Wolfgang J. Lutz
| Wolfgang J. Lutz | |
|---|---|
| Born | 27 May 1913 Upper Austria |
| 💀Died | 19 September 2010 (aged 97) Austria19 September 2010 (aged 97) |
| 💼 Occupation | |
| Twitter= | |
Wolfgang J. Lutz (May 27, 1913 – 19 September 2010) was an Austrian inventor, medical doctor and author of Leben ohne Brot. He showed how, with little recourse to surgery or drugs, fundamental improvement could be made to health through low carbohydrate nutrition; Lutz demonstrated, inter alia, a probable way of preventing the huge and mounting toll exacted by obesity and diabetes. To honour this contribution, Lutz was made a Freeman of the City of London in 2007. His book with Christian Allan: Life without Bread: How a low-carbohydrate diet can save your life [1] is still in print after 16 years. Recently a biography has been published: My Life without Bread: Dr Lutz at 90,[2] which includes a complete list of his publications, also: Uncle Wolfi's Secret, which explores the work of Dr Lutz in everyday language.[3]
Early life[edit]
Born in 1913 in Upper Austria, Dr Lutz read medicine at Innsbruck and Vienna. His notable career in scientific research included inventing a prototype spacesuit and developing resuscitation techniques to prevent death from freezing, which brought Lutz the award of Habilitation, a great distinction in the scientific world, together with a post doctoral degree in internal and aviation medicine from the University of Vienna, After World War II, Wolfgang Lutz became a practicing physician.[4] As a consultant in internal medicine, Wolfgang Lutz turned his attention to the dramatic escalation of degenerative disease. His wide-ranging and penetrating gaze swept from our Ice-Age origins to the modern world and his approach to medicine changed.
Taking as his basic thesis that the pattern of our hormonal secretion is still tuned to the largely animal food diet of that distant epoch, Lutz surmised that too large an intake of carbohydrate might disturb the intrinsic harmony of the endocrine system and hence our health, ultimately leading to disease. This caused him, as early as the 1950s, to instigate a diet for long-term use that he felt to be low enough in carbohydrate to be compatible with our genetic inheritance and so restore the missing harmony.
Career[edit]
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The body’s primary response to an increase in dietary carbohydrate is to increase insulin production. Wolfgang Lutz demonstrated that his obese patients often suffered from an overproduction of insulin and identified a see-sawing of compensatory hormonal measures: typically, an increase in insulin, thyroid and adrenal hormones, and a decrease in the growth hormone. Sex hormones were also affected. Lutz was the first to describe how these disturbances in hormonal regulation and their very varied repercussions underlay many of the diseases of civilisation.
In the early 1960s, Wolfgang Lutz conducted ground-breaking hen-feeding trials which showed that, in hens, a reduction in carbohydrate - not of fat - reduced the incidence of arteriosclerosis. (Hens like humans had moved from a largely animal to a largely carbohydrate diet and suffered similar changes in their arterial walls in old age.) Reassured by this, together with the relief from pain and inflammation he experienced with his own osteoarthritic hips and the positive results from his growing clinical experience, Lutz was to spend the next forty or so years observing on a wide range of ailments both the immediate results and, when possible, the effect of following his diet for many years. As it went to the very root of the problem, the simple expedient of sufficient carbohydrate restriction (with no limitation put on protein or fat intake, nor on calories except as a short-term measure for extreme obesity) proved a remarkable therapeutic tool.
Dr Lutz was to find that his low carbohydrate diet was effective with both childhood obesity and with hyperinsulinism - a hormonal pathway to both common obesity and, through exhaustion of supply, to Type II diabetes: he found that sufficient carbohydrate restriction could prevent the vascular complications of adult onset diabetes. Carefully implemented and occasionally with temporary support from drugs, Lutz further demonstrated the benefit of his diet to a wide range of medical conditions from early multiple sclerosis to heart failure, from morbus Crohn and ulcerative colitis to osteoarthritis; he showed low carbohydrate nutrition could lower cholesterol levels, normalise high and low levels of blood iron and calcium and ease many problems of reproduction. Wolfgang Lutz also found that his low carbohydrate diet brought patients many general improvements amongst which were improved immune function, a calmer nervous system, better digestion, enhanced skin and tissue quality, and a positive effect on overall health. His main book Leben ohne Brot reached its 16th edition in 2007 after being in continuous print for forty years.
Death[edit]
Dr Lutz died in Austria in 2010, at 97 years of age.[4]
Personal life[edit]
Dr Wolfgang Lutz had five children. In 1997 Dr Lutz registered with the B M A in order to be able to work in the U K. He and his 3rd wife Helen Paula lived for 6 months a year in London and spent the other six in Graz, Austria.[4] Wolfgang Lutz was a member of the Athenaeum Club.
Books[edit]
- Leben ohne Brot 1967, 16th Edition 2007, ISBN 3-88760-100-9 Search this book on
. - with Christian B Allan: Life Without Bread: How a Low-Carbohydrate Diet Can Save Your Life 2000, ISBN 0-658-00170-1 Search this book on .
- Die Lutz Diät 1986. ISBN 3-7205-1395-5 Search this book on ..
- Cholesterol und tierische Fette Planegg 1988. ISBN 3-927290-01-7 Search this book on ..
- with Jürgen Schole: Regulationskrankheiten: Versuch einer fachübergreifenden Analyse. Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-432-97141-9 Search this book on ..
- Dismantling a Myth: The Role of Fat and Carbohydrates in Our Diet 1986. ISBN 0398053561 Search this book on ..
- Kranker Magen – Kranker Darm. 1995, ISBN 3-88760-080-0 Search this book on . (Online-Version).
- Internistische Alltag 1970, Selecta-Verlag, Planegg bei München
References[edit]
- ↑ "Life Without Bread: How a Low-Carbohydrate Diet Can Save Your Life". Retrieved 20 February 2016.
- ↑ "My Life Without Bread: Dr Lutz at 90". Retrieved 20 February 2016.
- ↑ "Uncle Wolfi's Secret Kindle Edition by Valerie Bracken". Retrieved 20 February 2016.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Wolfgang Lutz obituary". Retrieved 20 February 2016.
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