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Cecile Hoover Edwards

ACADEMIC CAREER

While acting as dean, she concurrently oversaw a 5-year program that focused on the pregnancies of low-income women; more specifically, Edwards was interested in how these pregnancies were affected by socioeconomic and nutritive factors.

RESEARCH

(Much of her career focused on the eating habits of pregnant African-American women.

In a paper that was published in May of 1953, Edwards partook in a study that attempted to analyze the effects of dietary supplements during the pregnancies of anemic women. Several correlative conclusions were drawn, among them that the occurrences of birth-related complications in pregnant women with poor diets were higher than in pregnant women who had better diets. Additionally, good diets were correlated with an increase in infant length and weight. Edwards noted that the dietary supplements used in this experiment were both relatively inexpensive and common. She suggested that pregnant women of lower incomes maintain a highly nutritive diet based on these cheap and available foods.

(Another key point of Edward’s focus was on the amino acid composition of foods, especially vegetables, with the goal of finding low-cost foods that were optimal for protein production)

Based on a study performed in India, where school children who consumed dietary supplements of the aforementioned nature had favorable gains in height, weight and hemoglobin, Edwards oversaw a similar experiment in Alabama. School children received low-cost dietary supplements within their school lunches, and over a six-month period, their heights, weights and scholastic scores were recorded. In order to calculate the nutritive value of the meals the children were eating, nutrients such as protein, calcium, vitamin A and vitamin D were measured. Children who received dietary supplements showed an increase in the majority of these nutrients, and also received higher academic evaluations from their teachers; they were more alert and paid better attention.

(Additionally, Edwards had a particular interest in the metabolism of the amino acid methionine, and starting in the 1950s, led an 18-year study for the National Institutes of Health on this topic.)

In addition, Edwards was interested in postoperative dieting, due to the loss of tissue protein that is observed during surgeries. She was involved in a study that measured how well following surgery adult rats were able to absorb methionine (whose methyl group is used in a variety of biological functions). Ultimately, the rats that underwent surgery had a smaller uptake of methionine, specifically in the tissues that had been affected during the surgery. 

(Edwards opposed hereditarian view in nature vs. nurture debate)

Furthermore, Edwards worked to spread knowledge about issues such as childcare and financial budgeting to lower income and disadvantaged ethnicities.

In a review Edwards published in 1995, she introduced a concept of population approach, which she believed was how the medical system should treat patients, by viewing and taking into account their social, economic and cultural environments. Moreover, she looked specifically into hypertension within the Black American demographic, and named weight control, reduced sodium chloride intake and physical activities as ways of prevention. At the same time, she cited social factors as possible causes for the higher hypertension rates amongst Black Americans than amongst White Americans. For example, Edwards noted that generally and comparatively, Black Americans were more likely to be poor and more likely to live farther from medical treatment. Additionally, she stated that Black Americans suffered from greater psychosocial stress and other social strains due to racism, and that these factors and their correlation towards hypertension required further research.