Helen Brown, PhD standing in a grocery store, holding two packages of red meat, looking out of frame

Photo: Cleveland Clinic Archives

“The only effective diet is the one [someone] sticks to,” said Helen Brown, PhD, a highly regarded authority on nutrition and health whose research at Cleveland Clinic reverberated across kitchens and dining rooms far and wide. Her work paved the way for the National Diet-Heart Study, which put more than 1,000 people in five cities on low-fat diets created by Dr. Brown. The two-year investigation ultimately linked dietary fat to serum (blood) cholesterol and to heart disease.