Diet Novelties .com

…„The ties that remained between Duke University and its famous offshoot, the Rice Diet program, will be cut July 31, ending a relationship that some credit for first shining the international spotlight on the university.

What prompted the severance wasn’t disclosed, although Duke initiated the split. The Rice Diet program will continue offering its strict regimen of rice and fruit to up to 600 patients a year under a new business arrangement.

“I think from the perspective of the average person driving by on the street, the only thing different will be that Duke’s name will disappear on the sign,” said Dr. Francis Neelon, an endocrinologist and member of the Rice Diet program’s staff.

Neelon said he wasn’t sure how the new business will be structured, but it will continue to be led by Dr. Robert A. Rosati, the diet center’s medical director. Rosati is traveling in Italy and wasn’t available for comment Tuesday.

As part of the split, Rosati and Neelon are retiring from the faculty of Duke’s medical school. Others of the center’s staff, who had been Duke employees, will no longer be Duke employees.

“We were not really anticipating they would decide to do this,” Neelon said, adding that there had been discussions several years ago between Duke and Rice Diet officials about the future of the famous regimen. Since 1969, Duke has been operating its own Diet and Fitness Center in a facility near the Medical Center campus, and Duke officials had suggested merging the two programs.

In recent years, the Rice Diet program has had only a loose affiliation with Duke. But in the 1940s, it helped put Duke on the map. Its founder, Dr. Walter Kempner, had been a Duke physician and began prescribing a bland diet of low salt and high carbohydrates to treat high blood pressure and kidney disease.

Its benefits as a weight-loss regimen drew business titans, Hollywood stars and politicians. Its successes earned Duke millions and turned Durham into a weight-loss mecca.

Duke began to distance itself from Kempner and the Rice Diet in the 1970s, when allegations arose that Kempner employed unusual treatment practices that included spanking patients. In 1993, Kempner became the subject of a lawsuit in which a former patient accused him of keeping her and others as sex slaves. The lawsuit was settled in 1998, and the details were not disclosed.

By then, Duke’s role at the Rice Diet center was virtually invisible.

Now, Neelon said, “We’ll just continue working like we do.” …”