Research Assistance Please!

[andrewducker]

I'm looking for evidence that the Atkins Diet is bad for you.

By which i don't mean that "eating just meat and nothing else" is bad for you (well, duh), but that following the actual Atkins diet itself will cause you damage, or long-term health problems.

Oh, and by evidence, I mean actual evidence - a medical study or something vaguely similar, not just someone complaining that it doesn't follow the food pyramid or somesuch.

Honestly, if anyone knows of such a thing, I'd like to see it, just so that I have some idea that it's out there. I haven't been able to find anything along those lines, but I don't want to take the chance that I've just missed it.

Comments

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

I haven't been able to find any, but I'd suggest using the Atkins book itself as a start. He lists the studies that he attacks, and it's possible to look them up, even the one from the turn of the century that proved that a high protein diet was bad for you by putting a few soldiers in the arctic with protein AND NOTHING ELSE to live on. Of course they're gonna come back messed up!

well

[josephgrossberg.livejournal.com]

Eskimos/Inuit traditionally ate a diet almost completely composed of fish, bird and mammal meat. No simple carbs, no complex carbs, no fiber.

However, they did have probs. related to vitamin D deficiency and being fat was a plus. And they represented a pretty thin slice of the gene pool.

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

Surely the point is that there hasn't been a large enough population of people yet following it for long enough to tell? I don't think it was ever followed so widely or so strictly by so many in the 80s. It's a bit like the Pill - you just hae to sit tight and hope that twenty years from now they don't discover it makes your penis fall off :)

However effective it is I think it's amazing that Atkins has convinced people to live on such a restrictive diet for so long. he should have given up on diets and been David Blaine instead.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

Actually, it isn't that restrictive. It's a pain going without bread and sugar, but on the other hand, it's a qualitative diet, rather than a quantitative one. Basically, if I want to eat four burgers and a bowl of egg salad for dinner, I'm able to, as the diet is about controlling what you eat, not strongly regulating the amount you eat.

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

But this is why I keep saying the Atkins is a diet by men for men. It';s for people who don't realy LIKE food - who favour quantity over quality, fuel over flavour. the idea of 4 burgers and a plate of egg salad makes me feel physically sick! whereas a nice reasonable-size bowl of fettucine carbonara , mm..

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

I use the following method for keeping constant tabs on whether the Atkins diet has become medically proven bad for you. It is called "trusting the knee-jerking, headline craving, scandal loving media" and it's based on the following single piece of logic.

If there was any proof whatsoever that the Atkins diet could hurt you in any way then it would be front page news in the Sun tomorrow.

They print non-stories with no proof on the evilness of the Atkins whenever it serves the purpose of selling papers, I feel assured that should any actual evidence come to light suggesting the Atkins was as evil as they hope it would be emblazoned on the front cover with 38 pages of follow up (plus at least one pair of tits).

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

That's not necessarily true. The Atkins diet has been around for a while, but has only been re-popularized recently. There might be studies that were done when it was originally popular that showed negative effects, but which wouldn't be reported on now because they aren't news.

For specific citations, I would do a google groups search on the misc.fitness.weights newsgroup -- some fairly knowledgable people have posted there during discussions of the Atkins diet (though of course there's plenty of ignorant flamage), with citations included.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

MFW???? well, good luck if you do decide to visit. Lots of good folks but more than a few whackos too

[lovemonk.livejournal.com]

Quackwatch doesn't seem to like Atkins, but he's not their most usual suspect, either.

http://www.quackwatch.org/

I think it's one of the best skeptical sites ever, up there with www.snopes.com.

From reading articles on Quackwatch, I get the sense that the current state of medical knowlege is that you lose weight by taking in fewer calories than you burn, and sustainable weight loss should be no more than a pound a week. Whatever gets you there, barring any nutrition deficiences, go for it.

best of both worlds

[josephgrossberg.livejournal.com]

How come no one tries the middle ground -- i.e. cut down on carbs *and* eat a low-fat diet?

Like Atkins with lots of fish and vegetables. (Salt, spices and herbs provide the flavor.)

Re: best of both worlds

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

Probably because if you eat a high fat diet, you gain energy from fat, and if you eat a high carb diet, you gain energy from carbs. Restrict both, and you could have energy issues.

Re: best of both worlds

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

what s/he said!!!

Re: best of both worlds

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

He...thanks...I think.

Re: best of both worlds

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

erm, Atkins DOES have lots of fish and veggies. Read the website Everybody just focuses on the first 2 weeks (induction). It's not like that all the way through.

Website (http://atkins.com/)

Re: best of both worlds

[josephgrossberg.livejournal.com]

I should clarify -- most of the Atkins dieters I know took full advantage of the "all the bacon and steak you can eat" part. :)

[heron61.livejournal.com]

What I'm most dubious about is the official Atkins diet products which are completely artificial junk - their only differences from twinkies and pepsi is that these sorts of junk food are low carb. Way too many people consider that sort of crap to be a substitute for actual food.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

Actually, if you read the products that's the Atkin's line produces, they aren't completely artifical junk. Obviously certain amounts of them are, as all of their bread products require a starch substitute, and instead of sugar, they frequently use splenda or malitol, but they're just like any other food you'd find in a health food store. It may be processed (my strike against it) but it's processed food that's meant to be good fuel for your body, a far, far cry from twinkies and pepsi.

[webmacher.livejournal.com]

Diet info is really hard to find. I did a Google search limited to the .edu domain and found these. Probably not quite what you're looking for, but the problem is that there haven't been any major, long-term studies yet.

I suspect that different people follow this diet in different ways. I'm not sure my parents are doing strict Atkins, but they've cut way back on carbs, particularly pasta, potatoes, white rice, etc. They eat lots of fish, chicken, pork, and vegetables, and very few processed foods. Other people might eat a lot more of those fancy new low-carb snack foods and not so much of the fresh stuff. I'm sure that kind of thing makes a difference.

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/psychology/health_psychology/TheAtkinsDiet.htm

http://www.upenn.edu/gazette/0703/0703gaz5.html

http://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/nutrition/factsheets/atkins-diet.html

There is a study underway at Stanford:
http://mednews.stanford.edu/news_releases_html/2003/junerelease/diet.htm

#1 - Robert Atkins is ded

[derumi.livejournal.com]

I hear that the diet causes you to lose your balance during bad weather.

Also:
http://www.yelmfamilymedicine.com/articles/atkins.htm

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it helps since it's not a scientific study, but this lists some of the potential side effects from a low-carb diet.

[andrewducker]

Yup. The kidney/liver ones are taken into account by the high water intake, and the acidic one is apparently not a problem over the timescales of the induction phase (plus the high water intake apparently helps there too).

Also, the page links to 3 other diet adverts, which makes me a tad suspicious.

Thanks tho.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

The comments listed in this article are actually common misconceptions about the diet.

1) There are people that cannot go on the diet. The book details various types of indicators that you can use to determine if you're such a person.

2) The comment about Diabetics having serious problem with the diet is much the same as suggesting that people must eat lots of whole grains as exhibited by the food pyramid. It's based on the assumption that current attitudes about carbohydrate consumption are correct, which by it's very nature would stand opposed to the diet. If you read the book, you'll find there's a great deal of evidence to show that not only can a diabetic live on this diet, but they can thrive on it. The less problematic type of diabetic can even be potentially freed from the use of insulin by following this diet.

Sidenote: Go ask a doctor what they'd do for a woman suffering from gestational diabetes, a problem that's relatively common among high weight women who are in the late stages of pregnancy. I'm not 100% positive, but last I heard, the prescription was a diet that was high in protein and fat, and extremely restrictive on carbs.

3) The ketosis that this person is referring to is not the form of ketosis that the Atkin's book talks about. They're referring to ketoacidosis, which is a dangerous buildup of glucose and acid in the blood stream. The ketosis that Atkin's refers to is known as dietary ketosis, and it's a process by which your body converts fat into ketones, and then uses them as it's primary energy source in place of glucose. The excess that you're producing gets dumped out your system, which is why you can examine your own ketone level as a way of handling your use of the diet.

Here's something I found on Google that better explains the matter.

http://www.ketosis-ketoacidosis-difference.com/

So, in essence, the argument presented by that article is somewhat erroneous. No ketoacidosis means no extra effort placed on your liver and kidneys.

Additionally, keep in mind that the diet requires a balanced consumption of high protein, high fat, and a great deal of low carb vegetables (of which the list goes on and on, even squash can be consumed). In addition to what you eat, you must drink plenty of water, eat plenty of vegetables to get your fiber, and also take vitamin supplements. However, for anyone that suggests that it's low in vitamin supplements, take away their fortified corn flakes, and see how well their diet does.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

There's an article here (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1046594,00.html) about a report the Food Standards Agency published suggesting that the Atkins diet could be a health risk.

By me, I suspect that if you're not vegetarian and you are prepared to stick with the Atkins diet religiously, it works as far as losing weight goes - well, I've seen it happen - but it has the problems of any diet: unless you're prepared to stick with it for the rest of your life, when you come off the diet, the weight goes back on, and a pattern of losing and gaining weight in large amounts is a health risk.

Practically speaking, from my own experience, it's better to eat a little less, exercise a little more, and figure on losing about two or three pounds a month until you reach your target weight. I am doing this at the moment, and have been since February last year, and am hoping that the effect of gradually eating less and less will mean I don't have to do this again.

It's been kind of interesting. I could write a book. But who'd want to read it?

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

well, the guy at www.chunktohunk.com did write a book, and quite good it is too

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

If you're still looking for stuff, I found this (http://www.pcrm.org/health/Commentary/commentary9912.html) randomly. Unfortunately they don't give citations, but it might provide a few points to start looking for more detailed information on, anyway.