Helen Parsons facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Helen T. Parsons
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| Born | March 26, 1886 |
| Died | December 30, 1977 (aged 91) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Kansas State Agricultural College (B.A.) University of Wisconsin-Madison (M.S.) Yale University (Ph.D.) |
| Known for | B vitamins |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biochemistry, Nutrition, Home economics |
| Institutions | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| Doctoral advisor | Lafayette Mendel |
| Other academic advisors | Elmer McCollum |
Helen Tracy Parsons (born March 26, 1886 – died December 30, 1977) was an American scientist. She studied biochemistry and nutrition. Parsons is best known for her early work on B vitamins. She spent most of her career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There, she worked in the Home Economics department.
After she retired, Parsons was honored as a fellow of the American Institute of Nutrition (AIN) in 1959. She was one of only three women to receive this award. Her research on eggs was very important. It helped scientists discover biotin and avidin in 1940. Later, her work on thiamine (a B vitamin) and live yeast helped stop the sale of raw yeast drinks. These drinks were being sold as health supplements.
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Early Life and Schooling
Helen Tracy Parsons was born on March 26, 1886, in Arkansas City, Kansas. Her father was a doctor. Her mother was born at a mission house to Mohegan Native Americans. Both her parents' families believed strongly in education. They encouraged Helen and her sister to study hard.
When she was five, Parsons started school in Arkansas City. Her aunt was the principal there. Later, she moved to Alabama with her aunt and uncle. She attended a high school that taught both boys and girls. At sixteen, Parsons returned to Arkansas City. She taught at a country school for several years.
After teaching, Parsons went to a summer college for teachers in Pittsburg, Kansas. Here, she learned about the new field of home economics. She decided to enroll at Kansas State Agricultural College in 1911. In college, she discovered chemistry and physiology through her home economics classes. She found the mix of home economics and science very exciting. This made her change her mind from wanting to be a Latin teacher to studying science and home economics.
Graduate Studies and Early Research
After another short teaching job in Oklahoma, Parsons met Abby Marlatt in 1913. Marlatt was the head of the Home Economics department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Marlatt offered Parsons an assistant job there. Parsons was meant to connect science with home economics.
Parsons started at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1913. She took biochemistry classes with Elmer McCollum. At the time, McCollum was doing new research on vitamins A and B. Parsons said McCollum taught her how to do research. She described him as a very patient and understanding teacher.
Parsons began working on her master's degree with McCollum. She earned it in 1916 when she was 20. Her thesis, published in 1918, showed that potatoes had similar nutrients to cereal grains.
In 1917, McCollum moved to lead the biochemistry department at the new Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. Parsons decided to follow him. In McCollum's lab, Parsons could use the first group of white rats in the country for nutrition experiments. At Johns Hopkins, Parsons worked with McCollum on many vitamin topics. She also published her own study on how rats use vitamin C.
At that time, vitamin C had not yet been found or identified. However, Parsons noticed that humans and other primates needed a special supplement to prevent scurvy. Rats, though, did not. Parsons put rats on a diet that lacked this anti-scurvy substance. Then, she fed the rats' livers to guinea pigs that had scurvy. She found that the guinea pigs got better. This suggested that rats could make an anti-scurvy substance (now known as vitamin C) in their livers.
After three years at Johns Hopkins, Parsons was offered a job as an assistant professor. She returned to the Home Economics department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1920.
At this time, the Home Economics department was not allowed to have Ph.D. students. Parsons said the department was seen more like a trade school for "cooking and sewing." The university did not want to be "stained" by this idea. So, Parsons had to get her Ph.D. somewhere else.
Doctoral Studies
Around 1927, Parsons went to get her Ph.D. at Yale University. She worked with Lafayette Mendel, a biochemical nutritionist. In her second year there, she received a special fellowship. Her research focused on how high-protein diets affected reproduction and kidney health in rats.
She discovered that rats fed only raw egg white developed skin problems and nerve issues. If they stayed on this diet, the rats would die quickly. Parsons took these findings back to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She continued her research on what she called "egg white injury." Her work on this topic was very important. It later helped identify biotin and avidin. Parsons earned her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1928, when she was 42. After that, she returned to the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an associate professor.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Research
Parsons returned to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1928. She became an associate professor and received money for her own lab. There, she expanded her doctoral research. She did important experiments that led to the discovery of biotin and avidin. She also studied how live yeast could reduce thiamine levels.
Egg White Injury and Biotin Discoveries
During her time at Yale University, Parsons noticed that rats fed only raw egg white got sick. They developed severe skin problems and nerve issues. If they continued this diet, they would die. Parsons thought that raw egg white contained an "anti-vitamin" (later called avidin). She believed this anti-vitamin was grabbing and holding onto a key nutrient (later called biotin) in the rats' stomachs. This caused the rats to get sick.
In 1933, more experiments showed that the anti-vitamin causing egg white injury was a protein. This protein could be destroyed by digestion or by acid.
Parsons and her team then looked for foods that could stop the symptoms of egg white injury. They found that cooked kidney, cooked liver, yeast, egg yolk, or dried milk contained a "protective factor." This factor (later found to be biotin) cured the rats' skin problems. It also prevented the bad effects of eating raw egg white. They tried to purify this factor. They showed that the amount needed to cure symptoms depended on how much raw egg white was eaten.
Parsons' early work was very important for the later discovery of biotin by Paul Gyorgy in 1940. In a letter to Parsons in 1959, Gyorgy thanked her. He said her experiments helped him solve the puzzle of egg white poisoning and biotin deficiency.
At the time, Parsons' findings about egg white were not popular with the egg and poultry industries. She remembered being "insulted" when she shared her reports at meetings. People in these industries often questioned her results.
Thiamine Depletion by Yeast
Later in her career, Parsons focused on how live yeast affected thiamine levels. In the late 1930s and 1940s, it was common to drink live yeast mixtures. Many yeast companies said these drinks were a good source of nutrients and proteins. However, Parsons talked with her colleagues and began to doubt these claims.
She started her own experiments after getting money from a yeast company. They wanted her to prove the health benefits of live yeast. She fed live yeast to people who were eating a diet rich in thiamine. She found that live yeast drinks greatly lowered the amount of thiamine in their urine. But, dead, boiled yeast had no effect on thiamine levels.
Parsons also found that live yeast recovered from people's waste had large amounts of stored thiamine. This showed that the live yeast was holding onto the thiamine. It was not destroying it in the body. Thiamine levels quickly returned to normal when people stopped drinking live yeast.
The yeast company she worked for was not happy with her findings. However, they allowed Parsons to publish her research. Some of her colleagues were not as lucky. Parsons recalled that some of their research was stopped by larger yeast companies. Their papers were even canceled for publication.
During her work with yeast, Parsons talked a lot with the companies selling yeast. She also communicated with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA is in charge of regulating nutritional supplements. Her research led to a big debate about nutrition and yeast. This ended with the FDA threatening to sue the yeast companies. Eventually, advertisements for yeast cocktails were banned.
Later Years
Parsons retired from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1956 at age 70. She remained active in several scientific groups. These included the American Institute of Nutrition, the American Society of Biological Chemists, the American Dietetics Association, and the American Home Economics Association.
She was one of the first members of the American Institute of Nutrition. This was the first scientific group just for nutrition. In 1959, she was one of only three women named a fellow of the society. Parsons never married and did not have children. She loved gardening. In her retirement, she joined many community gardening clubs. Helen T. Parsons died on December 30, 1977, at her home in Madison, Wisconsin. She was 91 years old.
