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A Look Into The Atkins Diet
By Vlad
In the ongoing battle against the ‘bulge,’ people are desperately searching for an easy way to lose weight. Dieting is the path that millions of people all over the world are taking in order to reach a desired body weight or appearance.
What does dieting really mean? Dieting is the act of restricting your food and/or drink intake.i Popular diets range in nutrition composition from low fat, low carbohydrate to high fat, high-protein and a whole range in-between.
Let’s take for example the popular controversial high-protein, high-fat, low-carbohydrate Atkins Diet. It was popularized by Dr. Robert Atkins in a series of books, starting with Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution in 1972. When Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution was first published, the President of the American College of Nutrition said, “Of all the bizarre diets that have been proposed in the last 50 years, this is the most dangerous to the public if followed for any length of time.”ii
The Atkins Diet promises that not only will you lose weight and not be hungry, but you will also be on your way to better health. The diet is based on the theory that overweight people eat too many carbohydrates. Our bodies burn both fat and carbohydrates for energy, but carbs are used first. By reducing carbs to a mere fraction of that found in the typical American diet, while eating more protein and fat, our bodies naturally lose weight by burning stored body fat more efficiently.
However, what happens when carbohydrates are reduced at a rate like this? Well, the body goes into a state called ‘ketosis,’ which means it burns its own fat for fuel. A person in ketosis is getting energy from ketones, which are little carbon fragments that are the fuel created by the breakdown of fat stores. When the body is in ketosis, you tend to feel less hungry, and thus you’re likely to eat less than you might otherwise. As a result, your body changes from a carbohydrate-burning engine into a fat-burning engine. So instead of relying on the carbohydrate-rich items you might typically consume for energy, your fat stores become a primary energy source. The purported result: you lose weight.
The warnings from medical authorities continue to this day. “People need to wake up to the reality,” former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop writes, that the Atkins Diet is “unhealthy and can be
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dangerous.”iii
Robert H. Eckel, MD, director of the general clinical research center at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver agrees. He tells WebMD, “Our worries over the Atkins Diet go way past the question of whether it is effective for losing weight or even for keeping weight off. We worry that the diet promotes heart disease. ... We have concerns over whether this is a healthy diet for preventing heart disease, stroke, and cancer. There is also potential loss of bone, and the potential for people with liver and kidney problems to have trouble with the high amounts of protein in these diets.”iv
The American Dietetic Association also has concerns about the Atkins Diet. Gail Frank, PhD, spokeswoman for the organization and professor of nutrition at California State University in Long Beach, says, “The body needs a minimum of carbohydrates for efficient and healthy functioning -- about 150 grams daily.” Below that, normal metabolic activity is disrupted.v
Volumetrics author Barbara Rolls, PhD, who holds the Guthrie Chair in Nutrition at Penn State University, states that \: “No one has shown, in any studies that anything magical is going on with Atkins other than calorie restriction. The diet is very prescriptive, very restrictive, and limits half of the foods we normally eat,” she says. “In the end it’s not fat, it’s not protein, it’s not carbs, it’s calories. You can lose weight on anything that helps you to eat less, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for you.”vi
For long-term good health, we should move away from high-protein, low-calorie diets and focus on enjoyable physical activity and good nutrition. Exercising regularly and eating healthy will not only help us look and feel better, it will also significantly reduce our risk of disease.
i. Wikepedia.org
ii. The Chronicle (Houston, TX) 9 March 1973.
iii. Shape Up America! news release 29 December 2003.
iv.The New England Journal of Medicine, May 22, 2003. Gary D. Foster, PhD, clinical director, weight and eating disorders program, University of Pennsylvania. Robert H. Eckel, MD, director of the general clinical research center at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver
v. WebMD - http://www.webmd.com/content/article/92/101979.htm
vi. WebMD - http://www.webmd.com/content/article/92/101979.htm
Tanya K. is a freelance researcher with a keen interest for health-related information. For more health and weight-loss related information visit her site at
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