Right or Wrong?

Thanks for the reversal of tone John.
RE Atkins, you said:
“To see why Atkins is the worst diet review;
A randomized trial of a low-carbohydrate diet for obesity
The NewEngland Journal of Medicine
Foster, et al.
May 22, 2003. Vol. 348, Iss. 21; pg. 2082, 9 pgs
The only benefit atkins appears to provide is in short term weight loss. But (much like your position on statins) this piece of research determines that the cost/benefit of Atkins is uncertain. Particularly when you consider that Atkins, at it’s core, takes advantage of a person’s metabolic response to perceived starvation forcing preferential use of lipids and proteins as energy sources, and the negative hormonal consequences of the starvation response, it’s a brutal process to put any body through.”
I did give the study a read. Did you read the paper closely John or are referring to some other study which I can’t imagine which it would be because there has NEVER been a study that showed a VLCD a la Atkins to be inferior to a HCD or LFD ITO health markers with the exception of LDL sometimes. And this isn’t even an issue if one knows the nature of LDL.
Here is the conclusion of the study you cited above:
“Conclusions
The low-carbohydrate diet produced a greater weight loss (absolute difference, approximately 4 percent) than did the conventional diet for the first six months, but the differences were not significant at one year. The low-carbohydrate diet was associated with a greater improvement in some risk factors for coronary heart disease. Adherence was poor
and attrition was high in both groups.”
And the conventional diet group had a higher drop out rate than the Atkins group.
An Atkins diet always produces superior outcomes ITO internal health markers and always produces greater weight loss specifically fat loss than LFD. Sometimes weight loss is similar but this can be attributed to lean mass losses in low fat, lower calorie diets. Lean mass is usually preserved in VLCD due to the higher fat and protein levels in some studies.
This statement from the study is a tad suspect:
Urinary Ketones
During the first three months, the percentage of patients who tested positive for urinary ketones was significantly greater in the group on the low-carbohydrate diet than in the group on the conventional diet (Fig. 2), but there were no significant differences
between the groups after three months. There was no significant relation between weight loss and ketosis at any time during the study.”
The low fat group should not have ANY urinary ketones but this is insignificant. More than this, if you look at table 2 you see quite clearly that the Atkins group all of a sudden had a drop and far lower ketone bodies in their urine suggesting that they started eating more carbohydrate (which is suggested at the outset of the study on page 1) at about the 5 month mark.
If you look at the graph of weight loss, you see that as soon as this happened, they began to gain weight and this is the reason why at month 6 while the Atkins group still did better than the LF group, they lost the ground they gained. ‘The proof is in the pudding’ as the saying goes. In this case, it’s in the ketones.
In fact, as ketone bodies lowered, fat loss halted or increased. In short, at month 5 the Atkins people started cheating (as did the LF group as their weight rose too.
What’s worse is the discussion on saturated fats and LDL cholesterol. They do not discuss the difference nor did they test for LDL/VLDL and make the assumption that sat fat is bad for you since it raises LDL which in this study it did not.
In reading the author’s discussion you can feel the bias. It’s as thick as maple syrup.
The author’s make this statement umpteenth times to justify the greater benefits seen in the Atkins group:
“Although part of this benefit may be due to the greater weight loss with the low-carbohydrate diet…”
YET, the authors conclude that by the end of the study there was no significant difference in weight loss. They are grasping at straws.
They are absolutely CLUELESS as to the mechanisms by which a VLCD improves internal health markers. People like this shouldn’t be getting funding because they are incapable of thinking deeply enough. That’s where people like Dr. Eades comes in. He can.
The researchers tried so hard to find excuses to belittle the superior results of the Atkins diet that it is almost sad and embarrassing.
So John, you’ll have to come up with a better example than this study if you’re going to call an Atkins diet “dangerous.”
You said:
“Particularly when you consider that Atkins, at it’s core, takes advantage of a person’s metabolic response to perceived starvation forcing preferential use of lipids and proteins as energy sources, and the negative hormonal consequences of the starvation response, it’s a brutal process to put any body through.”
The study had the subjects eating ad libitum. So there was no starvation going on – just like the robust and long lived Inuit and Masai. And since when is getting the body to use lipids for fuel dangerous? It’s the entire point! As for proteins, if you are ingesting enough dietary protein than muscle catabolism does not take place. On the contrary, several studies have shown increases in lean mass via DEXA when people, specifically seniors, are put on a VLCD ad libitum diet.
I’d like to see any data you have that supports your statement about ‘negative hormonal response’ on an Atkins, ad libitum diet. Surely you must have read something that supports that comment.
You also said:
“Regarding Dr. Mikes diets, if they do some people good who desperately want to lose weight quickly, then fine. They’re dangerous , and require proper medical supervision. Atkins, and Dr. Bernstein clinics provided that because they understood the dangers.”
If this were true, the many millions of people who have adopted and stick to a VLCD (as I do) would be making breaking news for the tens of thousands of us who would have been hospitalized by the diet. There is nary a case. Certainly none that have been proven.
Dr. Berstein happens to be my friend and he would not agree with you in the least. They have (had) clinics because they are physicians and there are many people who DO need their care. But the typical healthy person can indeed adopt an Atkins or a Protein Power diet with not only no negative consequences, but conversely will find themselves enjoying the very best health they have ever had in a few short months.

There is no doubt that statins are over prescribed, and doctors put patients on it without advance lipoprotein testing such as VAP Berkely Heart, or what some consider the best test NMR. If after these tests which may show elevated small LDL despite the best lifestyle changes- low carb,etc. then statins make sense since they work in getting bad particles down when diet,etc does not. Broad generalizations such as yours that they do not work, are not only misinformed, but may cause those who would truly benefit from them to stop or preclude their taking them

Hi Jesnie! Thanks for liking the blog. How’s life going for the Cambell’s?

I do have a FB site Jeanie – here it is: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=633467863&ref=name
Glad to hear you’re well and that Bill is almost done with his book. I still have to get my act together and write ‘Slow Burn Mobile.’
Thanks for the invite – we might get out that way next year in fact to see family in CA. Be nice to visit.
I think that Dakota guy WAS Colpo!!