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.

(Note: questions about TrustFlow here will be deleted, post them in trustmetrics.)

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

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Just to clarify one point: the Atkins diet certainly "works" in the sense that if you follow it properly you are almost certain to lose weight. If you've ever followed a calorie-controlled diet (or been involved in doing the sums for one) you'll know that a big chunk of your daily calories come from carbs and other things banned by the Atkins diet, so if you follow the diet you're essentially on a very weird low-calorie diet. However a more conventional calorie-controlled diet will be just as effective for weight loss and much better for you.

I'm astonished by the idea that opposition to the Atkins Diet comes from vested interests. What's the MRC's interest in this then? I didn't know they were funded by Wonderbread.

[chiller.livejournal.com]

Sorry to butt in, but the link between the established medical fraternity as is and food manufacture is fairly obvious, isn't it?

If people actually ate a healthy diet, the need for pharmeceuticals would decrease at an astonishing rate.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Just clarify this for me here. Do you mean to say that the Medical Research Council deliberatly recommends an unhealthy diet so that people get ill and need pharmecuticals?

If this is what you believe, then boggle, boggle.

[vampwillow]

I'm not saying the connection is as clear-cut as this, but iirc the MRC is government-funded and governments make a substantial amount of moolah from vat on 'non-food' foods and pharma, etc.

Cakes, sweets, take-aways, chicken tikka marsala, etc. all have substantial levels of added sugar and all are VATable products. I don't believe anyone is saying they 'recommend' an unhealthy diet, just that they don't push for a 'healthy' one quite as mich as they possibly could, and in part that *may* be due to the vested interest government's have in preserving income streams.

cf. Smoking, Petrol, etc.

[babysimon]

cf. Smoking

?????

We were talking about the MRC. Where do they (or any other government body) recommend smoking?

[vampwillow]

If the government wanted to stop people smoking it could do many things that would be *effective* instead of placing a few words on the side of a packet of fags.

Governments make a fortune on taxing smoking but recognise that it is a golden egg that could be killed if they actually set out to reduce deaths from smoking and related illnesses. Governments *like* smokers because they make money for the treasury and die young, making them money at one end and saving it at the other. If they banned smoking entirely they would take an emormous 'hit' financially that would have to raise general taxation (bad thing!)

To not say something is wrong in many ways condones it.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I think she was referring to the tax on it and suggesting that govts won't push too hard to reduce the numbers of smokers (and petrol used) as then they'd lose revenue.

While I'm as cynical as the next person, I can't think of any effective ways to reduce smoking which haven't been tried, apart from increasing the minimum age to 18.

[vampwillow]

I can't think of any effective ways to reduce smoking which haven't been tried

making tobacco a restricted (class C) drug along the lines of cannabis which is, according to some research anyway, a less harmful drug? Banning its importation in any form and making possession punishable in some way.

It may not work long-term (cf prohibition in the USA) but it would certainly reduce intake levels and thus raise the herd level of health generally.

It would, of course, cost money to put such aprogram in place and would remove a *very* sunstantial tax take, as well as lose votes in the short term, thus something no government is, sadly, likely to do in this country.

[ex-meta.livejournal.com]

The government (in the UK) also pays out a small fortune in medical care costs to people who abuse their bodies. Obesity leads to serious long-term illness such as diabetes. The government has a vested interest in making sure it doesn't have to pay for 40 years of insulin, not to mention bypass operations, treatment for varicose veins, and so on.

Smoking is something of a special case, in that it's a win-win situation--not only do smokers bring in valuable tax revenue, they also die much earlier, cutting down on lifetime healthcare costs. (Well, I suppose I should say that it's win-win for everyone except the smoker...)

If anything, the government has a vested financial interest in promoting the Atkins diet. Pricey special foods = more tax revenue, people killing themselves off with a nice, sudden heart attack = less NHS cost.

[vampwillow]

Pricey special foods = more tax revenue

Actually, the really interesting thing about 'doing' lo-carb is that I'm not buying ANY special pricey foods. In fact I'm buying no processed foods whatsoever.

What I *am* buying is plenty of fresh salad and above-ground vegetables, plenty of fresh meat and fish and cheese plus 100g packets of brazil and macadamia nuts (my replacements for sweets).

Fresh quality stuff instead of processed sugar-laden stuff.

Good for me, probably good for the farmers, really bad for the food processors!

[babysimon]

Fresh quality stuff instead of processed sugar-laden stuff.

How can I say this any more plainly?

Do you think that might be the real issue here? Rather than your avoidance of pasta?

I mean, congratulations on vastly improving your diet (really!), but why do you have to believe in magic to do so?

Maybe I should write a best selling book: "The Food Pyramid Diet". All I have to do is find a way to obfuscate generally accepted practice, and I'll become rich.

Hmmm... weight gain is caused by evil wavelengths. Eat plenty of food reflecting light at 510nm. Wavelengths over 600nm should be avoided.

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

Many diabetics are not obese and many obese people are not diabetics. Weight is implicated in diabetes, but there are no diseases only fat people get. Heredity is a very strong factor in diabetes.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Er...no.
For starters, doctors don't get paid by the pharma companies.
For another, people are never going to get so healthy that they'll need fewer doctors (as was thought when the NHS was founded). They'll just live longer before needing them, or actually get to see doctors about those problems which currently have huge waiting lists.

[babysimon]

You're just saying that because you're part of the conspiracy.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Damn, I've been rumbled!
So when do I get my big paycheque from the pharma cartel???

[vampwillow]

I defy you to point to more than a handful of doctors who do not have memo pads, patient dockets, furniture, clocks and/or other brand-labeled products and 'gifts' in their surgeries or to have been given 'presents' by the pharma companies.

Doctors also get funded by the government so an extended route applies, and private medical establishment probably more closely-coupled. NHS and provate sector also engage in support for product testing, another source of income from pharma business.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

The MRC are deliberately encouraging a bad diet that makes people's health worse in return for memo pads from pharmecutical companies.

I can't think how to reply to this.

[babysimon]

Remember the memo pads have holes you can stick your pen in. They're not any old tat.

[vampwillow]

There is a massive difference of substance between 'encouraging a bad diet' and 'not promoting a better diet'. Similarly, I'm not saying that something is done 'in return for memo pads' but that pharma companies would not engage in the substantial advertising and 'marketing' to end-prescribers (ie doctors) that they do if they did not believe they would increase their income from such activities.

If there was nothing in it for the pharma industry to place their product names in such locations they would not take part in such an activity. The fact that they do, and with such a high level of activitity, clearly demonstrates that they feel such an activity is financially beneficial to them.

Pharma companies make money, pay taxes, make products on which users pay additional taxes.

Basic foodstuffs (meat, fish, cheese) in this country and vat-free and do not represent additional income for the government.

The government funds various organisations for 'public' purposes.

You do the math!

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

i think I have a realtivly sane suggestion - its not a huge conspiracy - its not. What it is, is diffrent sides of teh same poliotical debate that is teh basis of all science. Science doesnt consist of one set of facts pushing out another set its about the power dynamics of who is in charge

For people on the Atkisn side we see ourselves as Galileo challenging the idea that the sung goes round the earth, teh MRC on the other hand see's us as phrenologist arguing that bumps on the head mean something. (that i belive that lots of Neuroscience is neophrenolgy is beside the point)

we challenge the existing order at the MRC, they are trying to repel us

[tempaccount99]

i'm with you here.

the comment above about it being more of a religion than a diet also rings true, given the tone of some of the replies.

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

no its you who have the religious fervour of your indoctrination being challenged by unbelievers

[tempaccount99]

i rest my case.

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

where were you planning to rest it exactly since all i can see around is very muddy ground

to put it another way - your need to ascribe relious fevour to those who disagree with you is no diffrent from the chritian church decalring all who do not worship its way as heathen's

A similar tactic is used by medical people who descrive there opponents in a discussion about medical practice as quacks
Alternativly teh word pseudo-science is used for science that doesnt agree with your point of view

your attempting to imply that we are some how brainwashed zealots - people who have not thought or reasearched what they speak of only going on faith - when in fact it is you who are blinkered - no wheer in any of your arguments have you provided more than a single scientifically prepared study meanwhils we have read and reasearched widly.

But i guess you ascribe to teh idea that ignorance is bliss

[tempaccount99]

where were you planning to rest it exactly since all i can see around is very muddy ground
your comment seemed in a similar tone to others which were violently defending a way of life without looking at other possibilities, or entertaining the idea that there may be other explanations or options. therefore demonstrating my original point.

to put it another way - your need to ascribe relious fevour to those who disagree with you is no diffrent from the chritian church decalring all who do not worship its way as heathen's
if anyone wants to call me a heathen, then i'm absolutely fine with that (but yes, that wasn't your point). i'm merely commenting on what i see displayed in the replies to this journal entry.

A similar tactic is used by medical people who descrive there opponents in a discussion about medical practice as quacks
Alternativly teh word pseudo-science is used for science that doesnt agree with your point of view
there is a well drawn up boundry between pseudo-science and science, it's not a case of using terms depending on how one feels. my point of view is mostly formed out of common sense.

your attempting to imply that we are some how brainwashed zealots - people who have not thought or reasearched what they speak of only going on faith - when in fact it is you who are blinkered - no wheer in any of your arguments have you provided more than a single scientifically prepared study meanwhils we have read and reasearched widly.
i haven't made any arguments relating to good/bad properties of atkins here at all. i shall freely admit that i haven't studied anything about it at all. but from many of the comments here, some followers of the atkins diet don't seem willing to accept that there is an established method by which it could work (ie, eating less, specifically eating less calories, and in general thinking a lot more than someone not on a diet about what you're eating), and prefer to ascribe to various theories which seem to have an almost magical property. i prefer to take the more respected, established and widespread view, than the need to believe in something which i don't understand.

But i guess you ascribe to teh idea that ignorance is bliss
no, but i do like to keep an open mind. this is something i fear some people here are lacking.