Necrology

Lewis “Lew” Henry Kuller '55

Jan. 9, 1934-Oct. 25, 2022

Lewis “Lew” Henry Kuller ’55 died on Oct. 25, 2022, in Pittsburgh. Born on Jan. 9, 1934, in Brooklyn, N.Y., he came to Hamilton from the Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn. On the Hill, he majored in biology and joined the Squires Club. He was on the staff of The Spectator as a freshman and joined the Chess Club as a sophomore, the same year he was on the Biology Club. Reportedly, he was also a committed bridge player.

From Hamilton, Lew proceeded to medical school at George Washington University. After he graduated in 1959, he began an internship in medicine at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn and became an assistant resident in 1960. Interviewed in 2002 about his work during that two-year period, Lew recalled he was routinely sent out on emergency calls initiated by family members of heart attack victims. He observed that most heart attack deaths occurred outside the hospital: “So we were going to the home and finding people dead, or in the street, but especially at home.” These experiences determined one of his long-term professional interests, which lasted more than 60 years: the study of risk factors for heart disease. 

Another important development at this time was his marriage to Alice Bisgaier on July 10, 1960, in Lawrence, N.Y. They had two daughters and a son. 

But before he could fully engage in his newly formulated research agenda, he was called to military service in the Navy in 1961. Discharged in 1963, he joined the staff of the Johns Hopkins Hospital as a resident in the Department of Preventive Medicine while studying for a master's degree in public health. In 1966, he began his career in academic medicine as assistant professor in the Department of Chronic Diseases at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, and also completed a doctorate in public health. In 1967, he joined the Department of Preventive Medicine at the University of Maryland while simultaneously retaining his position at Johns Hopkins. He would hold appointments at both institutions until 1972 when he was hired to chair the Department of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, his academic home for the rest of his career. 

During the course of his career, Lew pursued research into several important dimensions of cardiovascular disease. The first, begun in the 1970s, was a 10-year longitudinal study of men at risk of heart disease. Known formally as the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (and colloquially as “Mr. Fit”), it involved nearly 13,000 men between the ages of 35 and 57 and focused on the possible benefits of aggressive intervention in treating high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and smoking. Compared to those who received only care from their family doctors, the population who had active intervention and treatment experienced a considerably lower combination of both fatal and nonfatal heart disease rates.

Lew then turned his attention to women and the effects of menopause on their risk for heart disease. The Healthy Women Study began in the 1980s and ran for 25 years. It demonstrated that, before experiencing menopause, women had a comparatively low probability of developing heart disease; thereafter, the probability increased significantly.

Studying the increase in cardiovascular disease in people 65 or older led to Lew’s collaboration on the development of two new non-invasive (and inexpensive) tests designed to predict the presence of heart disease and the possibility of stroke among individuals having no outward symptoms. One test used high-frequency sound waves to assess potential blockages in arteries that feed the brain. The other measured the differences between blood pressures taken in the arms and in the ankles. The resulting ratio (the Ankle-Brachial Index) could reveal the likelihood of clogged arteries (atherosclerosis) and the likelihood of heart attack or stroke. Those tests are routinely performed today and can result in an early diagnosis of heart disease.

Lew’s research also led to a study of a small sample of people over 80 in which there was an obvious link between artery-clogging calcium deposits and dementia. In 2016, he observed that “if delay or prevention of atherosclerosis resulted in the reduction or slowing of the progression of brain disease and subsequent incidence of dementia, then there is the potential for a very substantial impact on reducing the majority of dementia in very old ages.”

Over his long and focused career, Lew was a principal or co-author of more than 400 publications and was honored on many occasions for his pioneering research. He was recognized as a Centennial Scholar by Johns Hopkins University, received the Abraham Lilienfeld Award from the American College of Epidemiology, the MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health, and the 1994 Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award from the University of Pittsburgh. He was a fellow of the Council on Epidemiology and the American Heart Association, a diplomate of the American Board of Preventive Medicine, a fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine, and president of the Society for Epidemiological Research.

Lew was devoted to Hamilton and made clear his time on the Hill sparked his interest in medicine. In his 50th reunion yearbook, he noted: “The intellectual stimulation of a Hamilton education has had a great impact on my career. The support of the Hamilton faculty, especially Dr. [Walter Norman] Hess [professor of biology and chairman of the department], in my career development made a major difference for my future. … I learned logic and reasoning, how to think on my feet, how to organize my knowledge and decision-making.”

He also credited the College’s public speaking requirement with preparing him for the presentations required by his profession, but confessed: “I spoke too fast when I was at Hamilton, and I continue to speak too fast.”

Lewis H. Kuller is survived by his wife, two daughters, son, and daughter-in-law, Laura Goldberg Kuller ’85.

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