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.

[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.