and thus the incidence of thrombosis.
Subsequent career
In 1968, Hugh was appointed University Lecturer in Biological Sciences at Oxford and, in 1970, Visiting Professor in Food Science at the University of ReadingUniversity of Reading
The University of Reading is a university in the English town of Reading, Berkshire. The University was established in 1892 as University College, Reading and received its Royal Charter in 1926. It is based on several campuses in, and around, the town of Reading.The University has a long tradition...
, where he continued to give lectures right up to the year he died. The text of the most significant of these is incorporated into the book by Dr Walker (1990).
At times, Hugh entertained hopes that he might found his institute at Nuneham Park, a mansion in extensive grounds, near Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, but gradually he realised that the most practical way forward would be to use his home, Lady Place, Sutton Courtenay
Sutton Courtenay
Sutton Courtenay is a village and civil parish on the River Thames south of Abingdon and northwest of Didcot. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire.-Today:...
, also near Oxford, which had been purchased by his mother in 1933.
In 1972, The Memorandum and Articles of Association of The Association for the Study of Human Nutrition Limited were signed, the subscribers being Professor Hugh Sinclair, Professor Francis Aylward, Professor Sir Richard Doll
Richard Doll
Sir William Richard Shaboe Doll CH OBE FRS was a British physiologist who became the foremost epidemiologist of the 20th century, turning the subject into a rigorous science. He was a pioneer in research linking smoking to health problems...
, FRS, Mr. Arthur Elliott-Smith, FRCS, Sir David Paton Cuthbertson, FRSE, Professor Herbert Kay, FRS, and John Talbot, Solicitor. The Association was subsequently registered as a charity. Hugh became its Director. Soon the name was changed to The International Institute of Human Nutrition and later to The International Nutrition Foundation. Lord Porritt was invited to join the Council, the composition of which changed over the years:
| (c. 1976) | (c. 1992) |
| Sir Reginald Bennett, M.P. | Sir Reginald Bennett, M.P. |
| Sir David Paton Cuthbertson | John Ledingham, FRCP |
| Sir Richard Doll | Sir Richard Doll |
| Dr. Thomas Hunt | Professor Raymond Dils |
| Sir Michael Perrin | Dr. Derek Hockaday, FRCP |
| Sir Edward Pochin | Dr. David Horrobin David Horrobin David Frederick Horrobin was an entrepreneur, medical researcher, author and editor. He is best known as the founder of the biotechnology company Scotia Holdings and as a promoter of evening primrose oil as a medical treatment, Horrobin was founder and editor of the journals Medical Hypotheses and... |
| Lord Porritt | Sir Francis Avery Jones, FRCP |
| Professor Sir Brian Windeyer | Dr. Eric Newsholme |
| Professor Harry Nursten | |
| Professor Keith Taylor, FRCP | |
| Professor Martin Vessey, FRS | |
| Lord Wyatt | |
| Dr. Brian Lloyd, Company Secretary |
Hugh Sinclair Unit of Human Nutrition
Hugh had plans drawn up for a substantial institute to be built at Lady Place with laboratory facilities for fifty workers, together with lecture theatre, museum, offices, and library, to house his collection of some 300,000 reprints and books, including those of Sir Robert McCarrison, Surgeon-Captain Thomas L. CleaveThomas L. Cleave
Thomas Latimer Cleave was a surgeon captain who researched the negative health effects of consuming refined carbohydrate which would not have been available during early human evolution. Known as `Peter' to his friends and colleagues, Cleave was born in Exeter in 1906, and educated at Clifton...
http://mccarrisonsociety.org.uk/founders-of-nutrition-othermenu-149/cleave-othermenu-144, Neil Painter, Hugh Trowellhttp://mccarrisonsociety.org.uk/founders-of-nutrition-othermenu-149/trowell-othermenu-145, and Cicely Williams. Much of his time was occupied in trying to raise funds, but to a very large extent the functioning of the institute in the temporary accommodation arranged at Lady Place was dependent on personal donations from Hugh. Eventually, he left all his estate to the Foundation. The Council of Management decided not to pursue itself the build-up of research at Lady Place, but to see whether a university would wish to further Hugh’s aspirations by founding a chair in Human Nutrition. Accordingly, proposals were invited and a panel of international experts in nutrition was appointed to assess the relative merits of the proposals submitted. In the final round, there were three contenders, Oxford Brookes University
Oxford Brookes University
Oxford Brookes University is a new university in Oxford, England. It was named to honour the school's founding principal, John Brookes. It has been ranked as the best new university by the Sunday Times University Guide 10 years in a row...
, The University of Oxford, and The University of Reading. The last proved successful and, in due course, the Foundation was wound up and the Hugh Sinclair Unit of Human Nutrition was established at the University of Reading. In 1995, Dr Christine Williams was appointed as the first Hugh Sinclair Professor and the appointment of other staff followed swiftly.
Thus Hugh Sinclair’s devotion and dedication to human nutrition has borne fruit and the research and teaching that is carried out in the Unit bearing his name is making substantial progress, its contribution increasing year by year.
The above account of Hugh Sinclair’s life and achievements has been largely based on the publications of Ewin (2001) and Gale and Lloyd (1990).
Lady Place
The mock-Tudor mansion Lady Place in Sutton CourtenaySutton Courtenay
Sutton Courtenay is a village and civil parish on the River Thames south of Abingdon and northwest of Didcot. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire.-Today:...
(the Sinclair home) was used by University of Reading
University of Reading
The University of Reading is a university in the English town of Reading, Berkshire. The University was established in 1892 as University College, Reading and received its Royal Charter in 1926. It is based on several campuses in, and around, the town of Reading.The University has a long tradition...
after Sinclair's death in 1990. It was destroyed when a fire ripped through the house on 28th August 1998 (a local man was subsequently cleared of arson charges). An estate of private houses was built on the site in 2000, with a half-timbered apartment block occupying the precise location of the mansion.
Primary Sources
- Ewin, J., Fine Wines & Fish Oil, the Life of Hugh Macdonald Sinclair, Oxford University PressOxford University PressOxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
, 2001. - Gale, M., and Lloyd, B. (ed.), Sinclair, Dr Hugh Macdonald Sinclair, DM, DSc, FRCP, the McCarrison Society, WokinghamWokinghamWokingham is a market town and civil parish in Berkshire in South East England about west of central London. It is about east-southeast of Reading and west of Bracknell. It spans an area of and, according to the 2001 census, has a population of 30,403...
, 1990. - Walker, A.F. (ed.), Applied Human Nutrition for Food Scientists and Home Economists, Ellis Horwood, Chichester, 1990.
External links
- Review of Fine Wines & Fish Oils, by a former student of Hugh Macdonald Sinclar, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine