Ummm...maybe not personally, but Dr. Atkins himself was on it for several decades. Drs. Dan and Mary Eades (authors of Protein Power) have been on it for a very long time, same with Dr. Schwarzbein and Dr. R. Bernstein. We have members here who have been low carbing for 5 or more years and I've been low carbing for almost 3.



Fiber is not a nutrient. It is undigestible by the body and only serves to provide bulk. Studies also conflict as to whether the recommended 25 grams of fiber per day (for women) really provides as much benefit as they would like us to believe as far as cancer prevention goes. Granted, on induction (which only lasts for 2 weeks, for Pete's sake!) it would be a challenge to get 25 grams of fiber into your diet, but during OWL, it's not that difficult once you start adding things like nuts, seeds and ground flax to your daily menus as well as more veggies. I'd also like to point out that it's very difficult to get that amount of fiber eating the highly processed diets that many non-low carbing people eat. Ever check how much fiber is in processed white flour, refined white rice or potatoes? How about white bread? Yup...lots of fiber there!



I'd like to know whose menus she's checking to get that idea. According to Fitday, even at 30 grams of carb per day, there are very few, if any, vitamins and minerals that I'm not getting at least 100% RDA on (many 150-200%+) and the few (usually Calcium and Magnesium) that I may be short on are easily compenstated for with a daily multivitamin which isn't a bad idea for most people to to be taking given the nutrient-poor diets that many consume.



First of all, as someone alread pointed out, the brain (and only a small portion of it) has to have glucose, not carbs. Granted carbs are turned into glucose by the body but proteins can also be converted to glucose to supply the few cells of the body that cannot function without glucose (primarily those without mitochondria). For the most part, the brain is quite happy using ketones for fuel instead of glucose and suffers no ill effect from doing so.
Second, she should go back and read the comments of those that set 130 grams of carb per day as a recommendation. They stated that most people could probably do just fine on considerably less (60-90 grams of carb per day), but wanted to err "on the side of caution" when making their recommendation. In other words, it's not founded on any sound scientific evidence but rather an estimated guess. She might also benefit from taking a look at cultures that traditionally consumed far less than that along the line of carbs (the Inuit, for example) and didn't appear to be suffering brain damage due to lack of carbs.




These are all common misconceptions she's repeating here, not based on any hard evidence or scientific studies. In fact, the studies that have been done specifically relating to low carb have shown many of those statements to be blatantly false (red meat causes colon cancer, high fat = heart disease, your kidneys will fail from all that protein intake). It makes me wonder if she's even read any of the recent studies that have been published.