Atkins Nutritional Approach: Encyclopedia II - Atkins Nutritional Approach - Views in favor of the diet

Atkins Nutritional Approach - Views in favor of the diet

When the Atkins diet was introduced in the 1970s, it was immediately attacked by existing experts, who claimed it was unhealthy and would fail. Those claims persist today, even though there are now studies indicating the contrary:

• "The low-carbohydrate diet produced a greater weight loss...and greater improvement in some risk factors for coronary heart disease" --New England Journal Of Medicine, Volume 348:2082-2090, 22 May 2003, Number 21
• "better participant retention and greater weight loss...greater decreases in serum triglyceride levels" --Annals Of Internal Medicine, 18 May 2004 | Volume 140 Issue 10 | Pages 769-777
• "Diets high in fat do not appear to cause excess body fat, and reductions in fat will not be a solution." --American Journal Of Medicine, Volume 113, Issue 9, Supplement 2, 30 December 2002, Pages 47-59
• "sustained weight loss" --American Journal of Medicine, Volume 113, Issue 1, July 2002, Pages 30-36
• "When carbohydrates were restricted, study subjects spontaneously reduced their caloric intake to a level appropriate for their height, did not compensate by eating more protein or fat, and lost weight. We concluded that excessive overeating had been fueled by carbohydrates." "In addition to the calorie reduction and weight loss, subjects experienced markedly improved glucose levels and insulin sensitivity, as well as lower triglycerides and cholesterol." This is not a controlled study in that there was no control group; it merely observed the effect of putting ten obese diabetics on the Atkins diet; this is "the only study of the Atkins diet to have been conducted in the strictly controlled environment of a clinical research center where every calorie eaten and spent was measured." --Annals of Internal Medicine, 15 March 2005

Many of these represent scientifically controlled studies, published in peer-reviewed journals. Proponents of the Atkins diet feel much of the criticism leveled at the diet comes from statements and opinions of individuals and associations, rather than from controlled and reviewed studies. Advocates of the diet dispute criticisms based on the fact that a low-carb diet is likely to be high-fat and allegations that fat, especially saturated fat, is harmful. Atkins backers maintain that, aside from trans fat, saturated fat is not harmful and is actually necessary in diet. Proponents cite Gary Taubes who, in a 2001 article in Science, 291 (5513): 2536, claims that the oft-cited "consensus" opinion against saturated fats derives from political rather than scientific motives.

The original recommendations for low-fat diets were based on the idea that, yes, the studies had not been done to prove fat harmful, but maybe it was harmful (for example, saturated fat in diet was associated in some studies with high cholesterol levels which was associated in some studies with heart disease), and allegedly there was no harm in reducing fat, therefore it should be reduced; millions of lives might be lost if we waited for scientific proof.

However, when fat is reduced in a diet, the practical consequence is that people will substitute carbohydrates. Carbohydrates, especially highly-processed, quickly-digested carbohydrates, cause a blood sugar spike, stimulating insulin production and all the consequences of that, quite possibly resulting in weight gain, which is itself a major cardiac risk factor. As was pointed out at the time the original low-fat recommendations were being worked out, shifting dietary composition toward carbohydrates and away from fat affects many different metabolic systems in the body; making such a shift without strong scientific evidence effectively subjected a whole population to an uncontrolled experiment; only now are the results of this experiment starting to be widely examined, and many are concluding that recommending low-fat diets was a very bad idea. It's not just the cardiologist, Dr. Atkins, but also renowned cardiologist Dr. Agatston ("South Beach Diet") and many others.

Critics of the Atkins diet may focus particularly on Atkins, or on low-carb dieting in general. Proponents claim that critics to consider that people are built differently, and as with any diet, the Atkins may not be effective for some people. For some people, a low-fat diet may work as well as a low-carb diet, perhaps better. But for many people, it seems, a low-carb diet may be more effective, and there is accumulating research confirming this.

Opponents of the Atkins diet tend to claim that weight is regained when dieting stops. However, this is true of all diets, not just low-carb diets. It is unfair to single out the Atkins or any low-carb diet for this factor. The crucial issue is the sustainability of the diet in its Maintenance phase. In the context of widespread propaganda against fat, many people, even those who try the Atkins diet or other low-carb diet, try to make it low-fat, which apparently does not work. The fat is a crucial part of Atkins, for fat is satisfying, it sates.

For years, opponents of the Atkins diet claimed that (1) it would not work, it was preposterous, eating all that fat would make people fat, and (2) it would seriously increase cardiac risk. Yet, when studies are finally done to see what low-carb/high-fat diets actually do, they are at worst as effective as the recommended low-fat diets, and they do not, in fact, increase cardiac risk factors; indeed, overall, they lower them. So then the critics defend their low-fat position by noting, correctly, that the new studies were small. Yet the studies on which the low-fat gospel was based were also small, and less definitive. In the end, no study has shown that cardiac disease has been reduced by promoting low-fat diets, and there is evidence to the contrary.

Criticism of the diet often focuses on the safety of inducing ketosis, which is one of the body's natural processes for the metabolism of body fat often during sleep. It is biologically natural to burn fat - that's why we store it. Ketosis should not be confused with ketoacidosis, a serious medical condition seen in diabetics and alcoholics.

Low-fat diets are not automatically healthy ones. Traditional, high-fat French cooking has led to a much lower incidence of obesity, morbid obesity and chronic heart disease than in the high-sugar American diet, despite overall energy intake and exercise levels being the same.

The 22 May 2003, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine published two scientific, randomized studies comparing standard low-fat diets to low-carbohydrate diets such as the Atkins Diet. In both studies, subjects lost more weight on the low-carbohydrate plans.

A research study carried out by the Weight and Eating Disorders Program at the University of Pennsylvania, reported in May 2003 that the Atkins diet raised levels of HDL (or "good") cholesterol by an average of 11% and reduced the amount of triglycerides in the bloodstream by 17%. This counters one of the chief criticisms of Atkins' approach, which is that cholesterol is raised by eating fatty foods and meat.

In the study, conventional dieters' HDL cholesterol raised by only 1.6% while their triglyceride levels did not improve significantly. Weight loss was also statistically greater in the Atkins dieters after three and six months compared with the conventional dieters (although this did not remain statistically significant after a year). The study followed the diets of 63 obese men and women. (See New Scientist, 21 May 2003.)

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Views in favor of the diet", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki