Israel Medical Association Journal

It is 3:00 in the morning at an Israeli medical center. The rhythmic beeping of monitors pierces the silence as an on-call team gathers around a patient's bed. The team includes a Jewish doctor, a Muslim nurse, and a Christian physician. In these critical moments, the only language spoken is the language of medicine–a seamless blend of physiology, pharmacology, and an ancient medical oath.

For us in Israel, this reality is natural and common. Yet, viewed through a historical lens, particularly against the backdrop of World War II when medicine itself was weaponized and conscripted into an extermination machine, this collaboration was nothing short of a monumental triumph of the human spirit. In this editorial, I invite you on a historical journey to revisit two profound narratives where physicians from diverse backgrounds transformed their clinical knowledge and authority into instruments of life and resistance.

Throughout history, studies on episodes of famine have led to the discovery of metabolic abnormalities and hormonal aberrations as well as an increased incidence of cancer and mental health conditions. Starvation during early life is thought to nfluence the programming of childhood and adult bone metabolism, which may result in poor bone health in later life. This observational case series includes a small group (with no control group) of famine-exposed Holocaust survivors and their descendants. We proposed an investigational mechanism to determine any association between starvation and osteoporosis, both in the individual survivors and in their descendants.