http://www.suntimes.com/output/health/cst-nws-fside14.html Now Harvard study backs up Atkins diet
October 14, 2003
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The dietary establishment has long argued it's impossible, but a new study offers intriguing evidence for the idea that people on low-carbohydrate diets can actually eat more than folks on standard low-fat plans and still lose weight.
Perhaps nothing is more controversial in the diet world than the low-carb diet long espoused by the late Dr. Robert Atkins.
Now, a small but carefully controlled study offers a strong hint that maybe Atkins was right.
The study, directed by Penelope Greene of the Harvard School of Public Health and presented at a meeting here this week of the American Association for the Study of Obesity, found that people eating an extra 300 calories a day on a very low-carb regimen lost just as much during a 12-week study as those on a standard low-fat diet.
Researchers are still arguing over why, and if, the Atkins diet works. ''A lot of our assumptions about a calorie is a calorie are being challenged,'' said Marlene Schwartz of Yale. ''As scientists, we need to be open-minded.''
AP
No study has examined the long-term effects of the diet.