No carbs for you! Companies are rushing to put out products

The Boston Globe ^ | January 11, 2004 | Naomi Aoki

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Everyone from Subway Restaurants to Anheuser-Busch is jumping on board the low-carb bandwagon this New Year just in time to help folks with that evergreen resolution to shed unwanted pounds.

But dieter beware. Cutting carbohydrates is no magic ride to thin, fit, and healthy. Not at least according to nutritionists who simply refuse to budge from their trying old weight loss formula: Eat less and exercise more.

[kingu]

I don't know if this Atkins thing is good or bad - some people I know have been on it for a while, and their pounds lost and good health reports (including lower cholesterol tests) sound great. But I seriously question the wisdom of businesses jumping onto a health fad like this.

I can easily see someone a few years down the line turning around and suing a company for their 'low carb' food.

I hope for the sake of business, and for the sake of the health of consumers that this Atkins thing is actually the good thing it appears to be.

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[Cincinatus' Wife]

The "experts" try so hard to paint the Atkins Diet in a bad light, it has to make one wonder, why?

Atkins

[I still care]

I have been on the carbohydrate addiction diet for years, back when doctors would tell me I was being foolish to think the diet worked, that I was buying into voodoo dieting. Nonsense - the true carbo addict knows how well the diet works - it's absoluting liberating to suddenly be in control of your eating.

Cutting carbs works wonderful IF you have a carbohydrate metabolism problem - which many of us do. But there is no "one size fits all" diet. Some people do best on the traditional diet. (There is a test to take to see which one is better - the first question being do you get hungrier and weaker for the day if you eat breakfast)

A true, severe carbo addict's metabolism is not fooled by diet foods. A sweet taste in the mouth can set off a hyperinsulin reaction as easily as cake can. Diet sodas have the same effect on me as a cookie. So most of these "low carb" solutions are really no solution for me.

Even certain medications can set off the effect. Going into a kitchen and smelling baking cookies can set off stomach twisting cravings for someone like me.

So I am waiting for the other shoe to drop here, that low carb "doesn't work". No one will ever convince us carb addicts of that, but going in and buying low carb ketchup is not a panacea.

[DB]

They’re simply trying to cater to a person like me that is willing to part with my money for good tasting low carb, no MSG, no hydrogenated oil high protein food. It is too hard to find currently.

And as far as:

"And though no studies have been done on the long-term health effects of high-protein, low-carb diets like Atkins, saturated fats are known to increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. As is the case with so many diet fads, however, the evidence is contradictory."

That isn't true. The studies that connected saturated fats to heart disease included trans fatty acids that are very bad for you (hydrogenated vegetable oils in many, many things now). Remove those from the studies of saturated fats and you get an entirely different result.

Also every study of the Atkins diet health wise has come out the opposite of what the researches were expecting to prove. That the high animal fat and high protein diet actually improves health and lowers bad cholesterol.

The eggheads that created the food pyramid with refined wheat at its base were wrong. As people have increased there consumption of carbs mostly in the form of refined wheat and sugar water over the years we have gotten fatter.

[Ff--150]

Wonder if there will be any public apologies for all those "health-faddists" who were laughed at, sued, fined, and even put in prisons for their "outrageous" and "unhealthy" claims that white flour and white sugar were killing people???

Or, those "kooky" notions that people weren't getting enough proteins???

[PaulJ]

The "experts" try so hard to paint the Atkins Diet in a bad light, it has to make one wonder, why?

I suspect one reason is they've spent their careers telling people to avoid fat and eat carbs.It's almost impossible for most to admit they've been wrong about everything and may have even contributed to the ill health of their patients.
Another reason, as Atkins has pointed out, is economics. The profit margin on grains is enormous, especially compared to meat. Just look at the price per pound of breakfast cereal. You wanna keep the farmers working? Eat grains. Atkins wrote that it's no coincidence that the food pyramid is also illustrative of the way food is produced in this country, with grains being the most abundant (profitable) and fats the least.
I've been on Atkins for 7 years, and to me, there's no other way to eat.

[HHFi]

My personal theory is that carbohydrates are the magical substance that make things less expensive. I developed this theory while shopping, when I noticed that things without carbohydrates cost far more. For instance, a regular candy bar is 50 cents; the same candy without carbs is $2.50. A loaf of bread is $1; a loaf of low-carb bread is $5. Therefore, the presence of carbohydrates must make things cheaper.

If we could just find a way to fill a Lexus with carbohydrates, it would cost less than a Ford Escort.

[Flyer]

If we could just find a way to fill a Lexus with carbohydrates, it would cost less than a Ford Escort.

But who wants to drive a car that's going to make them fat?

[expatguy]

bump

[prion]

there's no guarantee the low-carb craze might not go the way of low-fat, low-salt, and low-caffeine fads of the past two decades.

Whoa, wait a second! Fads? All three of those - low salt, in particular - were nutritionist orthodoxies. Still are, as far as I know.

It's just going to kill them when they finally have to admit America got fat not by ignoring their advice, but by taking their advice.

[kcvl]

In medical training, I was taught that a low-fat diet high in complex carbohydrates prevented weight gain and disease. I believed what my professors said. Early on, I advocated low-fat diets. But this soon changed. I now teach my patients to balance their meals. Let me tell you how this all came about.

In July 1990, I had just finished nine years of medical training at the University of Southern California. My training was in endocrinology and metabolism, and I was ready to go out and help the world. I accepted a position at a prestigious medical clinic in Santa Barbara, California. The clinic was famous for having been the premier diabetes center in the United States during the 1920s.


SNIP


Here are the facts:
Claim: Eating fat makes you fat. If you do not eat fat, you cannot gain fat.
Fact: A low-fat diet makes you fat. Eating fat causes you to lose body fat and reach your ideal body composition. Furthermore, eating dietary fat is essential for life. Eating fat is essential for reproduction, for the regeneration of healthy tissues and for maintaining ideal body composition.

Claim: Eating fat and cholesterol adversely affects your cholesterol profile and puts you at risk for heart attacks.
Fact: Eating a low-fat diet causes heart attacks. High insulin levels produced by a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet result in plaqueing of the arteries, because insulin directs all the biochemical processes that lead to plaque formation in arteries. Eating fat and cholesterol can prevent heart attacks by lowering insulin levels and switching off the internal production of cholesterol.

Claim: Eating fat causes cancer. Low-fat diets prevent cancer.
Fact: Low-fat diets (high in carbohydrates) cause insulin levels to rise too high-a growth factor and a major player in cancer-cell replication. Dietary fat lowers insulin levels. Dietary fat is also essential for hormone production, which in turn is essential for a healthy immune system. In other words, dietary fat provides the immune system with key components that fight the growth of cancer cells.

Claim: Eating fat increases your risk of high blood pressure (hypertension).
Fact: Cutting fat from your diet increases the risk of high blood pressure because, without fat, insulin levels rise higher in response to food. Insulin stimulates various biochemical processes that can lead to increased blood pressure.

Claim: A low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet, which is the current "standard of care" treatment for diabetes, makes patients healthier.
Fact: Long-term low-fat, high-carbohydrate dieting leads to insulin resistance and, if continued, results in Type II diabetes. This same diet makes diabetics sicker.

It is important to note that these claims are not backed up by long-term scientific studies. But the facts are supported by physiology and biochemistry (true science). By focusing on physiology and biochemistry, and the evidence of my own clinical experience, I learned how prolonged high insulin levels set off a multitude of chain reactions that disrupt all other hormones and biochemical reactions at the cellular level. I termed this chronic disruption "accelerated metabolic aging," and recognized that it led to body-fat gain, chronic conditions and degenerative diseases.

Throughout the six-year period I have referred to above, I learned that there are other factors that raise insulin levels, both directly and indirectly, and that prolonged high insulin levels are caused not only by eating a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet but also by stress, dieting, caffeine, alcohol, aspartame (an artificial sweetener), tobacco, steroids, stimulant and other recreational drugs, lack of exercise, excessive and/or unnecessary thyroid replacement therapy, and all over-the-counter and prescription drugs. These factors have become central in the eating and lifestyle habits that have prevailed over the last twenty years and that parallel the rise in the incidence of disease during this same period of time.

My program gradually expanded to include balanced nutrition, stress management, exercise, the elimination of stimulants and other drugs, and hormone replacement therapy-a complete program designed to balance insulin and all other hormone levels.

The Schwarzbein Principle was written to share this program with you-to tell the truth about losing weight, being healthy and feeling younger, by first focusing on this principle: Degenerative diseases are not genetic but acquired. Because the systems of the human body are interconnected and because one imbalance creates another imbalance, poor eating and lifestyle habits, not genetics, are the cause of degenerative disease.

I have seen what high-insulin eating and lifestyle habits do to people. People are getting fatter, sicker and more depressed. Indeed, it has not taken long-only two decades-to realize the repercussions of eliminating fat, one of the most important nutrient groups, from our diet and replacing real food with invented substances, processed foods and stimulants.

Moreover, American society's preoccupation with numbers-whether referring to chronological age, total cholesterol numbers or the number on the bathroom scale-has wrought devastating results. Many popular books offer programs that require time-consuming computations and obsessive measuring and focus on food. But my experience with patients demonstrates that, ironically, the more a person obsesses about numbers the more likely he or she is to engage in harmful behaviors that generate chronic health problems and disease. One of my goals as a physician is to change our culture's fixation on meaningless numbers to an emphasis on quality of life.

When people are told that poor health is genetic, they are more likely to tolerate illness and decreased quality of life as their lot. Along with this resignation comes increased body fat, depression and lethargy. Teaching people that health and vitality are within their grasp, and showing them how to achieve optimum health, is the key to the success of my program. When people understand that they have control over their health, they are motivated to make significant changes in habits.

As a physician, I hope to influence the medical profession so that more emphasis is placed on preventive medicine. Giving people the power to attain balance, to heal themselves and to avoid illness instills motivation, in addition to dramatically improving doctor-patient relationships and potentially revolutionizing the "standard of care."

This book could have been written around the many important studies that are cited in the References section. But the problem is that there is never going to be a perfect study. Questions always remain unanswered, no matter how many references you cite. And there are so many opposing theories that it would be virtually impossible to counter every one of them. I realize that I would have never come to my own conclusions about accelerated metabolic aging if I had focused on studies rather than true science. So I chose to write a book explaining how the body works at the cellular level, not a book based on other researchers' conclusions.

The truth is, anyone can prevent accelerated aging and disease, achieve ideal body composition and extend longevity. As you learn more about physiology and read the case histories that demonstrate my clinical experience (which shows that aging and disease are one and the same) you will understand how you can gain control over your health. My hope is that the information in this book will lead you to balanced nutrition and to a lifestyle that will regenerate and heal your body so as to prevent accelerated aging and disease and thereby improve the quality of your life.

Diana Schwarzbein, M.D.
Santa Barbara, California





http://www.schwarzbeinprinciple.com/index.html

[big'ol_freeper]

ping

[heleny]

Take the case of two Subway sandwiches. The Atkins-Friendly Chicken Bacon Ranch Wrap has 40 grams fewer carbohydrates than its Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sandwich, but packs an extra 100 calories and 7.5 grams of saturated fat. Those extra calories represent about a pound over the course of a month, Beranbaum said.

Compared to the sandwich, the wrap contains more proteins and/or fats, which the body digest more slowly than it digests carbohydrates.

If the wrap keeps the consumer satiated longer and helps him skip his afternoon candy bar (over 200 calories), then that will more than compensate for the wrap's extra 100 calories. Not only could he avoid gaining that extra pound, he might actually lose two by consuming fewer total calories.

But, who knows if the new wrap is really any good. Subway already had a low-carb option: to buy a salad version of their sandwiches. A plastic box replaces the bread, and you might even get some extra vegetables.

[leadhead]

The "experts" try so hard to paint the Atkins Diet in a bad light, it has to make one wonder, why?

Last week, the core of the Adkins & Perricone (sp?)diets-salmon- was attacked as full of carcinogens if it is farm raised.

True or driven?

I've picked from Adkins and others to come up with a lo-carb, lo fat diet that took 45 lbs off me in 3 months and I've maintained that level for 8 months.The weight loss has allowed me to exercise enough to drop my rest heart rate to safe levels, even tho I'm a smoker.(have to have some vice)

The only advertised lo carb product I use is Mich Ultra because I was getting a 1-2 pound bounce on weekends from my favorite Yuenglings Lagar and Black and Tan. But I found that Mich Ultra and Guinness have about the same effect.

[Dudoight]

WOW! I am printing this out! After reading Atkins, and the study that came out a year or so ago in the NYT....I am a firm believer in everything you have said. Thanks for the added clarifications. When are the AHA and the AMA and the dieticians going to wake up to this? We were terribly misled by these groups as to diet. Thanks again.

[LuLuLuLu]

Well, of course they're "fads"! Anything that does not allow the medical community/government to dictate our lives is a "fad". Didn't you know that? And how dare you think that you know your body better than some bureaucrat? </s>

America is fat because of processed food. Take a look around your grocery store. If you don't need paper products or cleaning supplies, it's possible to avoid the middle aisles completely.

The fattest people have the most junk, because we all know it's too exhausting to cook.

[Future Useless Eater]

I wish the gov would crack down on the beer companies. Michelob Ultra claims only 2.6 grams of carbohydrates per bottle, but yet they ALSO say 95 calories.

Now 2.6 grams of carbs equals 10 calories. They also say the beer has 0 grams of fat and 0 grams of protein. So are they conveniently excluding 22 grams of SOME OTHER type of carb like FIBER? or something not very digestible like malitol/xylitol/splenda?

The gov forces food manufacturers to have clear nutrition tags on everything else, beer shouldn't be an exception, especially in THIS case, where the beer is SELECTED because of its nutritional numbers.

RE Sarah Lee bread: 9 grams of carbs per slice is terrible! 18 grams per sandwich (just for the stinkin bread) is definately NOT "low carb"! I use O-so-lo rolls, 3 grams net per roll, and they taste good.

The subway wraps are great, can't wait to try all the other products mentioned here if they REALLY are near-zero carbs

I don't do low carbs to lose weight (although it DOES help). For me, it reverses my cholesterol ratios from very bad, to very good

[kcvl]

I didn't say it, Dr. Schwarzbein does in her book, "The Schwarzbein Principle", the second book, "The Schwarzbein Principle II" is a rehash of the first book, IMO.

Another book is, "The Metabolic Typing Diet". This is what it says...


Customize Your Diet to Your Own Unique Body Chemistry

For hereditary reasons, your metabolism is unique. Cutting-edge research shows that no single diet works well for everyone–the very same foods that keep your best friend slim may keep you overweight and feeling unhealthy and fatigued. Now, William Wolcott, a pioneer in the field of metabolic research, has developed a revolutionary weight-loss program that allows you to identify your "metabolic type" and create a diet that suits your individual nutritional needs.

In The Metabolic Typing Diet, Wolcott and acclaimed science writer Trish Fahey provide simple self-tests that you can use to discover your own metabolic type and determine what kind of diet will work best for you. It might be a low-fat, high carbohydrate diet filled with pasta and grains, or a high-fat, high-protein diet focused on meat and seafood, or anything in between. By detailing exactly which foods and food combinations are right for you, The Metabolic Typing Diet at last reveals the secret to shedding unwanted pounds and achieving optimum vitality with lasting results.

The Metabolic Typing Diet will enable you to:

Achieve and maintain your ideal weight
Eliminate sugar cravings
Enjoy sustained energy and endurance
Conquer indigestion, fatigue, and allergies
Bolster your immune system
Overcome anxiety, depression, and mood swings