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.

[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.