Hugh Macdonald Sinclair

Hugh Macdonald Sinclair, FRCP (4 February 1910 – 22 June 1990) was a medical doctor and researcher into human nutrition. He is most widely known for claiming that what he called "diseases of civilization" such as coronary heart disease, cancer, diabetes, inflammation, strokes and skin disease are worsened by "bad fats". Early life Hugh Macdonald Sinclair was the third of the four children of Colonel Hugh Montgomerie Sinclair and Rosalie Sybil Jackson. Through his father, he was descended from the Viking monarch of Finland, Woldonius, and the St Clair cousins of William the Conqueror. His great grandfather was the Rt. Hon. Sir John Sinclair Bt MP, founder and President of the British Board of Agriculture, whose second wife was the Hon. Diana Macdonald, the only daughter of Alexander, Lord Macdonald of the Isles. His godfather and cousin was Sir Archibald Sinclair, Viscount Thurso, leader of the Liberal Party and Secretary of State for Air in Winston Churchill's wartime cabinet. His maternal grandfather was Sir John Jackson, the eminent engineer. Hugh was born in Duddingston House, Edinburgh, Scotland, which was rented from the Duke of Abercorn. Education Sinclair followed his older brother, John, to Stone House School and then to Winchester College, where he was from 1923 to 1929, being awarded the Headmaster's Natural Science Prize, 1928, and the Senior Science Prize, 1929.