Preparing to return to Italy to interview Keys collaborators.

Rome 2009. That's the last time I was there to interview a number of Italian collaborators of Ancel Keys. I'm returning in just over a week -- looking forward to doing follow-up and new interviews with researchers who worked with Keys on the Seven Countries Study (SCS). Then it's on to Crete, where researchers continue to collect data on the oldest participating "survivors" of the SCS. I'll be talking to a few of these octogenarians and nonagenarians as well to discover the secret to a long life. Will it be "consume lots of green leafy vegetables, legumes, olive oil and red wine"? Stay tuned. . .

Introduction: A blog about Ancel Keys.

Since 2007, I've been following the trail of Ancel Keys (1904-2004) across the globe, from the Italian seaside village of Pioppi to the summit of Cerro Aucanquilcha in the Chilean Andes. I'm writing a biography of one of the 20th-century's most interesting and controversial scientists, physiologist and epidemiologist Ancel Keys. A gifted child who was a subject in Lewis Terman's longitudinal study of 1500 "child geniuses," Keys was also a biological oceanographer, a high altitude adventurer, the developer of the World War II K Ration, a pioneer in the modern study of starvation and rehabilitation, and a leading light in heart disease epidemiology. Join me on this expedition into the life and times of the man who "discovered" the Mediterranean diet and its benefits for heart health.