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Spring/Summer index CivAb index The Low-Carb Craze The low carbohydrate/high protein diet has been around at least since 1972 when Dr Robert Atkins published a book describing how the diet had cured his own weight problem. People have tried it with varying degrees of weight loss success over the years, but it took concern over the current obesity epidemic to launch the current low-carb craze that has resulted in more people adopting Dr Atkins' recommendation of making high fat meat, milk and cheese the mainstays of their diet The food industry has responded by providing low-carb everything from beer to candy bars. Supermarkets have added low-carb sections and entire low-carb stores have popped up in shopping malls. It is surprising how the craze has swept over the country like a tidal wave obliterating long-time sound nutritional advice from the American Medical Association and American Dietetic Association. It has seemed from here that all our nutritionists have been away on vacation and the media has been out to lunch because it was a long time before we saw or heard anyone stating the obvious: It's the number of calories consumed and the amount of activity engaged in that determines weight loss (or gain). Dr Atkins' unsubstantiated claims that his low-carb diet is heart healthy, was not substantiated by his own death at 72. His associates claimed that his death was occasioned by a fall rather than circulatory disease. This was hard to dispute because his wife did not allow an autopsy to be performed. The matter might have rested there had not a physician sent informal notes from the medical examiner's office to Dr Neal Barnard, President of Physicians for Responsible Medicine. The notes suggested that an undisclosed coronary problem might have been at least a contributing factor. Barnard emphasized that these notes were just a jotted down opinion, not a matter of medical record, but they may have caused Mrs Atkins to issue a statement to the effect that her husband had experienced coronary artery disease including a blockage. This revelation should have undermined the Atkins Nutritional Approach proclamation that they were promoting a healthy lifestyle. In "The low-carb disAdvantage (Ad-vantage being the name of Atkins' "low carb" chocolate coconut bar) in VegNews, Dina Aronson, MS,RD, lists some of potential long term risks of a low-carb diet: heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, gout, kidney disease, osteoporosis, and nutritional deficiencies. She points out how low-carb diets limit consumption of health-promoting complex carbohydrates in fruits, vegetables and grains that reduce the risk of chronic diseases and replace them with saturated fats and animal protein more likely to contain higher concentrations of pesticides, growth hormones and other toxic chemicals. Aronson's article also sheds light on the recent system of reclassifying carbohydrates so that some are not counted enabling an ordinary product to be touted as "low-carb". The millions of Americans considering going on the Atkins diet would do well to read this article before doing so. VegNews, July-August 2004 Good Medicine, Spring-Summer 2004 VegNews has recently morphed from a tabloid with organizational, food and individual-type news to a full-fledged magazine dealing with broader issues of importance to vegetarians/vegans. PO Box 320130 SanFrancisco CA 94132 or www.vegnews.com (new subs. $15, regular sub. $20) Good Medicine is the publication of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine PCRM 5100 Wisconsin Av NW Suite 400 Washington DC 20016 SUBSEQUENT RECOMMENDED READING RE: ATKINS DIET Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. is suing Michael Greger, MD for what they claim is misinformation on his web site. The accusations and his responses can be read at http://www.atkinsexposed.org/atkins/135/Corporate_Threat.htm
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The Civil Abolitionist Spring/Summer 2004 v.15 no. 1 |