Kurt Oster

Kurt Oster (born April 20, 1909 in Cologne , † 1988 in the USA) was a Jewish doctor who left Germany because of the National Socialist race laws and made a career as a cardiologist and pharmacologist in the United States of America . Through his essays on the harmfulness of homogenized milk , he continues to arouse interest today.

Live and act

In Germany

The son of the businessman Benno Oster attended a secular school (Oberrealschule Frankstrasse) and after graduating from high school (Easter 1928) studied medicine at the University of Cologne . In the autumn of 1930 he took his physics course here. After the 1st state examination (WS 30/31) he moved to Berlin, where he passed the chemical association examination in the SS 1932 . In Cologne he finished his medical studies with a doctorate on the subject: The simultaneous determination of iodine and bromine by the polarograph (November 29, 1934). An academic career in Germany had become impossible due to the “ seizure of power ” by the National Socialists . Kurt Oster probably emigrated to Sweden in 1935 .

In the USA

He came to the USA around 1938 and initially had to accept an internship at Fairview Park Hospital in Cleveland , Ohio for a year . Many immigrants accepted such an underqualified position in order to subsequently be allowed to practice legally as doctors in the United States. This was followed in September 1940 by a position at the famous Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City , one of the oldest and most respected hospitals in the United States.

His fellowship ( George Blumenthal Jr. Fellowship ), initially granted for one year , was extended several times and ended in a position as Research Assistant in Chemistry with Dr. Harry Sobotka. At the end of July 1943, Oster left this Jewish hospital and from 1949 assumed the executive position of Chairman of the Department of Medicine and Chief, Section of Cardiology at Park City Hospital in Bridgeport , Connecticut.

From around 1944 onwards, Kurt Oster continued his forcibly interrupted scientific career with a large number of medical articles with a (bio) chemical focus. He now published under the 'Americanized' name of Kurt A. Oster. He published individual texts together with his son JG Oster (e.g. 1946 The specificity of sex hormones on the tissue aldehyde shift in the rat kidney and of fuchsin sulfurous acid reagent on aldehydes ).

Oster also undertook studies on the intake of vitamins, the tolerance of eggs , diabetes and the like. am Not least as a reaction to his first heart attack at the age of 46, he turned to the causes of hardening of the arteries around 1970 . Together with Donald J. Ross , a professor of biochemistry and since 1960 Chairman of the Department of Biology at Fairfield University (Connecticut), the cardiologist published treatises from 1973 on the consequences of breaking fat globules when heated. Instead of an increased cholesterol level, he believed the enzyme xanthine oxidase , which he had found in homogenized milk and which was caused by the formation of antibodies, to be more important for the disease.

The 1983 monograph The Xo Factor: and How It Can Destroy Your Arteries, Your Heart, Your Life! Oster and Ross (Dr. John Zikakis from the University of Delaware was also temporarily involved in the project) stated that homogenized milk caused an increased risk of heart attack and demonstrated the increased risk of arteriosclerosis by means of numbers (Oster's hypothesis). Oster referred u. a. on the Gießen biochemist Robert Feulgen , who had researched plasmologists in the 1930s. The results of the long-term experiments were heavily attacked by the dairy industry, but Oster was able to achieve good cure rates in the patients in his clinic, for whom he had prescribed a diet based on his research. Although his theories have been challenged again and again, there is currently more recent research that seems to confirm him, such as by nutritionist McCarty.

In 1974 Oster retired. He had a son and a daughter.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ McCarty, Mark (2007): Oster rediscovered - mega-dose folate for symptomatic atherosclerosis . In: Med Hypotheses 2007; 69 (2): 325-32. Epub 2007 Jan 16.