Atkins Diet is dangerous pseudo-science

[ciphergoth]

The Atkins Diet is a pile of dangerous pseudo-science. Not that this comes as a surprise, but here's the word from Dr Susan Jebb of the Medical Research Council's Human Nutrition Research Centre.

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Update: Post made friends-only. Thanks to babysimon for pointing out that vampwillow had invited people in atkins_uk to join the thread, resulting in some incredibly lunatic contributions. Update: Public again.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

Well, yes. Point taken - typical life expectancy of natives of the high Arctic has never been -that- high.
So now I'd like to know: is the Atkins diet supposed to reduce your life expectancy below that typical of a hunter-gatherer in the northern Arctic, or just below that of our cosseted Western European existence?
You can still live OK in the medium term (years) on a diet of almost entirely fresh meat, but you can live OK for years on a lot of bad diets. Many sysadmins bear witness to this...

[paroxysmal.livejournal.com]

My little bit to add to this...

Eskimos live on an average of about 10 grams of carbohydrates per day, which is EXTREMELY low (Atkins starts you off on 20 a day in the intense Induction Phase), but their bodies convert the excess protein into glucose. They have a number of other adaptations like vascular something-or-other which increases the blood flow to their fingers and toes, and such. They also have a culture which is prone to high rates of suicides, and the nomadic tribes leave their elderly behind to die if they're slowing down the group... so there are other factors which contribute to their lowered life expectancy besides strictly diet. :)