Medicine: Fat Danes

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In the last few years doctors in Denmark have noted that the tall, spare Danes are growing "fat and short of breath." Last fortnight Dr. K. Ulrich of Copenhagen gave reporters a ready explanation for this phenomenon. Like most Europeans, he said, Danes were slow to install central heating systems, common in U. S. homes. Throughout the long, cold winters they shivered, exercised, ate heavily to generate their own body heat. But recently Denmark acquired hot-air furnaces and steam radiators. Result: the Danes, still eating heavily, lounge comfortably in their warm rooms, convert the excess food into fat instead of heat.