Ravenous Otto Warburg, the Nazis, and the search for the cancer-diet connection

Memoirist Apple (American Parent) delivers a gripping account of biochemist Otto Warburg (1883--1970) and the origins of modern cancer science in his excellent latest. Warburg, "a gay man of Jewish descent," remained safe in Nazi Germany because of his work on cancer; among his discoveries was that cancer cells ferment glucose "just as simple organisms like yeast and bacteria do." Apple casts his subject as a hubristic, flawed figure whose research came at the price of a precarious compromise to Nazi Germany: among other things, he was used in German propaganda as proof that a "Jew could still live and work in Germany" leading up to the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Apple describes how Hitler and the Nazi leadership were obsessed with the rise in cancer rates across the modernized world and with its potential connection to diet, and outlines recent cancer research that has brought Warburg's forgotten findings back to the field's leading edge. As he draws fascinating insights from the interplay between science and ideology (rising cancer rates "fit all too neatly with the Nazi view that modern, urbanized life was profoundly corrupt"), Apple keeps the scientific explanations easy to understand, while interviews with a slew of characters add color. This is a bona fide page-turner. (May)

Otto Warburg (1883--1970) was considered the preeminent biochemist of his era, having been awarded the Nobel Prize in 1931. Apple (creative writing, Johns Hopkins Univ.; Schlepping Through the Alps), skillfully blends science writing with biography to present the story of this quirky, arrogant, and brilliant scientist, who revolutionized research on cancer and photosynthesis (how organisms use energy to make glucose). His theory, the Warburg Effect, demonstrates that cancer cells ravenously devour glucose in healthy cells. Ravenous is also an apt descriptor for Warburg himself, Apple writes, as he spent his life seeking adulation and ruining the career of anyone who took an opposing view. Warburg, who was Jewish, was able to continue his research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Germany during World War II because Hitler was interested in his research on cancer, which had killed his mother. Warburg fled to the United States once Hitler no longer needed him. After the war, he returned home to Germany to continue his research and resume his opulent lifestyle. Warburg's experiments revealed conclusions that remain significant; for instance, he proved that consumption of sugars and carbohydrates is linked to diabetes and cancer. The book's final chapters survey the work of Warburg's 21st-century successors. VERDICT An illuminating account that makes Warburg (the man and the scientist) accessible to general readers.--Karl Helicher, formerly with Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA

A long-overdue biography of German biologist Otto Warburg (1883-1970), who won the Nobel Prize for his work on cell respiration and metabolism, especially as related to cancer. Self-confident and assertive, Warburg made his first groundbreaking discovery--that fertilized eggs vastly increased their oxygen consumption--even before receiving his medical degree. By the 1920s, his work on cell metabolism and cancer persuaded the Rockefeller Foundation to give him a yearly grant, followed by funds to build his own research facility at the Kaiser Wilhelm institutes in Berlin. Though occasionally harassed by Nazi officials, he was likely protected by Hitler, a hypochondriac terrified of cancer. Of more than 100 Jews at the institutes in 1933, he was the only one remaining in 1945. As health and science writer Apple shows, the postwar years produced little change in Warburg's routine, and theories about the pathogenesis of cancer dominated research until the 1960s, when scientists turned their attention to DNA and cancer-causing genes. Since cancer remains unconquered, the 21st century has seen a "metabolism revival." Apple begins and ends with sections on the nature of cancer, the incidence of which increases as technology progresses. This realization two centuries ago began an intense search for the cause, which is still in progress. The fact that "70 percent or more of cancers were caused by environment factors, a category that includes diet," is less helpful than it sounds, although avoiding smoking, radiation, and toxic chemicals is recommended. Health gurus confidently prescribe "anticancer diets," but good research turns up few specifics. Diabetes and obesity increase the risk, so there's clearly a connection to overnutrition, but Apple admits that the "connection" needs serious narrowing. As the search continues, this book is a welcome addition to the library on the disease and one of its most successful enemies. A fine life, warts and all, of a brilliant scientist and his fight against cancer. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.