Elsie Widdowson 1906 – 2000

Elsie Widdowson

‘If your results don’t make physiological sense, think and think again!  You may have made a mistake (in which case own up to it) or you may have made a discovery.  Above all, treasure your exceptions.  You will learn more from them than all the rest of your data.’

Elsie Widdowson was a pioneer of the scientific study of nutrition.  She was also part responsible to the addition of vitamins to food, as well as over-seeing the rationing of food in Britain during World War II.

            In 1928, she became one of the first women graduates of Imperial College, London, achieving a BSc in Chemistry.  She achieved her PhD in Chemistry in 1931 after writing her thesis on the carbohydrate content of apples.  Widdowson also obtained a doctorate from the Courtauld Institute of Biochemistry at Middlesex Hospital, where she did further research into the metabolism of the kidneys.

            In 1933, she met Robert McCance in the kitchen of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, where she was studying industrial cooking techniques as part of her diploma on dietetics.  They both realised that there were significant errors in the standard nutritional tables.  It was the start of a professional relationship that was to last sixty years.

            During the early 1940’s, their work on improving the nutritional value of our food began with the introduction of calcium into bread.  They would later introduce the addition of vitamins and minerals.  Widdowson and McCance would also be made responsible for the rationing of food during World War II, formulating it so that people received the best nutritional diet as was possible during the food shortages.

            Elsie Widdowson was also well known for testing out her nutritional experiments on herself, which were not always safe.  Elsie and Robert once injected themselves with Strontium Lactate (similar to calcium), to see how much of it would end up being excreted.  They both became ill with pains, fever and headaches due to the sample being contaminated with bacteria.

            Widdowson and McCance spent most of the working life in Cambridge, after being employed by the Medical Research Council in 1946.  That same year they visited Holland, Germany and Denmark to study the impact of the poor diet suffered by those in the Nazi-occupied territories.  Their consultation was also sought in the rehabilitation of the victims of the Nazi Concentration Camps, who were suffering from severe starvation.  Widdowson would later follow up this work in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s, by studying malnourishment in Africa.  Her research showed a link between infant malnourishment and lifelong effects on growth and health.

            It was Widdowsons’ studies into the nutritional value and content of the infant diet, that led to the standards of breast milk substitutes in the UK being revised during the 1980’s, after her studies in the difference between natural and artificial human milk in terms of trace vitamins and minerals.

            Elsie Widdowson became the head of the Infant Nutrition Research Division at the Dunn Research Laboratory, Cambridge, in 1966.  Although she formally retired in 1972, she continued her research at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.  Widdowson was also president of several societies and foundations between 1977 and 1996.  She was also awarded a CBE for her work in 1979.

            Although she spent her life studying nutrition, she herself only ate a simple diet which consisted of butter and eggs.  Her long-life she attributed to her good genes, her mother lived to be 107.  Elsie Widdowson herself died in Addenbrooke’s Hospital following a stroke at the age of 94.