It amazes me how much you're all winding each other up over something like the atkins diet Quite incredible...

Hehe Spoz - I'm like Marco-Pierre - tend to say what I think. (And I'd love to see what he thinks of stuff like Atkins! Or diets at all, come to that....)

Still waiting for some hard research rather than fluff from universities no-one's ever heard of, and weird 'Foundations'.

Good Calories Bad Calories is a book, not a peer-reviewed scientific publication. What many don't understand is that you can write anything in a book and have it published; it does not pass for science. And many diet and health gurus do just that, and often fail to appropriately characterize the basic research focused on the issue. As a result, they develop a loyal following that repeats the same claims as gospel, and dismisses any contradicting research. I have not found any basic or clinical research that supports Atkins as a nutritionally sound approach that is safe for long-term weight maintenance. In fact, there is enough data to suggest that people should take caution when undertaking such a diet, especially with the high amount of sodium and saturated fat. Perhaps the coming years will provide new information that will change all of this. However, when someone asks me about Atkins (as in the first post in this thread) I'm going to give it to them straight, no propaganda.

JAMA is a peer-reviewed publication, and one of the best. I plan on looking up the original study as I find this very interesting (Quoted From JerseyGyrl's third link in her post on page 4 of this thread):

The A to Z Weight Loss Study, published today (March 7, 2007) in the Journal of the American Medical Association, demonstrated the low-carb diet was not only the most successful at promoting weight loss, it also did not raise blood pressure or significantly boost cholesterol. Following the diet was actually associated with greater improvements in blood triglycerides, HDL (good) cholesterol and blood pressure.

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What I did find noteworthy is that the subjects on Atkins followed induction (20g carbs) for 2 to 3 MONTHS (where following the book they could have moved into OWL at 2 weeks), and still their cholesterol and blood pressure were not adversely affected. I find that very interesting.


__________________________________________________ ____________

Last year, when I had my consultation with the doctor heading our local weight loss clinic (the one that lost 100 lbs herself on a modified Atkins), she had told me that a lot of low-carb research was "coming down the pike," and that at least the preliminary results seemed to shed a much more positive light on low carb (when large amounts of vegetables, and very little processed meats are included). I'm wondering if she was refering to this research or other studies, it's definitely piqued my interest, and may have to look up the A to Z study, and look for others.

Still of concern in this study is relapse rate. It was higher for both Atkins and Ornish (made sense that the most extreme or "unusual" in terms of the typical American diet would be the hardest to stick to).

However, with people of my size experiencing a weightloss relapse rate in excess of 95%, I can't let relapse rate deter me, or I might as well give up now. I have to know going in that the odds are against me, and I have to work that much harder to beat the odds. I know I can't go back to regularly eating high carb. Te cravings and ROARING 24/7 hunger are just too unmanageable. The low carb plan is difficult to stick to - macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, birthday cake - most of the traditional comfort foods are so high in carbs.

I think much of the relapse rates in ALL diets is due to our cultural norms in dieting. On some level, perfection is expected, and the less "perfect" we can be on a diet, the more likely we are to dump the diet, saying "I just can't do this." I've vowed not to forget what I've learned, that carbs bring back the crazy hunger, and I just don't want to be crazy anymore. I haven't been perfect, so I do have crazy days, but I'm not going back to being crazy every day. It just isn't worth it.

I look forward to more of the new research. Looks like I might be taking a trip to the university library. I'm sure there's an online index to the medical journals, but I completed my master's degree (developmental psychology) in 1994, which apparently is already the "dark ages," in terms of library research. I'm sure the university librarian can lead me in the right direction though (besides I love handling bound Medical and Psychiatric Journals, you can just SMELL science).

Oh, and as for sodium and saturated fat, on my controlled carb plan (my goal is about 100 g of carbs), I eat alot less saturated fat than many people on low fat plans. Sodium is very interesting, because I tend toward low blood sodium levels anyway (so does my mother), as our family almost never used salt at the table and always cut the salt in recipes at least in half. As a result, my doctor tells me that I should "occasionally" eat something salty, because my sodium levels are often too low. I once even had to take sodium pills before surgery (low blood sodium is very dangerous during surgery), and before any surgery my doctor says I must have bloodwork done to make sure my sodium level is safe for surgery. And that was before going low carb.

Since going low carb, my sodium level in my diet has gone down significantly. Now my husband's hasn't, or at least not enough, as we can no longer cook and season for the other. He says my food has "no taste" and I gag on the salt he has added. At my last blood draw, I asked about my sodium level, since my taste tolerance for salt has dropped, I was concerned that my blood levels might also have dropped. He said that it had dropped, but was still within the healthy range, but had dropped from low to very low normal. At my next blood draw, I'll be making sure it hasn't dropped further. Again, this is why I can't stress enough that a person should diet under medical supervision - no matter the diet they have chosen.

I also don't include a lot of saturated fat, as most of my protein comes from relatively low calorie choices and a lot of fish. When I do eat beef, I tend to use a lean ground beef and brown it with half (by volume) dry granulated tvp (soy protein). I brown it with celery, onion, bell pepper, sometimes mushrooms, and hot water or broth.

Wow, I just visited the Journal of the American Medical Association website

http://jama.ama-assn.org/

I wish I had done this sooner. There are some complete articles available, but for most you have to pay to read the whole articles (per article, or to get access for 24 hours), so I'm just browsing the abstracts and extracts, and writing down the articles so I can find them in the hardcopies of the journal at the library.

But even from the abstracts, I am QUITE surprised by the number of pro- or neutral Atkins results. Some seem to find Atkins no better, or no worse, and some leave quite favorable impressions. Some cite articles in other professional nutrition, bariatric, and medical journals, so looks like I'll have plenty to read for a while. This is actually amazing. I had no idea there was so much research supporting low carb, especially for metabolic syndrome. Now I really do understand why my GP suggested lower carb (he's always talking about "peer-review" studies, for example when I asked about anti-inflammatory diets I was hearing about, he told me there was no peer-reviewed reviews of the literature or studies that supported the claims made by those diets, so he didn't recommend them). He had told me that carb-restriction seems to be more effective for insulin resistance, than other diets and cautioned me not to go "too" low (but didn't really have a gram count for me - Dr. Reed was more helpful there). With all his quoting of research or lack thereof, I should have known my GP wouldn't have recommended low carb without empirical support.

I can't recommend highly enough, that people go directly to the peer-reviewed literature. Some of the articles can be difficult to understand without at least a class or two in research methodology, but still the abstract, summary, and conclusions usually are fairly clear.

Riiight.

You backed up your argument by providing links to generalised, scaremongering (and in some cases painfully unsubstantiated or contradictory) articles in mainstream press. You consider this to be hard research?

For that matter, did you even READ the articles you linked to? Here's a quotation from one of them: "Two reports out in America suggested the [Low Carb]regime, far from being bad for your health, might actually be good for it. The first report, from the University of Pennsylvania, compared the effects of the Atkins Diet against a traditional low-fat plan, using a sample of 63 obese men and women. Scientists from Philadelphia followed the same method, testing 132 clinically overweight people. Surprisingly, both studies reported that the low-carbohydrate diet was more successful in encouraging the participants to lose weight, and one even suggested that levels of a blood fat called triglyceride had fallen."

The article goes on to say that surely this can't be right, and bases its argument on...er, nothing. Just a lot of handwaving incredulity and nervous BS about how this goes against mainstream thinking. VERY scientific.

I've already commented on the ridiculousness of applying research into the impact of protein on herbivores like mice and cows to the impact of protein on omnivores like humans (if it were rats and pigs, then it would be less risible). As it is...well, clearly The Guardian's science editor needed something to fill in some column inches that day.

Say, let's see what we get when we google the efficacy of a Low Fat diet, shall we? (I'll try to stick to mainstream press, since you seem fonder of that than of actual research papers.)

The $415 million federal study involved nearly 49,000 women ages 50 to 79 who were followed for eight years. In the end, those assigned to a low-fat diet had the same rates of breast cancer, colon cancer, heart attacks and strokes as those who ate whatever they pleased, researchers are reporting today.

"These studies are revolutionary," said Dr. Jules Hirsch, physician in chief emeritus at Rockefeller University in New York City, who has spent a lifetime studying the effects of diets on weight and health. "They should put a stop to this era of thinking that we have all the information we need to change the whole national diet and make everybody healthy."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/08/he...5g&oref=slogin

"We set out to test a promising but unproven hypothesis that has proven to be less promising than we anticipated," Rossouw said. "This is the nature of science: to have incremental gains and setbacks. We have a duty as scientists to put the best information out there at any given time, even if it can become confusing at times."

Skeptics said the findings confirm their long objections to the message that all fat is bad. That strategy may have diverted attention from much more effective approaches that differentiate between healthful and detrimental fats and may have contributed to the obesity epidemic because people worried more about how much fat they ate than how many calories they consumed, they said.

"It was a mistake, and this study really confirms that it was the wrong direction to go for nutritional advice," said Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health. "It did do harm. It was a lost opportunity. People were given the idea that it was only fat calories that counted. This should be the nail in the coffin for low-fat diets."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...020701681.html


After almost 50 years of research on tens of thousands of people, the researchers are saying they still can find no relation between a fatty diet and heart disease. These are not results from fringe groups or small, short-term studies. These are not slight statistical anomalies culled from meta-studies. These are mainstream, controlled cohort studies done to prove the case for the very dietary interventions that did not work.

http://www.terrycolon.com/contra/obesity.html

In the first study to look at the long-term effects of low-carbohydrate diets, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) found no evidence of an association between low-carb diets and an increased risk of [coronary heart disease] in women. Their findings did suggest, however, an association between low-carb diets high in vegetable sources of fat and protein and a low risk of CHD.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/pre...s11082006.html


Low-fat weight loss strategies don't work for most people. Low-fat diets are routinely promoted as a path to good health. But they haven't fulfilled their promise....And there is some evidence that a low-carbohydrate diet may help people lose weight more quickly than a low-fat diet, although so far, that evidence is short term.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritio...ht-full-story/

Can a High Fat Diet Beat Cancer?

http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...662484,00.html

Although, really, at this point I have no idea why I'm taking you seriously as an intelligent person.

You presented a link to agenda-driven anti-low-carb sites and to The Daily Mirror (!!!) as serious research. And yet you're trying to pretend that links to medical journals and specific research papers are "fluff"?

That's just embarrassing.

I agree, yet unfortunately I do not have time to respond further right now. Must be off to the gym and then home to shower and eat my healthy low carb homemade lean beef stew with 7 kinds of organic vegetables and home grown herbs in it for lunch.

Oh! I forgot, according to some people it couldn't possibly be GOOD for me, could it? Better to have a baked potato (heavy carbs) with low fat margarine, non-fat sour cream and low fat cheese melted all over it with a salad on the side, still be hungry and waspish afterward.

Quite frankly, I wouldn't have expected such sloppy and poorly supported arguments from someone with the education and research background Drina lists on her blog. Biobehavioral psychology? Medical research assistant, undergraduate pyschology lab assistant?

It just truly brings out the point that it is truly important for people to be very skeptical of the "condensed version" of research that is found in popular media, or as relayed by any individual (even someone with a professional reputation and credentials). So often, women's and other general interest magazines "get it wrong," drawing conclusions that the research does not support. They twist or misinterpret the research conclusions (if they actually are using the research as a direct source and aren't quoting or misquoting some other popular media report of the research).

I am embarassed that I wasn't more aware of the large amount of research that supports benefits of low-carb eating in the reputable, professional, peer-reviewed journals. I've been happy with the results of my own self-experiment, and truly wasn't overly concerned with legitimacy of the anti-low carb rhetoric. It was obviously working for me (where nothing else has), and NOT having a negative impact on my cholesterol and blood pressure, so I really wasn't concerned about it's success rate or impact for other people.

Still, I find it very embarassing that I accepted at face value, the unsubstantiated and untrue view that the research findings were stacked against Atkins and low-carb. In going directly to the research, the most condemning conclusions against Atkins and low-carb I've found so far are mostly of the "We can neither recommend nor advise against low-carb diets" variety. Quite a few are much more promising. I admit I was very pleasantly surprised, and embarassed of my ignorance.

A ringing endorsement? No, but neither a persuasive disuasion either. Above all, it reinforces my opinion that weight loss research is still in its infancy. Far too little is still understood about long term results and what IS different about the few who do not relapse. It has inspired me to keep more up to date on the actual research (from the journal articles themselves, not from popular media "summaries" that are often more fiction than fact).

Here is another interesting link - direct from Stanford University School of Medicine (I hope no one is going to try to imply that's flimsy).

Quote from the pdf:
Yes, there are still questions about long-term effects....but what plan DOESN'T have questions about long-term effects?

I don't think anyone should try to follow a plan they do not like and/or can not do, but to imply someone else's way of eating...no, way of life...is unhealthy based on your own opinions and rot from the media is rude and not very supportive. Isn't this supposed to be a weight loss support site anyway?

I don't have all the answers. I'm not going to pretend I do. All I know for certain is:
1) I -feel- better when I'm eating low carb. I have more energy, feel less hungry and more in control.
2) My scales and measuring tape tell me the weight is coming off.
3) I sleep better at night now.
4) My doctor has wholeheartedly approved my change of lifestyle, the exercise AND the nutritional changes. Actually, take that back. He made me stop the exercise bike for about 6 weeks due to problems with my legs. Otherwise he has approved of EVERY change I have made.

Kaplods, do you search beyond the abstracts? Do you critically evaluate the research you cite? I've noticed that studies in support of low fat diets or critical of Atkins are dismissed, attacked, or mocked among the more fundamentalist Atkins recruits, but those supposedly in support are accepted as "proof" of its miraculous powers. Kaplods, if you've done any research in the past, you would acknowledge that a study doesn't "prove" anything, but must be evaluated and taken in the context of the greater literature. This thread has done little but reinforce what I've believed for a long time about the Atkins movement --it believes only what it wants to.

Thanks for the discussion.

I give up. Honestly, if we're all fundamentalist Atkins recruits, even those of us (at least 3 of us) not on Atkins but still providing medical links proving the benefits of the plan, and we all 'believe only what we want to'...I give up.

You have been given enough data to know we aren't blowing smoke out our butts and yet you still keep coming back and slamming a plan based on media and "literature"?

Seriously, I give up. It's not worth the headache.

...I trust you don't mean in the course of this thread? Because that behaviour has almost entirely been directed AT the low carb people. I think we've been pretty d*mned restrained and courteous, despite considerable provocation.

And, looking back at this thread, I'd say we've also been pretty consistently supportive of others' chosen ways of eating, if they find them effective and enjoyable as means of losing weight. A courtesy that has quite notably NOT been extended in return.

Ah, irony. It doesn't just mean 'like iron', boys and girls.

Yes Drina, there were some articles that were free, which I was able to read the entire study. The study that swayed me the most was one in which 311 women were assigned to diet groups, incliding Ornish and Atkins. It did not follow people who had chosen Atkins. You should really check out a 2003 article in JAMA reviewing the literature of Atkins research from the 1960's through 2003. Their conclusion was that based on the existing research, they could neither recommend nor advise against Atkins.

That's really what I have been saying all along (as have all of the low carbers here). We are NOT endorsing Atkins for everyone, we're suggesting that everyone must find the program that works for them, and low-carb works for some people(and their bloodwork is proving that it isn't adversely impacting their cholesterol levels or blood pressure). Those of us who have chosen to restrict carbs, no matter how severely, have found this to be true for ourselves. That's all anyone has been saying. It is only you refusing to believe any of it.

I chose low carb because two doctors whom I respect very much advised me to. I was skeptical as I had the typical low-carb bias, but I trusted these doctors - particularly as each, one directly, one indirectly, referred to research. I didn't study the research for myself, because I trusted these doctors (and still do), and at over 375 lbs, really what did I have to lose, but fat. However I did my own, very informal research. Using my food journals I compared weeks of low fat eating to low carb eating, and I can lose more on 1800 calories of low-carb than I can on 1800 calories of low-fat. That, along with my improving blood pressure and cholesterol is enough "proof" for me. I don't have to care about anyone else.

I wholeheartedly agree with broadabroad and snapless. You quote garbage and yet slam anyone quoting legitimate research (that you obviously have not read). It is you, and only you, who have clearly chosen not to be swayed by any argument, and only you have chosen to believe only what you wish to, regardless of evidence to the contrary, so I will no longer discuss it with you. You have proven yourself unwilling, or incapable of using an intelligent argument on the subject, reverting to accusing others of doing what only you have been doing. As snapless has said, it's not worth the headache.


What I find truly ironic, is that I bought into the myth that research painted Atkins and low-carb in a bad light. I thought perhaps I was (once again) in a very small minority. I assumed that Atkins and low-carb was horrible for most "normal" people, and that I truly must be a freak for it to be working for me without wreaking havoc on my bloodwork. It was only Drina's bashing of the "research" that sent me TO the research and I found copious cited research from reputable professional journals that at worst were painting a "wishy washy" picture. The most serious indictment seemed to be that it might raise some people's cholesterol (easy enough to address - if you are not one of these people, you're good to go, right?) and that it is very difficult to stick to (welcome to the world of any diet).

Every dieter (and I mean anyone changing their diet to lose weight) must face the challenge of finding the balance between changes that will allow them to lose weight and yet are sustainable for a lifetime. I believe that the least restrictive method that works should be used, as it would be stupid to restrict yourself more than necessary. After 36 years of failed weight loss attempts, selecting the least restrictive plan that works for me is exactly what I AM doing.