DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Research released Monday at the annual scientific meeting of the American Heart Association showed that in a pound-for-pound contest, people on the Atkins low-carb diet lost more weight and had better cholesterol and triglyceride counts than people on a traditional Heart Association-approved low-fat diet.

Welcome to this week’s nutrition controversy. Here’s the Chron article: Knives drawn over Atkins diet study

The Atkins Diet is truly an American phenomenon: you can lose weight by eating all the greasy meats and cheeses you can pack in your face, and you don’t have to eat any vegetables, and you don’t have to exercise. What could be better than that?

And it even works — people who stick to the plan really do lose weight.

And yet, even the doctor in charge of the latest study has reservations. “While we’re impressed with the weight loss of this diet, we still are not sure about the safety of it,” says Eric Westman, M.D., of Duke University. “More studies need to be done in order to be confident about the long-term safety of this type of diet.” (Westman is quoted in Duke Health Briefs, 7/15/02.)

Here’s an interesting quote, from nutritional expert Joanne Ikeda, MA, RN of UC Berkeley: “I think this stuff makes money for Dr. Atkins and not much more than that. If he was right, the Italians who have twice as much carbohydrates in their diet would be worse off than we are. But they have half the obesity compared to us. The epidemiological evidence is just not there.”

So, no easy answers. I wish these folks would figure out the truth, and soon. They’re making it really difficult to be immortal.