ciphergoth | Atkins Diet is dangerous pseudo-science

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.

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From:

babysimon

the medical establishment taking the producers' penny

Are you really saying medical opposition to the Atkins diet is commercially driven? That's quite an extreme position... [Instead, I predict food manufacturers starting lo-carb product ranges - see Michelob Ultra for an early example.]

If lo-carb didn't work I wouldn't do it. [...] I have never eaten so much in the way of vegetables!

Do you think these statements may be connected?

From:

vampwillow

sorry - last line should have read 'never eaten so much in the way of FRESH vegetables!' as I seem to eat a lettuce a day at the moment plus other fresh stuff, rather than the one a week and occasional fresh salad veg I did before.

Of course I'm saying there is commercially-driven opposition. It would be a rare industry that didn't do so and the food business is a few cartels at the distribution/ retail end and the intermediate processing stage is where substantial levels of sugar (and profit) are added in the the food chain.

In the USA there are a number of lo-carb foodstufs now being produced, and yes these are expensive and profitable for the manufacturers concerned who clearly have decided that if you can't beat them join them. In the UK so far there is little available in the Tesco, Sainsbury's or Safeway that is diectly targetted at lo-carbers

From:

babysimon

The point I was trying to make about vegetables is that you've cut your calorie intake and greatly increased your intake of fresh veg, and I think this could be what's causing your weight loss, rather than Atkins per se.

Are you saying that people in the medical profession who oppose Atkins are doing so to support the food industry?

From:

vampwillow

My calorie intake isn't down and whilst I may be having a lot more fresh veg (as opposed to frozen and tinned) I don't believe it is the calorific content that is making the difference.

I don't necessarily think they are doint it to 'support' the food industry, but generally one doesn't bite the hand that (might) feed one. Primarily I would put it down to ignorance, especially believing that Atkins is a one-diet-fits-all lo-carb hi-fat hi-protein diet for all time when it is only this for the first two weeks and certainly not this in the longer-term.

Atkins' diet plan was first developed for cardiac patients, not for weight loss, and it is difficult to see that if it did not work in this respect that many other medical doctors around the world would prescribe a lo-carb diet for such patients and for other situations such as high blood pressure and borderline diabetics if it did not work. Such a solution though, based upon food products that can be bought in every supermarket, clearly cut down the profits of the pill and tablet pharma industry, the prescribing of which supports the medical profession.

From:

ciphergoth.livejournal.com

My calorie intake isn't down

That seems hard to believe. Can you quote numbers?

From:

babysimon

It's also contradicted by most days now I'm eating less.

I think Atkins is less a diet and more a religion.

From:

lexin.livejournal.com

Well, that depends on what 'eating less' actually means.

I eat about the same number of calories as I did, according to my calculations - about 2100, or thereabouts. The difference is that now most of those calories come from fats, some from meat and a few from vegetables rather than most of them from pasta and potatoes.

The difference is that I now eat around 30g of carbohydrate a day rather than 300g. And I've lost 30lbs. I also feel less hungry. I could eat a low fat meal and still be roaming the house looking for a snack due to the carbs making me hungry. A truly low fat diet (which I was on in the mid '80s) made me very ill indeed.

From:

ex-meta.livejournal.com

I don't have it to hand, but a recent US study supposedly showed that the Atkins diet did work for some people, because it caused them to reduce their calorific intake. For those who kept on with the same calorific intake, it was useless.

I'm constantly amazed by the lengths people will go to to deny reality. There's no big secret to losing weight, it's all very well understood. The problem is, people don't like the methods that actually work, and they'll try anything from sugar pills to stomach stapling to avoid eating less, eating better, and exercising.

From:

vampwillow

I haven't done the counting numbers before or after but generally, taking the occasional look at calorie counts on packaging, the difference is likely to be minimal. There is a side-effect in play though that my calorie intake in summer (heat) is lower than in winter (cold) like many people anyway, and taking my current intake from that variable baseline I see little difference in overall volume of food or total calorific value digested.

Lo-carb, for me, is about types of food eaten (eg. meat, fish, cheese, most vegetables, double cream, pure alcohol) and the generally higher quality thereof, against previously-eaten 'shovel food' (pasta, rice, potatoes, noodles, bread and other sugar-laden carb-full stuff, plus milk of which I used to drink 1+ litres per day).

Since starting lo-carb (I'm not doing 'pure' Atkins since the first two weeks as I'm not anal enough to start counting percentages of a single gram of carb!) I've not bought or eaten anything with added sugar nor lactose/dextrose/etc and I put the disappearance of migraines and reduced blood pressure down to that in great part. Overall, I'd say lo-carb has raised the quality of my food intakeb but kept the quantity about the same.

From:

x-mass.livejournal.com

I actually find this hard to belive as well and I'm on Atkins - I think my calorie intake is down to about 1000 to 1500 calories a day and i feel satiated all the time

From:

neenaw.livejournal.com

I'm on a low fat, normal carbs diet of about the same and I don't feel hungry. Reckon it is the filling up with vegetables and eating lots of protein that counts, not the cutting out carbs.

From:

lexin.livejournal.com

Ummm..that's what Atkins is. Large amounts of fresh vegetables (and I mean large - have you ever seen what 200g of salad looks like?), a moderate amount of meat, an even more moderate amount of cheese, and oils such as olive oil which have proven health benefits. Anyone who says it's anything else simply hasn't read Atkins book and is going on what they think Atkins book says. If you actually read Atkins book you are told that the diet is not a licence to scarf down meat and cream, no matter what the newspapers say.

I would, actually, like to read what Susan Jebb wrote on the diet, and what research in particular leads her to conclude that Atkins is as dangerous as she says it is. Because there is a small but growing body of research which seems to demonstrate (against all expectations) that low carbohdrate dieters have a better cholesterol profile than low fat dieters.

And despite it being such an oft-repeated claim, there has never been so much as one substantiated case that low carb dieting causes kidney problems.

It is true, however, that people with existing kidney problems need to have their diet monitored, but that is the case whatever diet they are following, not just with low carb, because protein from meat is not handled well by damaged kidneys.