The Atkins Diet always seemed incredibly unhealthy to me, and it's now been leaked/revealed that its inventor, Dr. Robert Atkins, was obese when he died in April, 2003.
The news calls into question his cause of death and whether Dr Atkins followed the controversial diet, which has reversed conventional wisdom by prescribing meats and cheeses while eschewing starchy foods that contain a lot of carbohydrates.Of course, the direct cause of death was his fall down some icy stairs. His doctors claim his diet wasn't related to his obesity or heart problems.The examiner's report said that Dr Atkins had suffered a previous heart attack, congestive heart failure and hypertension, all conditions that are related to obesity.
Personally, I'd rather eat the sort of balanced diet the human body is designed for. No one yet knows what kind of long-term effects -- if any -- the Atkins diet will have on people after several decades of use. Eating so much protein and fat can't be good for the liver and kidneys.
More research needed Michael.
The Atkins Physicians Council (search) said the carbohydrate-shunning doctor gained more than 60 pounds through fluid retention in the eight days he spent in a coma before dying last April. He had slipped on an icy street and hit his head.
Atkins weighed 195 pounds when he was admitted, the group's chairman said.
Agree with S3 - Atkins also had cardiomyopathy which contributed to his weight gain. Note Atkins was a cardiologist and came to his diet conclusions via empiricism at his practice.
I'm neither pro or anti Atkins, but I think you are jumping to conclusions here.
Have you ever seen a medical practitioner smoke? Does that invalidate them to provide care? Is it possible that his diet does stop obesity and increase health even if he did not follow it himself?
The radio station I heard this on did add that the information was provided by a Vegetarian anti-Atkins group. That doesn't mean the accusation is not true, but let the diet results speak for themselves. Don't let some extremists encourage you to wield a possibly unrelated fact against the diet.
I used to be skeptical of Atkins too, for years. Then my wife tried it and lost 20 pounds. So I gave it a try a few weeks ago and have lost most of my excess weight already. And I've spent months exercising and eating a balanced diet and not lost more than a fraction of that amount.
It's possible that long-term, it could cause damage, especially if you aren't careful to take vitamins and the like. But it is very successfull at taking off pounds.
"Vegetarian" is an understatement. According to this story, it's a front group for PETA. Never trust any group with the word "responsible" in its name.
I agree with you, Michael. I am too lazy to google for this right now, but I remember hearing somewhere that the reason Atkins works is that it makes the body think that it's in a coma. Now, I really don't know the details, or whether that's even true, but that sounds pretty scary.
Anyway, I don't see how a diet of bacon, pork rinds, and more bacon is healthy. I'm just sayin'.
S3: So you're saying that the doctors probably aren't reliable because they're part of the APC? Sounds reasonable to me, but doesn't that support my inclination that Atkins is bad?
Furthermore, gaining 60 pounds will certainly make you more likely to fall on icy stairs, and make any such fall more serious.
I'm not sure why anyone is attacking this post. All I said was that the long-term effects of Atkins aren't known, but that they aren't likely to be good. I never said you wouldn't lose weight. You'll also lose weight if you start smoking crack.
Well, it's easy to infer, from the placement of certain statements in your post, that his diet was the *cause* of his obesity and health woes. The gray-background excerpt further pushes the reader in that direction.
To your credit, you say, " His doctors claim his diet wasn't related to his obesity or heart problems." So I, and others, may have jumped the gun here.
True enough the long term effects are not known, but this is how you find out. There are plenty of empirical and theoretical reasons to believe it might work. N.B. - I don't use the diet myself, as I am perpetually skinny even into middle age.
All the Atkin's Diet is, as all diets are for most people, is a way to compensate for a complete lack of exercise. Remember, we live in a society where doing laps around the mall is considered exercise.
That depends on the chronology. According to the APC, Dr. Atkins weighed 195 at the time he was admitted, and only gained those extra 60 pounds afterward, while he was in a coma.
Ok ok, I give up. I'm not certain what point I'm conceding, but whatever it is, you're right. Atkins is the best!
Nobody's trying to make you think it's the best, Michael (at least, I think nobody here is.) But it's established fact that it works. As for that "makes your body think it's in a coma" bit, I don't think that's true. According to Atkins, you can burn fat for fuel, or you can burn sugar. If you cut carb consumption to the bone (Atkins does not call for total absence of carbs!) then your body doesn't have sugar to burn, and switches over to burning what it does have available--stored fat. Regarding the comments about exercise: you get out of it what you put into it. Atkins recommends exercise. If you lose weight and don't exercise, you'll be thin but you won't have muscle tone.
I know people who've dieted traditionally, done Richard Simmons, Weight Watchers, etc., etc., and then tried Atkins and seen much better results. I suppose it may not be for everyone.
As for the "long-term effects not known", well, that's like continuing to say "Bush lied". Atkins has been preaching this diet for decades. I think we have enough data on long-term effects to at least make some educated guesses by now. Most of the horror stories (kidney damage, for example) are either incorrect (in the case of kidney damage, it's confusing ketosis with something else that sounds similar but isn't the same thing at all--maybe ketoacidosis?) or due--surprise--to people not following advice like taking additional liquids and vitamins.
If it were really so horrible, we'd know by now.
RC: I never said it didn't work.
I'm not convinced we'd know if it was bad though, because it hasn't had a significant following until recently.
Michael I'm not a nutritionist but I took enough course work to know a little bit about it. My only point was that the original article you linked was badly skewed towards the "anti" Atkins view and left out inconvenient facts that the Fox News article that I linked provided. As for whether or not the long term effects of Atkins diet is known or not is disingenuous. The diet advocates basically that we eat a primate diet instead of a modern civilization processed and preserved food diet. When's the last time you found any white bread or refined sugar laying around on the savannah? So eat good meat and fresh veggies and fruit and you'll do okay.
Someone I heard on the radio recently - I think it was Dr. Dean Edell - said that while Dr. Atkins's specific version of the "Atkins diet" is new, the basic idea of a high-protein, low carb diet is not. This suggests that if the long-term effects were that bad, we would probably know this by now.
S3: I don't think Atkins people can eat fruits or veggies. At least the ones I know say they can't.
Xrlq: I don't think past diets cut carbs quite so strictly. But I'm pretty much done arguing about this!
Atkins does allow fruit and vegetables. It doesn't allow starchy vegetables (like potatoes) and large amounts of fruit.
There are multiple stages to Atkins. In the first stage, you don't get any fruit, but you are required to eat leafy green vegerables. Once you have jumpstarted ketosis, then you add things like low-carb vegetables (usually berries and such) and when you get to the third (long-term) stage then you can add pretty much any kind of vegetables short of potatoes (which are pure sugar.)
Right. Atkins is a low-carb, not a no-carb, diet. And as Phelps says, there are stages. In the end stage, you are eating a variety of foods, just fewer carbs than before you started. In the first phase, you jumpstart ketosis by eating no more than 20g of carbs a day; after 2 weeks to a month you can start adding carbs back in 5g/day increments about every week. This obviously slows your weight loss as you increase. You use this knowledge to basically figure out your body's set point, where you can maintain your weight.
Dean Esmay has a post on this subject, and there's some good stuff in the comments.
There is a lot going on here, yes. Michael's strongest statement here is his last paragraph, which gets a "no kidding" from me.
Carbs are meant to be burned - energy for the body. Atkins is not a lifestyle that includes exercise; it's merely a diet, meaning it's fundamentally flawed just because of that. I'm with Mark, here. Get off your duffs, people!
People want the magic pill. Without exercise, though, especially resistance training, your body will detioriate over time with some pretty ugly results, including excess fat.
That being said, I can stomach Atkins if a person skips that induction phase. I have a coworker on it now - offered him some almonds and he had to decline because "Atkins won't allow it in induction." He also said he was dizzy in the beginning.
Yeah, good idea. Mmmm. Seriously - aren't human beings supposed to be rational? And let me remind you folks that ketosis burns MUSCLE as well as fat.
hln
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YOu can't have nuts in the first week, or maybe 2, of induction. How long was he in on it? Also, the whole point of induction is simply to kick off ketosis faster. Whether that's a good idea or not, I dunno. But I haven't had problems with dizziness or anything like that. In fact, I am hypoglycemic and have been having a lot less problems with blood sugar levels lately.
I'd have to go back and re-read the Atkins book but I'll bet he advocates exercise. If you are really interested I will check.