Report: Diet Doctor Atkins Was Obese

Yahoo/AP ^ | 2/10/2004 | AP

[ClintonBeGone]

NEW YORK - Dr. Robert Atkins, whose popular diet stresses protein-rich meat and cheese over carbohydrates, weighed 258 pounds at his death and had a history of heart disease, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Atkins died last April at age 72 after being injured in a fall on an icy street.

Before his death, he had suffered a heart attack, congestive heart failure and hypertension, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing a report by the city medical examiner.

At 258 pounds, the 6-foot-tall Atkins would have qualified as obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites)'s body-mass index calculator.

Diet is one potential factor in heart disease, but infections also can contribute to it.

Stuart Trager, chairman of the Atkins Physicians Council in New York, told the Journal that Atkins' heart disease stemmed from cardiomyopathy, a condition thought to result from a viral infection.

Atkins' weight was due to bloating associated with his condition, and he had been much slimmer during most of his life, Trager said.

The medical examiner's report was given to the Journal by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a group that advocates vegetarianism. The medical examiner's office told the Journal that the report had been sent to the group in error.

There was no immediate response Tuesday to a call seeking additional comment from the medical examiner's office.

The diet guru's widow, Veronica Atkins, was outraged that the report had been made public.

"I have been assured by my husband's physicians that my husband's health problems late in life were completely unrelated to his diet or any diet," she told the Journal.

Last month, Veronica Atkins demanded an apology from Mayor Michael Bloomberg after Bloomberg called her late husband "fat."

In April 2002, Atkins issued a statement saying he was recovering from cardiac arrest related to a heart infection he had suffered from "for a few years." He said it was "in no way related to diet."

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

I despise the veggies myself. But I really have a hard time accepting this diet as healthy.

I assume that you believe that the diet is simply "No bread, but eat all the fat and meat you want", right? Pick up the book and read it. That is not what the diet is about at all.

The diet is the reduction to a minimum of refined carbohydrates (i.e. sugar and processed grains mostly) and an increase in protein in percentage of calories consumed. This alone, even with no weight loss, would significantly reduce the number of diabetes cases in America, which is the hidden epidemic of our time, much worse than polio ever was.

A healthy diet which depends upon vegetables and meat as it's prime source of calories and is accented with fruits and breads and regular exercise would get kudos from the medical community... if it didn't have the name "Robert Atkins" attached to it. He has made them look like fools and has revealed them as co-conspirators in our obesity problem in America.

[ClintonBeGone]

I'm sure Atkins(the wife now) appreciates you lining her pockets though and defending her business while you throw your commen sense to the wind.

What a silly thing to say! The only money I've put in their pocket was the $6.99 I paid for his paperback. Thats the beauty of this diet, you don't have to buy special food. Unless he's got an interest in the butcher shop I go to, Atkins doesn't make anything on the ribeyes, eggs or butter I purchase.

[mplsconservative]

Thanks for the Guiness info. It's going to make my husband's day!

[fnord]

Note to beer drinkers: Guinness stout is naturally low in carbs and tastes way better than watery low-carb beer:)

Woohoo if true! Do you have a source to show exactly how many carbs Guiness has??

[adam_az]

Cut out the pop, cut out the sweets, cut out eating processed foods several times a day, drink water, and exercise and you will lose weight unless you have some other underlying medical condition.

And then you rule two groups likelyt to be fat: People who gain weight easily (metabolic resistance, high efficiency, whatever you want to call it), and people who can't exercise for whatever reason - work full time and go to school, broken bones, medical conditions, very long work days, or people who are so fat that it would be dangerous for them to exercise.

But hey, why should folks follow a plan that has been shown in study after study to work safely and effectively, when there's a harder way available that works for less people, and works slower when it works at all?

[Marysecretary]

Look, there are people with kidney problems who CANNOT be on this diet because of the excess of protein. I know that for a fact. So don't get high and mighty about it.

[ClintonBeGone]

So don't get high and mighty about it.

I don't know where that came from. I'm just grateful for the fact that I found Atkins and CAN be on it. I'll leave you to your own demons.

[ClintonBeGone]

But hey, why should folks follow a plan that has been shown in study after study to work safely and effectively, when there's a harder way available that works for less people, and works slower when it works at all?

You've really hit the nail on the head. Next response will be the "I had a friend that was on Atkins and when she stopped, she gained all the weight back and then some." :)

[MJemison]

...I would be up all night with acid reflux.

Me too! This was one of the best benefits of the Atkins diet - no more heartburn - what a relief. And no more waking up in the middle of the night with nausea.

[Outlaw76]

Enough of the 'Excess Protein' BS... please!

"People with kidney problems should never eat that much meat because the protein spills over into the urine and causes mega problems."

Ok, here's a typical day's diet.
Pre-Atkins:
Breakfast: Mt. Dew or Dr. Pepper (20oz. 2 before lunch)
Lunch: Whopper w/cheese, super sized meal. -Ham and cheese sandwich with bag of chips and soft drink (Probably 3 before dinner)
Dinner: Pasta with meat and/or cheese sauce, vegetable, Bread.
Snacks after dinner.

Atkins:
Breakfast: one or two eggs(scrambled, boiled, over easy) & sausage (small) or Omelet with cheese and salsa maybe add bacon or sausage depending on time. Tall glass of herbal tea with Splenda for the trip into work.
Lunch: Hardee's 1/3lb low carb burger or similar with water. Or leftover soup with water.
Dinner: The selections are amazing and the flavors great. Pork chops, chicken, salads, steaks, soups, etc... typical hmm the meals aren't typical, one meat, one cheese, some veggies (low starch) with water.
Desert: Sugar free Jello (yeah I know, aspartame. *slaps hand*) covered with whipped cream (heavy cream and Splenda, NUMMY!) topped off with an Herbal tea with cream in it.

The new diet has less of darn near everything including proteins and I never feel hungry. The desert tops me off and leaves me feeling satisfied for the rest of the night. I'm not hungry in the morning and I still don't like breakfast, but I'm sure it's one of the contributing factors in my loosing approx. 20 lbs since the first week of January. I'm able to wear my wedding ring again, I just put on a pair of jeans I haven't worn in over two years (36's!) and I'm looking forward to putting on those 34's I could never bear to throw away.

The first week wasn't easy, I was a full blown carb addict. Breads, Pasta's, chips, pretzels, soda's, Gatorade type drinks, candy, gummy bears!(oh my, that last one still hurts) I've said goodbye to.

People get a really weird idea that folks on Atkins eat more protein than they did before, I don't think that's the case at all. Loads more natural fat - loads less unnatural fat.

[Timesink]

If this had been a civilian medical concern then they would face BIG $$ penalty under the HIPAA (Healthcare Information Privacy and Accountability Act) legislation. But, because government is exempt, all they get is a "whoopsie, sorry about that"

PCRM is certainly private. I wonder what sort of penalty could be assessed against them, both for fraudulently "requesting" the information in the first place, and for illegally releasing it to the news media.

Sadly, the Journalists-Über-Alles SCOTUS precedents would prevent the Wall Street Journal reporters from ever being successfully sued for this heinous privacy violation. All we can do is hope that the reporter(s) involved will get some karmic justice of their own. I've always said that if the public would start violating the privacy of reporters and posting their personal information on public web sites, the reporters would learn some morals REAL quick.

[SamAdams76]

That's basically what I did to lose my weight last year. I cut out most processed foods and refused to eat anything with high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated vegetable oils in it (which is pretty much everything in the supermarket aisles). I now get 90% of my food from the supermarket perimeter - dairy, meat, fish, produce. Gets me in and out of the supermarket pretty quickly but I still manage to fill the cart.

While Atkins definitely inspired me to make a lifestyle change, I did not adopt his diet chapter and verse. By virtue of cutting back on the processed and fast food junk, I eliminated the majority of carbs from my diet. Combined with an exercise program (walking several miles a day), the pounds dropped off dramatically. For Freepers who don't know the whole story, I went from 304 pounds to 197 pounds in about seven months (I'm 6'3") and I feel like I'm 25 years old again (I'm 41).

Two things I don't like about Atkins. They are pushing those overpriced low-carb "candy bars" and other processed junk. Others may disagree but I see no benefit in those bars whatsoever. If you need a snack, you are much better off with a handful of (unsalted) nuts or a hunk of cheese. Actually, after nearly a year on the program, I have stopped having snacks entirely. Don't need them anymore. I eat two good meals a day (breakfast and dinner) and a light lunch - usually a tin of sardines or a veggie wrap with sauteed mushrooms and peppers that I get across the street at the health store that I am fortunate to have near my workplace.

The other thing I don't like about Atkins is that they focus too much on carbs. I think that by adopting a natural "whole-food" diet, you eliminate the carbs that are doing you harm. I do agree with Atkins in that you should also restrict your use of high-starch natural foods like potatos, rice and corn (actually a grain but often mistaken for a vegetable). I'll have a sweet potato or a bit of long-grain rice here and there. I've also discovered bread to be a serious no-no, at least so far as myself is concerned. Whenever I have bread or anything with a lot of flour (such as pancakes), I bloat up and immediately put on weight. Maybe I am one of those carb-intolerant folks. Yet the carbs in beer, fruit and sweet potatoes don't seem to have the same adverse effect on me as flour and starch for some reason. I guess the bottom line is that everybody is different and what works for one may not work as well for others.

I agree with you on the sugared cereals. Those are an outrage. Cereals like Lucky Charms and Frosted Flakes are toxic to me. I am struggling with my kids, trying to wean them off that junk.

Getting back to the orginal article, I am very surprised that Dr. Atkins weighed 258 pounds at his death. Is that true? That's awfully heavy for a 6 foot man. I'm 6'3" and as I was losing weight last year, I remember when I hit 260 and at that time, I still considered myself fat. It wasn't until I hit 220 that I started feeling comfortable with my body again and even then, I took it down another 25 pounds before I felt just right.

[DallasMike]

Cut out the pop, cut out the sweets, cut out eating processed foods several times a day, drink water, and exercise and you will lose weight unless you have some other underlying medical condition.

What you describe is actually pretty close to the Atkins diet.

[11th Earl of Mar]

Arnold Schwarzeneggar talks about high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets in his bodybuilding autobiography

Before you start claiming that bodybuilders and Arnold are Atkins people, you should know something about a bodybuilders diet.

Body builders go thru several phases of diet when training for a contest.

It is only in the last phase, 12 weeks from a contest, that carbs are limited. But they are never elimiated.

At the lowest, carbs are dropped to one gram for every pound of weight. So a 200 pound athlete will drop at the lowest to 200 grams of carbs in pre-contest training. But most bodybuilders never even drop to that level. They choose instead to burn the fat off doing cardio.

But in the off-season, the muscle building time of the year, carbs are a HUGE part of a body-bulders diet. A 200 pound man will consume 400 to 600 grams of high quality carbs.

This is nowhere near the Atkins Diet of no carbs. If a body-builder did Atkins he may lose fat for a contest but would also lose muscle, making him so flat that he would not be able to sustain a pump on stage.

This is probably more than you wanted to know about a bodybuilders diet, but it is important to know before anyone believes that Arnold followed an Atkins diet to win the Olympia seven times.

[goodnesswins]

I think there is a battle right now between the "vegiholics" and the "carboholics" for their spot at the bottom of the Government Food PYRAMID. Get the government out of our kitchens, I tell ya! Diversity and wholeness in food is the key. (And most Registered Dieticians don't get it, because they are taught to follow the typical Food Pyramid, with pasta, bread, etc at the base of a diet.)

[Outlaw76]

Sam, I just want you to know that you're probably the biggest inspirations for me giving Atkins a shot in the first place.

Thank you.

[StatesEnemy]

Hey... if Atkins works for some folks, and not for others, then those it works for should make use of it.

But sometimes, it sounds like a cult.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

This is nowhere near the Atkins Diet of no carbs.

This is nowhere near the Atkins Diet. The first two weeks are called induction and they restrict carbs to 20g a day. After induction, carbs are increased 5g a week until you reach your appropriate carb level. This means that some people can have a good amount of carbs daily according to their activity level and body chemistry.

Myths persist, and though I do not follow this diet, or even a low-carb diet in general, I have investigated it thoroughly, unlike most of it's critics.

[PeteFromMontana]

This whole thing strikes me as odd. I remember seeing Dr. Atkins on Larry King Live shortly before his death. I looked it up and that interview was on 1/6/2003.

http://wilstar.com/lowcarb/atkins_interview.htm

In the transcript you can read where he is talking about his heart condition. While I did not pay that close of attention, I do recall that he was certainly not obese.

We know he died about three months later in April of the same year, hardly enough time for him to become obese due to diet.

If my information is correct, and it seems to me that it is easily proved, this whole report of his obesity is easily discounted.

[MJemison]

...candy...

Have you tried the sugar-free chocolates? The dark chocolate squares have 3.4 carbs - and they are YUMMY!