Here is the after shot
Posted on 12/05/2002 3:22:43 PM PST by Senator Pardek
Issue settled. The Atkins Diet—the famous high-fat, low-carb regime that lets dieters load up on pork rinds and Scrapple as long as they avoid potatoes and Wheaties—works. The American Heart Association has been wrong all along, as has essentially the entirely American medical establishment. Not only is gorging on fat the key to becoming thin, it's heart-healthy to boot. So say the headlines:
• "High Fat, Low Carb Diet May Finally Be Getting Its Due" (CNN)
• "Fats Win Latest Round in Diet War" (Chicago Tribune)
• "Low-carb Atkins Diet Beats Low-Fat American Heart Association Plan in Head-To-Head Comparison" (CNBC)
• "High-Fat Diet Shows Promise in Study" (AP)
• "Doctors Eat Crow on Banning Celebrity Diet" (The Australian)
The public responded predictably to the pro-Atkins results of an Atkins-funded study last month. Sales of Dr. Robert Atkins' diet book skyrocketed over 900 percent on Amazon.com the day the news broke. Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution has now sold over 10 million copies; according to one Atkins stooge, more than 20 million people have signed on for the diet. Celebrities ranging from callipygian lovelies Jennifer Lopez and Minnie Driver to formerly porky Spice Girl Geri Halliwell to one-man body mass rollercoaster Matthew Perry have reportedly taken the Atkins plan straight to the scales.
And they've all been sold one greasy fat bill of goods.
There are two issues here. One is the effect of the Atkins diet on weight loss. The other is its effect on cholesterol and triglycerides, a group of fatty compounds that circulate in the bloodstream and are stored in the fat tissue.
In the study in question, Dr. Eric Westman of the Duke University Medical Center looked at both. He followed two groups of 60 dieters each, one on a high carbohydrate diet and one on the high-fat, low-carbohydrate Atkins diet. He reported that the Atkins group lost twice as much weight during the six-month study period as did the high-carb group. But this is both unsurprising and meaningless.
Gary Foster of the University of Pennsylvania co-authored a study conducted in virtually the same manner as Westman's. Foster, whose work will soon appear in a major medical journal, provides a simple explanation for the Atkins weight loss. The regimen "gives people a framework to eat fewer calories, since most of the choices in this culture are carbohydrate driven," he says. "Over time people eat fewer calories."
Randy Seeley of the University of Cincinnati co-authored yet another "sister study" with similar results. His explanation is the same as Foster's. Ultimately, Atkins is nothing more than a low-calorie diet in disguise.
In any event, the main issue with any diet—be it Atkins, popcorn, or jelly bean—isn't whether people can lose weight in the short-term but rather whether they can stick to the regimen and keep the pounds off not for just half a year but essentially forever. Yet completely lost in the media mania was that among the 60 Atkins dieters in the Westman group analyzed for weight loss, the dropout rate was 43 percent.
Thus almost half the Atkins cohort couldn't stay with the steak and bacon routine for even six months. By comparison, only 25 percent of the high-carb eaters dropped out.
Moreover, it's generally accepted that drop-out rates anywhere near this level completely invalidate a study because you don't know how all those drop-outs would have affected the result. Maybe those Atkins dieters were quitting not only because of carbohydrate cravings but also because they weren't losing weight or losing it fast enough to satisfy them.
Why would Westman's interpretation be so different from those of Foster and Seeley? It may help to know not only that this particular study was paid for by the Atkins Center, but that it's part of a long-term funding arrangement.
Analyses such as one published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) in May 2000 have shown that funding sources do in fact influence study results and the interpretations (or "spin" if you will) of those results. "When the boundaries between industry and academic medicine become as blurred as they are now, the business goals of industry influence the mission of medical schools in multiple ways," declared an accompanying NEJM editorial.
Westman's interpretation, based on his handful of subjects observed over a mere six months, also directly contradicts three decades of randomized controlled studies published in peer-reviewed journals. A review of over 200 of these published last year in a major medical journal concluded bluntly: "The BMIs [a surrogate measure of weight] were significantly lower for men and women on the high carbohydrate diet; the highest BMIs were noted for those on a low carbohydrate diet."
But what about the blood findings? Wasn't it a real shocker that Atkins dieters consuming heavy amounts of fat saw their HDL ("good cholesterol") levels increase by 11 percent while harmful triglycerides fell 49 percent? (LDL or "bad cholesterol" levels remained the same.)
No.
"Often just losing weight alone will cause improvement in triglyceride and cholesterol levels," the president of the American Heart Association Dr. Robert Bonow told me. Since the Atkins dieters did lose more weight than those on the high-carb diet, it only stands to reason that by comparison their blood levels would also improve more.
Says Seeley, Westman's "weight loss data look just like ours and my argument is that the weight loss accounts for the beneficial effects."
Westman told me that he doesn't believe this to be the case, because another study, in the July 2002 Journal of Nutrition, claims to have found a similar improvement on an Atkins-type diet regardless of weight loss. But the same researchers, using the same group of dieters, published another study at the same time reporting that the Atkins dieters lost an average of 7.5 pounds over a six-week period. So again, blood fat levels merely fell with body fat levels.
Ultimately this fat-fest over a single study shows nothing more than the media's amazing ability to pick out and flaunt a will o' the wisp—even to the point that one American network repeatedly used on-the-air interviews from a representative of the Atkins Institute to interpret a study paid for by the Atkins Institute!
Why? Our increasingly obese population is desperate for some magical formula to avoid the physiological law that body fat is determined by calories in and calories out. The media tried to fill the need, but ultimately failed the public. "It just makes people confused and frustrated," an exasperated Seeley said. Yes, and fatter by the day.
I lost 50 lbs in slightly over three months following Atkins, and never once felt the horrible hunger pangs that have driven me insane for many years. These two things alone make the entire lc woe worth it.
The mechanics of reducing carbohydrates from one's diet actually allows one to consume more calories than normal and still lose weight - "... it is possible to lose weight on a low carb diet without a restriction in calories, and even with an increase in caloric intake!" (italics added) - Jan McBride, M.D.[taken from http://www.low-carb-diet-safety.com/critics.htm]
The criticism of Atkins seems to be predominantly in the realm of: the weight loss isn't fat but water and muscle, one's cholesterol increases, one's risk of heart disease increases and so forth.
However, each of these objections are demonstrably disproven in me. Before I began Atkins, I weighed 320 lbs. I was miserable, always hungry and nothing I did would keep the weight off. My cholesterol was extremely high, I had high blood pressure and was lethargic.
When I began low-carbing, I had a monthly body test performed at my local gym (where they hooked me up to electrodes and ran an electric current through me) to determine my body composition changes.
Before I started low carbing, my "Water Content" was 59 liters. Three months later, after I lost 50 lbs, my water content was 61 liters, a GAIN of 2 liters. As for muscle mass, before I started LCing, my "Lean Mass" was 182 lbs. Three months later, it was 183.2 lbs, a GAIN of 1.2 lbs.
The ONLY thing that decreased was my "Fat Mass", which dropped 55.6 lbs.
Thus, there's simply no doubt the weight I lost was SOLELY fat. I also had a physical done two months ago and was extremely pleased to learn my cholesterol has plummeted. It is now 5.47 mmol/L, still slightly high, but nowhere near the 8.12 mmol/L it used to be. My triglicerides are 1.19 mmol/L, vastly lower than the 4.16 mmol/L, my LDL cholesterol has dropped to 3.64, still slightly high, but less than the earlier 4.35 mmol/L, but my HDL is now a perfect 1.29 mmol/L whereas before it was only .48 mmol/L. My high blood pressure has disappeared and I now have a healthy range of 116/80 to last October's 144/74. The nutritionist at the gym was utterly shocked to realize the LC way of eating actually worked! It was the opposite of what he'd been taught in school.
It is unfortunate I began eating refined flour and refined sugar products again, I gained back ten pounds, however, I've gone back to LC, so, hopefully, I'll lose the poundage I gained.
Finally, I don't understand your hostility to Atkins or the low-carb way of eating - all I can say is "it works for me." I've divulged details of my life and health to provide evidence that the LC diet works. I'm healthier than I've been in a very long while. And, I'm happy.
Please bear my case in mind before you condemn something that can actually save a morbidly obese person's life.
From the looks of folks around us, the dropout rate for conventional high carb/low cal diets is much higher than 25%. I wonder if that number is really representative of reality. I suspect that dropout rates for both diets to be in the neighborhood of 60% at least the first time around. Maybe higher. Drastic changes to eating habits isn't easy.
That said, your recipe for exercise looks good. I don't run (hurts too much) but I walk either on the treadmill or around my hilly neighborhood at least 4 times per week. I lift 2-3 times per week depending on what shift I'm working. And, lately, I've taken a closer look at what I eat. I use about 3400 calories per day to maintain my weight, which is somewhat higher than the 12-per-pound rate you cited. But, my metabolism is a little more high-strung than average. YMMV.
Absolutely correct.
It all comes down to calories. All diets work. The problem is that many folks don't change their lifestyles or eating habits.
Once they lose the weight they go right back to their unhealthy lifestyle and eating habits.
My thoughts are based primarily on the dozens of people that I've seen make great strides. These folks include my brother-in-law, several people who train heavily with weights, and the noted gang of freepers. It is effective, based on my admittedly non-scientific observation.
There are parts of the diet that I am starting to include in my own eating habits. I'm not really a candidate for significant weight loss, but I'm always open to improvement.
I have! She need only make arrangements to drop by and pick it up!
Here is the after shot
My best reason is that I lost 35 lbs on Atkins...WHEN I followed the diet as described in his book. My cholesterol numbers improved dramatically and my triglycerides took a nose dive. That was definitely part of the study, but this guy somehow muddled even that.
Jealousy of a guy who has created the most successful diet ever and made a ton of money off of it (as any good capitalist would) causes people to say and write very strange things, I guess.
Happy Birthday!!!
Only if you want a high risk way of getting salmonella. A decade ago it was mostly on the shells. But since then the salmonella has gotten inside the egg itself -- especially in the eastern part of the US.
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