1. Early life and education

2. Academic career
     Early work on atherosclerosis    Early work on obesity  

3. The Cambridge Diet (now the Cambridge Weight Plan)

4. Later research on VLCD and coronary heart disease

5. Research into macular degeneration and carotenoids

6. References

7. External links

Early life and education

Howard passed the Eleven-plus exam in 1940 and won a place at the City of Norwich School where he specialised in Chemistry. His other interests included photography, cycling and ballroom dancing.

Academic career

Howard won a scholarship to Downing College Cambridge in 1948 to read Natural Sciences (Chemistry, Physics, Metallurgy and Mathematics). For his PhD he worked in the Department of Medicine with Robin Coombs, a notable immunologist. Howard's thesis was on "The reaction of diazonium compounds with amino-acids and proteins and its application to immunology".^[12]

Howard's academic career covered periods:

• 1951 to 1959 demonstrator in practical classes, Part I Organic Chemistry, Chemical Laboratory, Cambridge
• 1954 to 1966 Supervisor in Chemistry, Downing, Peterhouse and Newnham colleges, Cambridge
• 1954 to 1960 at the MRC Unit in Nutrition in Cambridge (now the MRC Human Nutrition Research department founded in 1998)
• 1960 to 1973 in the Department of Pathology at Cambridge University under Austin Gresham then Professor of Morbid Anatomy and Histopathology.
• 1965 to 1969 Lecturer on ‘Lipid Metabolism’ in Comparative Pathology, Part II Course, Cambridge University
• 1973 to 1984 in the Department of Medicine at Cambridge University under Professor Ivor Mills, a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians^[13]
• 1983 to 1992 as a College Lecturer in Nutritional Research at Downing College Cambridge University.^[14]

In November 2018, Downing College commemorated the formal entry of Alan Howard as a student at Downing on 4th November 1948 with an entry on their website^[15].

Early work on atherosclerosis

At the MRC Unit, Howard began working on experimental atherosclerosis. He continued this study while at the Department of Pathology and was secretary for the first International Symposium On Atherosclerosis held in Athens in 1966 and was an editor of the proceedings.^[16] The Proceedings of the XII^th International Symposium on Atherosclerosis held in Stockholm 25–29 June 2000 contain two papers reviewing the significance of the first symposium: "The First International Symposium on Atherosclerosis in Athens 1966" by Alan N. Howard and "The significance and importance of the Athens Symposium" by M. Daria Haust.^[17]

Early work on obesity

While at the Department of Pathology and through working with another local company, Spillers Ltd, Howard started doing clinical trials on the high-protein “Cambridge Formula Loaf”.^[18] Collaborating with several local GPs and using brown bread as a control, he found that people lost more weight while on the Cambridge Loaf together with a low-calorie diet. This work was published in a paper in The General Practitioner ^[19]

(the forerunner of the current British Journal of General Practice and was used commercially until Spillers closed its manufacturing plant.

This led to Howard becoming secretary to the newly formed Obesity Association (aka The Obesity Society of Great Britain and now the Association for the Study of Obesity (ASO)^[20]). Founded in 1967 to promote obesity research in the UK, the association was chaired by Ian MacLean Baird from the West Middlesex Hospital. In 1968, the society held its first International Symposium in London. The proceedings were edited by Baird and Howard.

Howard became secretary and later chairman of The Food Education Society^[22] from 1970 until 1990. Howard was invited to take part in the BBC series Don't just sit there ... in July 1974

^[23] with William Rushton and others. He then co-authored a book Don't just sit there which was published by the BBC in 1978^[24].

Howard and George A. Bray (from the University of California) organised the first International Congress on Obesity (ICO) which was held at the Royal College of Physicians in London in October 1974, and attracted over 500 attendees from 30 countries. They were also the founding co-editors of The International Journal of Obesity (IJO) which began in 1977. These early initiatives led in 1985/86 to the formation of the International Association for the Study of Obesity which since 2014 is known simply as World Obesity^[25]

The Cambridge Diet (now the Cambridge Weight Plan)

While in the Department of Medicine at Cambridge University, Howard's team ran a longstanding "lipid clinic" at Addenbrookes Hospital between 1973 and 1980.^[26] This was one of six European centres where the Dutch company Organon International sponsored research and clinical trials. Howard collaborated with Ian MacLean Baird, then a consultant at West Middlesex Hospital, to devise a low-calorie diet formula designed for morbidly obese patients. This was initially named “Howard's Diet”.

Also in 1973, Howard began to direct Dennis Jones, a nutritionist and specialist in food chemistry from Organon, to convert the research concept into a commercially viable formulation. In 1979, it emerged in the US as The Cambridge Diet^[27]

The patents^[1] of which Howard was a co-inventor were initially licensed to a Californian company, Cambridge Plan International (CPI), who, from 1980, marketed the formula in the US as the 'Cambridge Diet'. This was sold initially by mail order and subsequently through network marketing and a "Cambridge Counsellor" system. Whilst this led to rapid growth, CPI encountered issues^[28][29] which led to it filing for Chapter 11 administration^[30] in 1983.

In 1982, Howard, his son Jon and Howard's brother Roger formed Cambridge Nutrition Limited.

As a result, from 1984 to 1986 there were two competing "Cambridge Diets" in existence, as CPI had separately launched in various countries internationally, including a pre-launch in UK.

In 1986 a Howard Foundation company bought out CPI's international rights, and the 'Cambridge Diet' has remained a separate organisation in the US.^[31]

In 1985, Howard and John Marks^[32] wrote a book “The Cambridge Diet – A Manual for Health Professionals” published by Jonathan Cape in 1986 with a forward by Ivor H Mills, then Professor of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. The forward to the later edition in 1997, published by Cambridge Export Limited, was written by John Butterfield, formerly Regius Professor of Physic at the University of Cambridge. The book was translated into Danish as 'Cambridgekuren' for use in the Scandinavian market.

From 1985 to the late 1980s, the Cambridge Diet was strongly promoted in the UK by Howard using direct marketing and thereafter, mainly through distributors, in various Northern European countries and around the world. The Polish website for the Cambridge Weight Plan contains an interview with Dr Howard in which he discusses the background to the Cambridge Diet^[33]

In the early 2000s the manufacturing company at Corby, Northants became the group headquarters for the UK and export functions.

In 2005 Howard directed that the remaining business be sold through a management buyout. The company changed its name to the Cambridge Weight Plan and continues as a successful employee-owned trust^[34]

Later research on VLCD and coronary heart disease

Howard established Howard Foundation Research (HFR) in 1986 to carry out scientific research into low-calorie diets under the direction of Stephen Kreitzman. HFR has published numerous scientific papers, most notably a 1993 monograph "The Swansea Trial"^[35] edited by Dr S N Kreitzman and Dr A Howard. In 2000 Howard directed Howard Foundation Research Ltd be sold under licence to managers who devised the Lipotrim^[36] programme to allow the formula to be prescribed privately by health practitioners in UK and Ireland.

In 1991, Howard established the COAG Trace Elements Laboratory, based at Papworth Hospital, near Cambridge. The COAG Laboratory ran until 2000 carrying out research into aspects of nutrition and health, especially the prevention of coronary heart disease. When the laboratory closed, the equipment was transferred to the University of Ulster and the Poznan University of Medical Sciences, for the continuation of research programmes.

Research into macular degeneration and carotenoids

In 1995, Howard started work with Dr Richard Bone^[37] and Dr. John Landrum^[38] at Florida International University (FIU). Together they patented a formulation containing Meso-zeaxanthin, Lutein and Zeaxanthin,^[39] manufactured by Industrial Organica SA (IOSA) in Monterey, Mexico, and sold in Europe as Macushield and in North America as Macuhealth (also known as LMZ³). Its purpose was to prevent age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

In 2009, Howard began working with the Macular Pigment Research Group (MPRG) at the Waterford Institute of Technology in Ireland. In 2015, the Howard Foundation^[9] established Prof John Nolan, principal investigator at the MPRG, as the Howard Chair in Human Nutrition with tenure for 10 years^[40]

In June 2018, Howard and Nolan were co-authors of a paper in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease that reported the results of a small 18 month study by the MPRG that showed improvements in the health of Alzheimer's patients using the three macular carotenoids and fish oil^[41].

References

External links

• [https://www.howard-foundation.com www.howard-foundation.com]

• Mathieu Beaudoin (Canadian football)
• Mathieu Belie
• Mathieu Bemba
• Mathieu Biazizzo
• Mathieu Blanc-Francard
• Mathieu Blanchette
• Mathieu Blanchette (computational biologist)
• Mathieu Bonello
• Mathieu Boulay
• Mathieu Breker
• Mathieu Brodeur
• Mathieu Bélie
• Mathieu Charbonneau
• Mathieu Clobert
• Mathieu Corbeil
• Mathieu Corbeil-Theriault
• Mathieu Corbeil-Thériault
• Mathieu Cordang
• Mathieu Cossou
• Mathieu Criaerd
• Mathieu Damours
• Mathieu Debonnaire
• Mathieu de Foix
• Mathieu de Foix-Comminges
• Mathieu de Lesseps