What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie? (Is fat good for you)

NOTE: Article is EIGHT pages long, I am only posting the first page, feel free to add other pages as you see fit

f the members of the American medical establishment were to have a collective find-yourself-standing-naked-in-Times-Square-type nightmare, this might be it. They spend 30 years ridiculing Robert Atkins, author of the phenomenally-best-selling ''Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution'' and ''Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution,'' accusing the Manhattan doctor of quackery and fraud, only to discover that the unrepentant Atkins was right all along. Or maybe it's this: they find that their very own dietary recommendations -- eat less fat and more carbohydrates -- are the cause of the rampaging epidemic of obesity in America. Or, just possibly this: they find out both of the above are true.

When Atkins first published his ''Diet Revolution'' in 1972, Americans were just coming to terms with the proposition that fat -- particularly the saturated fat of meat and dairy products -- was the primary nutritional evil in the American diet. Atkins managed to sell millions of copies of a book promising that we would lose weight eating steak, eggs and butter to our heart's desire, because it was the carbohydrates, the pasta, rice, bagels and sugar, that caused obesity and even heart disease. Fat, he said, was harmless.

Atkins allowed his readers to eat ''truly luxurious foods without limit,'' as he put it, ''lobster with butter sauce, steak with bearnaise sauce . . . bacon cheeseburgers,'' but allowed no starches or refined carbohydrates, which means no sugars or anything made from flour. Atkins banned even fruit juices, and permitted only a modicum of vegetables, although the latter were negotiable as the diet progressed.

Atkins was by no means the first to get rich pushing a high-fat diet that restricted carbohydrates, but he popularized it to an extent that the American Medical Association considered it a potential threat to our health. The A.M.A. attacked Atkins's diet as a ''bizarre regimen'' that advocated ''an unlimited intake of saturated fats and cholesterol-rich foods,'' and Atkins even had to defend his diet in Congressional hearings.

Thirty years later, America has become weirdly polarized on the subject of weight. On the one hand, we've been told with almost religious certainty by everyone from the surgeon general on down, and we have come to believe with almost religious certainty, that obesity is caused by the excessive consumption of fat, and that if we eat less fat we will lose weight and live longer. On the other, we have the ever-resilient message of Atkins and decades' worth of best-selling diet books, including ''The Zone,'' ''Sugar Busters'' and ''Protein Power'' to name a few. All push some variation of what scientists would call the alternative hypothesis: it's not the fat that makes us fat, but the carbohydrates, and if we eat less carbohydrates we will lose weight and live longer.

The perversity of this alternative hypothesis is that it identifies the cause of obesity as precisely those refined carbohydrates at the base of the famous Food Guide Pyramid -- the pasta, rice and bread -- that we are told should be the staple of our healthy low-fat diet, and then on the sugar or corn syrup in the soft drinks, fruit juices and sports drinks that we have taken to consuming in quantity if for no other reason than that they are fat free and so appear intrinsically healthy. While the low-fat-is-good-health dogma represents reality as we have come to know it, and the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in research trying to prove its worth, the low-carbohydrate message has been relegated to the realm of unscientific fantasy.

Over the past five years, however, there has been a subtle shift in the scientific consensus. It used to be that even considering the possibility of the alternative hypothesis, let alone researching it, was tantamount to quackery by association. Now a small but growing minority of establishment researchers have come to take seriously what the low-carb-diet doctors have been saying all along. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, may be the most visible proponent of testing this heretic hypothesis. Willett is the de facto spokesman of the longest-running, most comprehensive diet and health studies ever performed, which have already cost upward of $100 million and include data on nearly 300,000 individuals. Those data, says Willett, clearly contradict the low-fat-is-good-health message ''and the idea that all fat is bad for you; the exclusive focus on adverse effects of fat may have contributed to the obesity epidemic.''

These researchers point out that there are plenty of reasons to suggest that the low-fat-is-good-health hypothesis has now effectively failed the test of time. In particular, that we are in the midst of an obesity epidemic that started around the early 1980's, and that this was coincident with the rise of the low-fat dogma. (Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, also rose significantly through this period.) They say that low-fat weight-loss diets have proved in clinical trials and real life to be dismal failures, and that on top of it all, the percentage of fat in the American diet has been decreasing for two decades. Our cholesterol levels have been declining, and we have been smoking less, and yet the incidence of heart disease has not declined as would be expected. ''That is very disconcerting,'' Willett says. ''It suggests that something else bad is happening.''

The science behind the alternative hypothesis can be called Endocrinology 101, which is how it's referred to by David Ludwig, a researcher at Harvard Medical School who runs the pediatric obesity clinic at Children's Hospital Boston, and who prescribes his own version of a carbohydrate-restricted diet to his patients. Endocrinology 101 requires an understanding of how carbohydrates affect insulin and blood sugar and in turn fat metabolism and appetite. This is basic endocrinology, Ludwig says, which is the study of hormones, and it is still considered radical because the low-fat dietary wisdom emerged in the 1960's from researchers almost exclusively concerned with the effect of fat on cholesterol and heart disease. At the time, Endocrinology 101 was still underdeveloped, and so it was ignored. Now that this science is becoming clear, it has to fight a quarter century of anti-fat prejudice.

Hehe. I know it's a little harsh. I'm not prejudiced against fat people. But I have seen people so fat they get a handicapped placard. What the hell is that about? I went to the Sizzler breakfast buffet once, and I swear is was like an Obesity Convention. I saw one guy filled up a full plate of bacon, a full plate of eggs, a full plate of taters. And sat down all by himself and went to work on it. And there were about 15 others as big as he was.

It's also worth noting that not only is exercise important, but exercise in the morning is crucial. Exercising in the morning tends to raise your metabolism, which means you burn more calories throughout the day when your body is "idle."

Right, and not just that, but in the morning, your body tends to be in a fasting state (8 hours, no food), so the main energy supply will be fat..

I am going on an Atkins diet (2 weeks very low car, then switch to moderate, low glycemic level carbs). Everyone in my family (5 sisters, 1 brother) has hypercholesteremia, and lowfat diets have not worked for any of them, we might be Syndrome X types, I am going to give this a try and then have my cholesteral checked in a few months.

Carbs are BAD for you

I am on a low carb diet and it is the ONLY thing that has worked for me. But I don't think carbs are bad for everyone. My husband and son can eat all they want with no problems. My other two sons and daughter seem to have my metabolism and gain weight with carbs.

Believe it or not, living in New Jersey has some real advantages compared to other places. As bad as the air may seem, I've found that less humid areas tend to have more particulates in the air, which makes it worse for people with a history of even minor respiratory ailments.

Also, the Northeastern U.S. is one of the few parts of the country where you get four seasons that are roughly the same length. For some reason I think that tends to be more "in tune" with the human body.

Your example is par for the work performed. When I was in College, I worked in a food warehouse. I and my co-workers ate a meal at each of our three breaks, mine was two heavy ham sandwiches at each break. Our job was non-stop work filling grocery store orders (freezer foods) and loading the trucks.

For the last nine years, I have been required to really pour the sweat out in our shop along with the office stuff. On top of this is maintaining the 1.5 acres of the Church for which I belong and my own household and that of some elderly neighbors on occasion.

For these last nine years, my breakfast for the weekday has been six extra large eggs, one quart of milk and two packages of instant breakfast in a blender. I eat a barbecue sandwich or other at lunch and a full supper. Tonight will be my chicken fried steak and gravey.

My wife sent me (made me go)to the Doctor twice in the last year and all of my blood work came up in the perfect range (no, I do not keep up with the numbers, I am a male). Doc told me to keep up with what I am doing. I am 43, 5-11 and 175# with a 31 inch waist.

I understand that if I want to turn into a couch potatoe, that I'll have to change this routine.

Kids...don't try this at home.

Well, I try to exercise about one and a half hours a day give or take 15 minutes. Even if people commute, you don't mean to say they can't even do half of that a day? Even a walk after dinner for a half an hour is beneficial.

I think the biggest problem people have with the adkins diet is there doesn't seem to be any mention of exercise, I could be wrong as I have never looked into his diet as I never really need to diet, I just do so about once a year to burn off the weight I accumulate during my normaly sedintary winter lifestyle.

I am certain of this...

My father-in-law works on a farm, spending lots of hours walking and generally in some sort of heavy physical activity 11 months out of the year.

He eats steaks/meats (the more fat the better), fried foods, you name it - he eats it - and lots of it. He can out eat me and I am way overweight.

All this and the only time he gains weight is the one month in the winter that he is not doing much physical labor.

My experience with the Atkins diet has also been very favorable. Cholesterol profile improved DRAMATICALLY with total cholesterol dropping to 162. More importantly, triglycerides are way down actually to almost abnormally low.
The medical profession as a whole is way behind the curve, and this article does an outstanding job of recalling the history of the Atkins phenomenon and the abuse the man has taken from the so-called experts.
Of all the low-carb diets available, I am not convinced the Atkins version is the very best, or the safest. There are several variations of the low carb diet, and it is hard to decide which among them really offers optimum health. But clearly, the lesson we should have learned from Atkins and his progeny is that excessive consumption of carbs, especially the refined time devoid of nutrients and fiber, is at the very core of many "American" degenerative health problems. In the end, we may learn that ketosis is fine for the CORRECTION of hormone imbalance (insulin/glucagon) and the return to optimum body weight and body fat, but maintenance diets, the diets we should have been on to begin with from early life, that are non-ketogenic are healthier for the long term. I suspect this may be proven some day, but maybe not. In any event, we all owe Dr. Atkins a tremendous thank you for his pioneering breakthrough in nutriontal knowledge, and his courage to face many critics and ridicule over the years. I know he's probably saved my own life.

That's a good point. In addition to the longer commute, an urban family generally has more "other stuff" going on simply because they can. The key for anyone is to sit down and write a list of no more than five things that are important to you. Focus on them (and make sure "exercise" is one of them), and disregard the rest.

My problem is this: Which of the five should I toss out the window in order to keep FreeRepublic on the list? LOL.

Even Atkins concedes there is a small portion of the population that doesn't respond to his diet with weight loss. From what I've seen in the many books on the subject (and I've been reading them for two or three decades going back to "Atkins I"), there may be as much as 25 percent of the population that doesn't benefit from the low-carb diet.
One of the fascinating theories out there now (and one roundly criticized by mainstream medicine) is the notion that blood type may be correlated with optimum diet. You might want to read any of Peter d'Adamo's interesting books (Live Right 4 Your Type, and other similar titles) or visit his website to explore that. He maintains that Type O's (the largest blood type group) do best on low-carb diets, but Type A's (only about 20-25 percent of the population, curiously) do best on vegetarian diets, which obviously are high-carb. His explanation for that has to do with lectins, substances in certain foods to which the body reacts immunologically. It's very interesting stuff, but still somewhat speculative. The fact that the medical orthodoxy poo-poos it is probably a good indication he is on to something.

Well, the northern part of the state, known as the Skylands is a nice area. I was down on NJ for a while; Almost left. But now I am staying. Found a nice region where I can canoe, fish, hike, camp and live happily. I'm gonna buy a house here this year. The job market has got to be one of the best in the country, with so many people and being so close the NYC. Like you say, you get four seasons. It's within a day's drive from some nice tourist attractions, like Boston, or Virginia, or the Adirondacks. I am glad I have made my peace with NJ. One should take pride in where they live. Admittedly, we have some messed up politics, but I guess you can't have everything. I'll do what I can.

Well, AC, perhaps they should find one of those 5 things they can do AND walk at the same time :P

I used to do that to Limbaugh all the time.

One thing I haven't seen in any of these diets that always helped me, is lowering your sodium. Although I am not all that certain that sodium causes high blood pressure or other health maladies, I will say this: sodium makes you retain more water, period!

I don't add any salt to any of my food and try to purchase foods lower in sodium, especially things like salad dressing and condiments. A salad is no good for you if the dressing is as unhealthy as three big macs. :)

I notice that when I first lower my sodium intake, I (ahem) lose quite a bit of water and drop a couple extra pounds more than the usual water loss common in the first couple days of dieting.

Next time you eat a ham dinner, try to drink as little water as possible, and you will see it is quite hard as that salt makes you thirsty, but you won't feel as heavy after that big dinner than you normally do when that ham makes you drink a gallon of water.

I grew up in that brand-name toilet known as Hudson County. I live out in a quiet corner of the world now, nestled in between the Watchung Reservation and the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. No complaints. But if I could live anywhere in this state, it would be either Long Valley or New Vernon.

I live out in a quiet corner of the world now, nestled in between the Watchung Reservation and the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge.

I went to elementary school in Millington. You must be out that way. Green Village? Basking Ridge? I once rented a cottage home with some buddies in New Vernon, too. That is a heck of a nice area. Harding Twp. We had wild turkeys in our back yard (and Wild Turkey in the fridge too.) Real nice if you got the $$$. Same goes for Bernardsville, Far Hills, Gladstone, Mendham. Nice but expensive.

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