When I plan my diet, I think about things like folate, potassium, magnesium, vitamins A, B, C, D, E, K, etc., and I look for the foods that will provide them.
_____________________

So do I. And although I'm not following Atkins, my way of eating is not incompatible with Atkins OWL, I just didn't take quite as many weeks to get to the carb level I have chosen. Atkins does not limit veggies to greens, and even high sugar veggies like beets and carrots are not forbidden if they fit into your optimal carb level.

No single day's menu is ever going to be nutritionally complete. There just is no single day of eating that can accomplish that.

Drina, I am not on "Atkins" at this time, but I was doing low carb, whole foods and ate only 20-40 net grams a day, focused on organic vegan whole foods, with antioxidants, fiber, overall nutritional value and profiles of foods as the focus.

I realize this is a thread about "Atkins" but I just wanted to say that a VERY low carb diet can look like something else too (and meet your criteria as far as healthiness is concerned).

And I never said that you said "horrible". As a matter of fact, I "" the word "diet", not the word "horrible", so please do not accuse me of something I did not do nor had any intention of doing.

And that is fine. I've never had any trouble with people presenting opinions. My only concern has been with misinformation.

As for the concerns about vitamins, I take extra vitamins every day, and I also eat other things (a person cannot live on wraps alone). I was only giving you an example of a lunch meal.

EDIT: And I just noticed...the three last posters (including myself) are not specifically on Atkins, yet we are trying to correct misinformation.

Vegan Low Carb, Woo SoulBliss I am IMPRESSED!

If that doesn't prove that low carb does not have to be a red meat fat fest, I don't know what does!

And it's true that I am not on Atkins, but I hate to see misperceptions where ever they occur.

Yep! Technically, I was eating in a way that jived pretty well with Atkins outlines too. I lost a LOT of weight too! I'm still doing controlled carb. I just wanted to eat more summer fruit than very low carb allowed, so I am doing a little different plan for now.

If you managed that, SoulBliss, I think that's great. But given the fact that nutrient-rich foods may have a good amount of carbs, I think it would be difficult to eat a wide variety of fruits and veggies (which you need) and still remain low carb, unless the definition of low carb is eating as many carbs as you feel the need to eat, which some have suggested is espoused by Atkins. But then is it really low carb? What is low carb?

After having a look at the low carb threads, I've noticed that quite a few take a number of vitamins. I can't help but feel that if one is eating a truly healthy diet, vitamin pills are unnecessary.

Most doctors and even dietitians still recommend a multi-vitamin during weight loss, "just in case" (at least here in the Midwest). Whether it's needed or not, one daily multi-vitamin is unlikely to cause harm, so why not? Whether a person takes a multi-vitamin or not, is not reflective of whether it is needed.

As to what IS low carb, even the "experts" can't agree on that. My mother is Type II diabetic and was told by one by her doctor's nurse practitioner that she should have no more than 100 g of carb per day. However, when she went to the diabetic counselor to whom she was assigned, the woman said 100 g? that's WAY too low for you, you should have roughly 200 g -- 45 to 50 at each meal and another 60g spread over 2 to 3 snacks.

Even 200g is significantly lower than would be recommended for most people following the FDA Food Pyramid. The Zone diet is often considered a low carb plan at 40% of calories from carbs (as opposed to the 60% or more recommended by the pyramid). A Zone dieter eating 1300 - 1400 calories, would be eating roughly 200g of carbs.

Even at 100g per day, (no more than 1/3 of the food pyramid guidelines) dozens of vegetables could be included DAILY. Many fruits, starchy veggies like corn, carrots, peas, potatoes, beets and sweet potatoes, beans and grains would have to be limited somewhat (but not eliminated). A 1200 to 1800 calorie diet allows plenty of room for low carb fruits and veggies AND a serving or two or three of "limited" veggies, fruits and grains.

For fruit, berries are very low in carbs and there are dozens of varieties.
Many citrus fruits such as lemon, lime, keylime, most oranges, buda's hand, grapefruit, ugli and uniqu fruit (grapefuit hybrids) are low in carbs, as are melons (with the exception of watermelon), and there are dozens of varieties of low carb melons, rhubarb (actually a vegetable, but then again cucumber is technically a fruit, specifically a melon). Cherries, even sweet varieties aren't too bad. Neither are pears.

For veggies, asparagus (white and green), green beans, sprouts (dozens of varieties), greens (dozens of varieties, including mustard, spinache, collard, turnip, kale, beet, broccoli, broccoflower squash blossom/leaves), lettuce (dozens of varieties), onions, leek, mushrooms (dozens of varieties) seaweed (dozens of varieties) eggplant, bitter melon, cucumber, zuchini, yellow squash, cabbage (many varieties), bell peppers, hot peppers, kohrabi, rutabaga, turnip, parsnip, snap peas, snow peas, tomatoes (dozens of varieties and colors), celery, eggplant (dozens of varieties, at least 5 different colors), artichoke, sunchoke, radishes, jicana, waterchesnut, watercress, okra, purslane, salsify, chard, tomatillos, fiddlehead fern, wax goard, chayote, green papaya, cauliflower, cucumber, brussels sprouts, fennel, celery root, avocado, cress, chicory, dandelion, grain and bean sprouts (lower in carb than grains or beans), komatsuna, basil, parsley (basil and parsley, you might consider spices, but thai food uses basil as a vegetable, and I'd consider parsley in pesto to be used more like a basil. Cilantro can be used that way too), bamboo shoots, hearts of palm, broccolini, broccoli rabe.

And I'm sure there are dozens that I'm not familar with, or have forgotten to include.

Of the veggies, 10 servings or more (each serving being 1/2 cup cooked, or 1 cup raw) could be included easily in a diet of under 100 carbs (low carb by MOST standards).

100g of carbs = 400 calories. How many dieters (regardless of food choices) do you think are eating 400 calories or 10 cups or more of fruits and veggies (primarily veggies, true) daily?

So it's definitely possible, with very little effort to include MANY nutrient-dense foods and still eat what most would consider a low carb diet.

Now I didn't read the 70s edition of the book, so I'd need Jerseygyrl or someone who's familiar with the specific changes that have been made in the various editions - but I wasn't under the impression that it HAD changed significantly. The whole gist of the book is that while actively losing weight one should cut out processed foods, cut out sugars and starches, and instead eat primarily proteins, healthy fats, dairy (other than milk, which has quite a lot of lactose compared to cream) and non-starchy vegetables. Which is to say - whole foods. Real foods. When one has lost most of the weight one's aiming to lose, and is moving more into maintenance rather than actively using bodyfat as a fuel, then it's appropriate to introduce a wider range of the low GI foods - whole grains, more fruits etc.

So you feel the same way about Low Fat eating?

Quote:
And, within a couple of weeks, reintroducing berries, whole grains, melon, seeds and nuts and other higher-carb foods at a careful rate.

Because you're trying to work out how many grams of carbohydrate YOUR body can comfortably tolerate without dropping out of the fat-burning state you've created. I appreciate that you're dubious about low carb, but if we were talking about food allergies, perhaps this wouldn't strike you as strange?

Different people have different capacities to metabolise particular foods - lactose intolerance, allergy to peanuts, gluten intolerance etc etc - and they can have this intolerance to a greater or lesser degree. Similarly, some people metabolise carbohydrates with greater ease and efficiency than others do.

Well, I can't stand burgers myself and I'd be more likely to have fish or chicken with my salad, rather than hamburgers (which are often full of crap), and he seems to be downplaying the broccoli and cauliflower more than I would, but otherwise - yes, I think it's a reasonable example of a day of Atkins-style eating. Cutting out all the crappy bread, pasta, rice, noodles etc that acts as filler in much Western cuisine, cutting out additives and sugary foods, and focusing instead on proteins, vegetables and healthy fats. And not gorging on them - eating as much as you want UNTIL YOU ARE SATISFIED. Which, once your bloodsugar is back on track and you've broken the carb addiction, is something that happens quite quickly. My appetite has reduced quite dramatically - I'm thoroughly enjoying my food, but I don't get the munchies, or find I'm hungry half an hour later - which was so often the case for me when I was eating pasta, or bread.

Yesterday I had

BREAKFAST: haloumi cheese fried in olive oil with a salad of melon and blueberries;

LUNCH: An Omlette filled with ground pork and mixed vegetables. Stir fried veggies (lettuce, broccoli, bok choy, mushrooms etc) & side salad.

DINNER: Steak au poivre, with cream sauce. Salad. Melon. Strawberries with almond cream.

Today I've eaten:
BREAKFAST: Stir-fried onions, capsicums and bacon in a pepper cream sauce (because it was so damned nice last night).

LUNCH: pork with ginger, with sesame-dressed green salad, bowl of miso soup and a small Japanese savoury egg custard. (ie a set meal from the Japanese restaurant next door, but with the rice replaced by green salad.)

DINNER: Probably Salmon Caesar Salad and maybe a few chipolatas wrapped in bacon. Fresh strawberries. Maybe a cube of 72% cocoa Swiss chocolate, if I fancy it.

In addition I do take multivitamins, just to be on the safe side, and a fish oil/evening primrose oil supplement, and a calcium supplement and a chromium supplement too.

No burgers and lard for you then. But...Fried cheese for breakfast? Blimey.

I think we're missing a point here...

Atkins is the one diet, I can recall in my entire life (and I'm in my 40s) that has consistently been associated with serious health problems and - mortality. Heart disease, colon cancer, kidney disease - even I recall, a death from vitamin deficiency - all associated with Atkins, not any low fat or low GI plan, or any of the weird freaky 70s diets. Atkins. So no wonder it's now pretty well dead in the UK - suspect it will survive longer in the US, where the burgers and quick fix aspect will always appeal.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/20...027307658.html

http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine...Heart--2372-1/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5137232

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2006/...isk060317.html

http://tiny.cc/hSlH0

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...dietexperiment

http://www.kidneyresearchuk.org/content/view/142/197/



Is it just me but for me ONE of these stories would be enough to tell me 'run a mile'. I could find them all day - and they're not all the obvious congestive heart failure/colon cancer you'd get from a diet of burgers (oops sorry fried cheese)...



Not tabloid scaremongering - these things have happened and are documented. You don't see a trail of bodies associated with other high profile diet plans.


http://www.atkinsdietalert.org/advisory.html

This quote is rather instructive:
http://www.atkinsexposed.org/


I think the Atkins fans should consider who paid for/published the 'research' (paucity of it on this thread - the only hard stuff has been on the other side, interestingly. Also ever wondered why it is so easy for us to find anti Atkins info from rather august bodies like Harvard, The Lancet, The American Heart Association (and any equivalent well regarded UK charity/institution you care to name)? But nothing to substantiate it and as I said above - NO independent studies. NO longitudinal studies? No one can cite anything academically authoritative to support Atkins. If they could they would have done it here, by now. I wouldn't agree to a surgical procedure that had no longterm studies into its benefits - or drawbacks. So why put my body through YEARS of this with no longitudinal studies to tell me it is safe? And reports of interestingly varied ways to die of it.

Also, for the Atkins fans here who insist the negative research focuses only on the induction phase. Not so. There's an analysis here of both phases, and explanation why it's disastrous nutritionally. Also they are citing the 1999 edition of the book, not the earliest one. Sorry - you can't hide behind those excuses *Oh it's not valid because it was updated from lard and pig fat to healthy veggies and vitamin pills and anyway they are using the 1970s version...* Let's just say if the 1999 version is so substantially different from the south beachified version - then it ain't the same diet, anyways.

http://www.atkinsdietalert.org/advisory.html

Vide this review of the newer version of the diet (which the fanatics think the rest of us aren't aware of):
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus...646678,00.html

For those not in the UK, you should know the Observer is one of our more serious newspapers, not a red top tabloid.

Anyway this is all academic as by and large (mainly large) this diet is dead as a dodo - in Europe anyways.

http://www.health24.com/dietnfood/We...1-85,32783.asp

Must be all the fried cheese.

The problem is you cannot seperate the individual results from the group results. You cannot separate the loophole finders from the people making responsible choices.

As I said before, it does not matter what the effects are for "most people" or the study participants, only what they are for you. If you are being responsible (getting your bloodwork done and paying attention to it, and responding to changes positive and negative) then it doesn't matter if Atkins raises your next door neighbor's cholesterol if it is lowering yours.

I have found NO other plan, besides reducing carbs that has been effective for me. Carbs, even good ones, trigger cravings and binges. My response to carbs is extreme. I have tried low fat - it only makes me hungrier, and more obsessed with foods. So I have a choice, stay extremely morbidly obese, food obsessed, feeling miserably starved trying to lose weight the socially acceptable way OR eat in a way that controls my hunger and allows me to lose weight, monitoring MY statistics to evaluate how I am doing.

My cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure are dropping, and my "good" cholesterol is exactly where it should be. So what do I pay attention to? Study results of strangers, or my own? Does the fact that I'm not on Atkins, but on a plan that could be compatible with Atkins change the prognosis? Do the Mediteranean Diet or the South Beach diet have better profiles in the research stats? Does the name of the plan matter, or what I am eating?

What cannot be dismissed is that Atkins ATTRACTS people who loved processed meats and hate vegetables. "What? I don't HAVE to eat any vegetables and I can eat all the sausage I want?" Also our cultural understanding of Atkins (all meat, all the time) INFLUENCES how people follow the diet. There are many people who do not realize they are looking and finding the "loopholes."

I stronly suspect that if Atkins (no veggies, HUGE amount of saturated fat and processed "frankenfoods"), vs Atkins (tons of veggies and, moderate amount of healthy oils, minimal amounts of animal fats, little to no processed foods) were compared, the differences would be astonishing.

Another factor, is that studies that include Atkins are rarely factoring in who is choosing Atkins (and whether it's an appropriate choice for that person). A person who has 5 lbs to lose, is very different than a person who has 250 to lose. I can tell you when you've got 250 lbs to lose, your needs are very different than someone who "maybe" should lose a few. Extreme situations sometimes call for extreme measures.

I have known people who's bloodwork did change in a negative direction in response to low carb eating. A couple my parents knew chose Atkins (early 80's I think, because I was in high school), and the wife's blood pressure went up a tiny bit, and her husband's choleterol skyrocketed (though I had never seen him actually eat a vegetable unless you count iceberg lettuce with half a bottle of ranch dressing or mushrooms and onions cooked in garlic butter with a steak).

Even so, they did the responsible thing and stopped doing Atkins (though I think the truly responsible thing would have been to introduce the guy to some veggies.)

The point here hasn't been are Atkins and other low carb plans healthy, but can they be healthy. No one I know doing any low carb/ low GI plan has argued that their plan is the only or even best plan for anyone but themselves. Whenever I hear someone talking about following Atkins (especially if they're gloating about eating something like 3 lbs of prime rib a week), I suggest that they get their routine bloodwork done at least quarterly. It's the responsible thing to do on ANY change in food plan, or exercise plan for that matter.

I feel that way about any restrictive plan. The thing about these diet plans is that people don't consider if they will actually be able to maintain them. They are by design incredibly short sighted. People are so frenzied into "just getting the weight off" that "doing this diet thing to lose weight" is ok. No thought is given to what happens after the fact. Perhaps it's marketed that way on purpose? Maybe it's just the the flaw of this obesity backlash. To me, that's a pretty big fatal flaw. And it is very unfortunate that those who are ultimately doing Atkins in are the "followers" themselves (the sausage and cheese crowd). And that WAS a STRONG marketing point to get people on it.

PhatPhoenix- thanks for the links. That has always been the main area of concern with me- the source of the studies. It's incredibly fishy.

And this is exactly why I am on a low carb plan and will continue to stay on a low carb plan. My binge food, my comfort food, is salty carby food. Potato chips, french fries, mashed potatoes (with lots of salt and butter), heck, I've even (sad to say) eaten an entire box of saltines...at once. Low fat makes me ravenous - makes me feel like I'm going to cry or cork off at someone. Low carb I feel good and in control of my hunger in addition to my doctor telling me I have significantly improved my health.

Which, as I have said many times, is not the right plan for everyone. I have also said, many times, that a lot of people (and not necessarily only the ones against it) are misinformed. I have read famous authors writing about their characters toting around bags full of bacon because they were on Atkins. I have read articles, like one quoted early in this thread, where people talk about "fatty meats with a side of lard" as being the prime component of the diet. It is misinformation like this which causes the problems...not just for the people who decide they do not believe it is healthy for anyone, but even worse, for the people who decide, "I'm going to do that diet so I can live on sausage-on-a-stick and don't have to eat any veggies" or something equally as misinformed.

Very well said and I'm right there with you. My doctor has confirmed all of this for me as well, for my health has significantly improved since going on my non-Atkins low carb plan.

Once again, let me reiterate. I do not believe in 'diets', I believe in lifetime changes that you can live with. Also: Low carb is NOT for everyone. Low carb is NOT a way to avoid eating veggies. Certain low carb plans, including Atkins, when followed correctly by a person who can benefit from them, are good lifetime plans.

..::rolls eyes forever::

Good grief – really, what are you, twelve?

Yes! Fried cheese! Gasp! Haloumi and olive oil deliciously combining (as recommended in the NHS Good Cheese Guide) in perfect, crispy, chewy, calcium-rich synchronicity and accompanied by luscious slices of melon. What a whackjob I am! Far less mockable to eat a low fat blueberry muffin and pick up a low fat latte from Starbucks, eh?

Except – it's SUGAR I'm avoiding. Not fat. So – yeah. Olive oil. Cheese. I eat 'em. And yet, miraculously, I seem to be losing weight! Go figure! (Although you were kind enough to tell me the other day that I should keep the fat clothes for when I pile it back on, as you did yourself when you fell off the South Beach wagon. Thanks again for that.)

Oh, while I remember - someone mentioned upthread that their mother had been following Atkins, and ate NO carbohydrates in the first week, and then introduced a little cheese and ketchup in the second week. Unless the plan has changed really dramatically since the 70s edition, your mum WASN'T following Atkins, I'm afraid. Those big portions of green veggies every day are mandatory in induction, and cheese is perfectly okay in week one, as are tomatoes. Ketchup, on the other hand, is full of sugar and wouldn't be an acceptable food choice.

There are a depressingly large number of people who think they're following Atkins by eating fried meat, eschewing vegetables, chomping down Atkins Bars etc rather than following the food plan in the books.

Oh, fine. Let's play this game then, if we must.

Ancel Keys was the real founding father of the anti-dietary fat movement in the US, and his hypothesis shaped the policies that the US government adopted in the latter part of the 20th Century. Despite the fact that it had not been substantiated by research, and despite the fact that many of his colleagues espoused low carb rather than low fat as the most effective approach to weightloss and reduction of disease. (Subsequent research he carried out himself into the efficacy of Low Calorie eating failed quite spectacularly to back up his cherished hypothesis - but by then Low Fat had been enshrined in the public consciousness.)

At the time when the American Heart Association started recommending a low fat diet (in the 60s) there were only TWO studies into the impact of low fat diets – one of which had concluded that cutting fat consumption to 1.5 ounces per day could reduce heart-disease rates, and one of which had not. “A low fat diet has no place in the treatment of myocardial infarction,” the authors of the latter trial concluded in The Lancet in 1965.

In the 1970s, when Senator George McGovern's Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs announced their 'Dietary Goals for the United States' they put the seal on the adoption of low fat over low carb – but the committee consisted of laymen with no knowledge of the existing scientific controversy over low fat/low carb. They wanted to make a difference. “We really were totally naïve,” said the staff director Marshall Matz, “a bunch of kids, who just thought, ****, we should say something on this subject before we go out of business.” They relied on the advice of a single Harvard nutritionist, Mark Hegsted, who was an extremist on the dietary fat issue – but who was aware that his own convictions were not shared by other investigators working in the field.

The mainstream opinion of the low fat hypothesis was being shaped by stuff like this – so that the American Heart Association insisted in a 1973 editorial that low carb diets were “bizarre concepts of nutrition and dieting [that] should not be promoted to the public as if they were established scientific principles.” And yet the truth was that by 1973 there had already been SIX major conferences or symposiums dedicated solely to research on obesity: at Harvard and at Iowa State University in the early 1950s; in Falsterbo, Sweden, in 1963, hosted by the Swedish Nutrition Foundation; at the University of San Francisoco in 1967; the inaugural meeting of the British Obesity Associaiton in London in 1968; and an international meeting in Paris in 1971. In all six, carbohydrate-restricted diets were portrayed as uniquely effective at inducing weight loss by the assembled experts in the field.

Heck, I'm sure you're familiar with “Mr Banting of corpulent notoriety”, as the British Medical Journal called him, who was evangelical on the subject of low-carb eating after successfully shedding 50lb back in the 1860s. The editor of The Lancet at the time were unimpressed by his 16 page pamphlet 'Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public', and stated that medical literature detailing the efficacy of low carb was "tolerably complete, and supplies abundant evidence that all which Mr Banting advises has been written over and over again." Banting responded that this might well have been the case, but it was news to him and to other corpulent individuals. The idea that cutting back sugars and starches is an effective method of losing weight wasn't some whacky scheme thought up by Dr Atkins in the 70s. There's centuries' worth of research supporting the hypothesis that reducing carbohydrates is an effective way of losing weight.

There's also a sizeable body of research demonstrating the causal links between the raising of carb-intake via the introduction of starchy, sugary foods (white flour, white sugar, white rice etc) into the diets of populations, and the marked increase in incidences of obesity, heart disease and cancer. “The potato took 200-250 years, in spite of organized encouragement, to become accepted in England. It took only fifty years in Ireland. Maize and cassava have come to be accepted in parts of Africa in considerably less time...Tea, white bread, rice and soft drinks have entered many African dietaries in even shorter time and the extent to which they have spread and their consequences to nutrition have been rather severe.” (F.T. Sai, Food and Agricultural Organization regional nutrition officer for Africa, 1967.)

For that matter I can SEE this happening right under my nose: living in Thailand the physical difference between generations who have grown up eating traditional Thai foods (lots of protein, coconut, legumes, fresh fruit, healthy fats), and the younger people who are growing up eating lots of refined flour, sugar and starch is striking. The average Thai woman is a UK size 8-10 at the moment – but in 20 years time, when these kids grow up, that's quite clearly not going to be the case any more.

Interestingly, in an analysis of the diets of hunter-gather populations that have suvived into the twentieth century, Boyd Eaton, John Speth and Loren Cordain concluded that Paleolithic diets - the diets of our ancestors, the diets for which our bodies have evolved - were extremely high in protein (19-35% of calories), low in carbohydrates "by normal Western standards", and comparable to or higher in fat than the normal Western diet.

Much of the above is gleaned from Gary Taubes' illuminating book 'Good Calories, Bad Calories' – and I'd recommend it wholeheartedly, even if you only want to disagree with the man. He presents a very comprehensive overview of the recent history of nutritional research and the arguments and underlying research for both Low Fat and Low Carb eating.

Yes, reducing carbohydrates rather than fat goes against what the medical establishment has been espousing for the past half century or so, and doctors who have grown up, trained and qualified in this atmosphere are generally – understandably – reluctant to adjust their thinking. This incredulity colours a lot of the extracts and articles that are published, as though people can't bear to believe the results of their studies. Here are a few other studies into the efficacy of Low Carb, indicating that the scientific community is NOT, in fact, united in the opinion that we're all whackjobs:

“In routine practice a reduced-carbohydrate, higher protein diet may be the most appropriate overall approach to reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.”

http://www.springerlink.com/content/.../fulltext.html


“In summary, we have demonstrated that women consuming a low-carbohydrate diet lose more weight than women consuming a low-fat diet over several months. The more pronounced weight loss in the low-carbohydrate dieters is not explained by increased REE, TEF, or physical activity and cannot be accounted for by their reported energy intakes. However, we believe that the best explanation for the difference in weight loss between the groups is a difference in energy intake that was not apparent in their self-reported 3-d food records. The reason for decreased energy intake in the low-carbohydrate group, even in the face of no restrictions on energy, remains to be explained.”

(For this one the researchers were so incredulous at their own test results that they decided, with no evidence, the Low Fat women must have been lying about what they ate.)

http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/90/3/1475


"A low-carbohydrate diet is more effective in reducing body weight than healthy eating in both diabetic and non-diabetic subjects"

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi...ournalCode=dme



" In conclusion, the hypothesis-generating report of Mozaffarian et al draws attention to the different effects of diet on lipoprotein physiology and cardiovascular disease risk. These effects include the paradox that a high-fat, high–saturated fat diet is associated with diminished coronary artery disease progression in women with the metabolic syndrome, a condition that is epidemic in the United States. This paradox presents a challenge to differentiate the effects of dietary fat on lipoproteins and cardiovascular disease risk in men and women, in the different lipid disorders, and in the metabolic syndrome."

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/80/5/1102



"The persistence of an epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes suggests that new nutritional strategies are needed if the epidemic is to be overcome. A promising nutritional approach suggested by this thematic review is carbohydrate restriction. Recent studies show that, under conditions of carbohydrate restriction, fuel sources shift from glucose and fatty acids to fatty acids and ketones, and that ad libitum–fed carbohydrate-restricted diets lead to appetite reduction, weight loss, and improvement in surrogate markers of cardiovascular disease."

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/86/2/276



"There is, currently, no evidence that the low carbohydrate diets in use have an adverse effect on renal function... It does appear from recent studies that risks associated with short-term use of low-carbohydrate diets have been exaggerated. Many professionals feel that the diets should not be promoted until we have more evidence. A very recent systematic review of diet interventions for patients with Type 2 diabetes [142] serves to remind us that we have remarkably little long-term evidence for any dietary intervention in this condition."

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi...1.2005.01594.x


“In this pilot study, a [Low Calorie Ketogenic Diet] led to significant improvement in weight, percent free testosterone, LH/FSH ratio, and fasting insulin in women with obesity and PCOS over a 24 week period.”

http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/2/1/35



More links can be found here:

http://www.apinchofhealth.com/resour...-research.html

We could play this d*ck-measuring game indefinitely, though, and I really don't see the point.

I am perfectly happy to accept that there are people on 3FC who have successfully lost weight and improved their health by following a wide range of different weightloss plans. I think that's great. I think that each person has to find a nutritious way of eating that they can enjoy and live with, that they can stick to. If people here are finding low fat works for them, then more power to their elbows, and I sincerely wish them well. I'm finding low carb satisfying, enjoyable and effective (and, no, I didn't choose this way of eating because I love burgers and loathe vegetables. Prior to starting this, I ate mostly veggies and carbs).

Our relationships with food are complex, both physically and psychologically, and I don't believe there is One True Way: if you do not enjoy what you're doing, or believe in what you're doing, then you're unlikely to be able to stick with it.

From one of your links above - and, for the love of heaven, cows and mice are HERBIVORES. Humans? Not so much. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that research into the effect of protein on HUMANS is going to be more useful a tool for drawing conclusions about the effect of protein on said humans.

Honestly, I expect better of The Guardian.