Once upon a time, there was a young woman burdened by a disease: massive obesity. Where every other form of diet and medical treatments had failed, she became the first woman to start and stick to the rice diet. The diet was still young, and only a desperate patient would have put their faith in it. Indeed, the Kempner diet is a strict diet aimed at very serious cases. The result exceeded the patient’s expectations. The woman stuck to the rice diet, and lost 200lbs. Not only did she loose weight, but she was also cured from her kidney disease, at the time believed to be impossible or almost to cure.
What is the Kempner diet and who is Walter Kempner?
The Kempner diet, also called the rice diet, was born in the 1950’s. Its creator, the physician-scientist at Duke University Dr Walter Kempner, had decided to find a treatment for kidney failure and high blood pressure without drugs.
Why did Kempner create this diet?
At times of misunderstanding and relatively poor information about massive obesity, the disease was often cured violently, by performing surgery to move organs, wire jaws, and even destroy the part of the brain associated with hunger sensation. Dr Kempner knew how dangerous the symptoms related to hypertension were: kidney failure, eye pressure, heart failure, and he was determined to treat these symptoms with altering the body structure.
What did people eat on the Kempner diet?
People on Kempner diet ate nothing but fruits, fruit juice and sugar and…white rice. Kempner thought that a carbohydrates diet would cure some of the most serious heart and kidney diseases linked to massive obesity.
How much did they exercise?
Dr Kempner’s patients did not exercise. The success of the diet was solely based on their food intake. Exclusively eating carbs was the only requirements, no physical exercise was involved.
The benefits of the Kempner diet
Kempner diet has proven to have had excellent results on kidney failure and massive obesity. Sticking to the diet, patients would experience massive weight loss, a decrease of the blood pressure. The diet would also eventually reverse kidney failure and heart disease.
Is this easy to do?
However efficient, Dr Kempner himself referred to his diet as monotonous and tasteless. Patients all having their own personality and preferences, it is never easy to convince them to follow a strict diet that does not allow anything that they would normally like eating like fats or animal proteins. A full carbs diet was is not appealing to patients, and Kempner had a hard time convincing his to stuck to the diet. The real incentive was that, at the time, the life expectancy of someone with a kidney failure was about six months. When other remedies and drugs have failed, the rice diet was their only hope to live. The rice diet has now taken a more modern form that has brought some grains and vegetables into it.
Who should try the Kempner diet
An extreme diet, the Kempner diet was given to extreme cases. There are different diets to help overweight patients that are less radical. However, given its efficiency, the rice diet can be given for those who are now getting closer to a nearly dead stage. Patients who are close to kidney or heart failure should be looking at the all-carbs diet and give it a try, as it could save their life.