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

Re: Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

[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.

Re: Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

My calorie intake isn't down

That seems hard to believe. Can you quote numbers?

Re: Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

[babysimon]

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

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

Re: Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

[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.

Re: Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

[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.

Re: Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

[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.

Re: Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

[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

Re: Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

[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.