Walter Kempner

Walter Kempner was a German-born physician who trained in Heidelberg, worked in the laboratory of Otto Warburg, and joined Duke University in 1934 after leaving Nazi Germany. In 1939 he began the Rice Diet at Duke, which ran in Durham, North Carolina, for decades. He died in 1997.

Best known for

The Rice Diet: rice, fruit and sugar with almost no fat, protein or salt, which he used for severe high blood pressure and kidney disease and later, in a strict low-calorie form, for severe obesity.

Approach

Extreme restriction under daily medical supervision: at the start about 5 g of fat, 20 g of protein and 150 mg of sodium a day, with vegetables and small amounts of lean meat added after months of progress. His weight-loss version also cut calories directly.

Main talking points

• His case reports describe severe high blood pressure falling on a very low sodium diet.
• Rice and fruit, with almost no fat or protein, were the starting point.
• Weight loss meant strict calorie limits and close supervision.
• His results come from case series of his own patients, such as a 1975 report on 106 people who each lost at least 45 kg.