Active Low-Carber Forums
Atkins diet and low carb discussion provided free for information only, not as medical advice.
Home Plans Tips Recipes Tools Stories Studies Products
Active Low-Carber Forums
A sugar-free zone


Welcome to the Active Low-Carber Forums.
Support for Atkins diet, Protein Power, Neanderthin (Paleo Diet), CAD/CALP, Dr. Bernstein Diabetes Solution and any other healthy low-carb diet or plan, all are welcome in our lowcarb community. Forget starvation and fad diets -- join the healthy eating crowd! You may register by clicking here, it's free!

Go Back   Active Low-Carber Forums > Main Low-Carb Diets Forums & Support > Low-Carb Studies & Research / Media Watch > LC Research/Media
User Name
Password
FAQ Members Calendar Mark Forums Read Search Gallery My P.L.A.N. Survey


Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1   ^
Old Wed, Feb-26-03, 09:59
Groggy60's Avatar
Groggy60 Groggy60 is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 486
 
Plan: IF/Low carb
Stats: 219/201/172 Male 70 inches
BF:
Progress: 38%
Location: Ottawa, ON
Default Ottawa Citizen says low-carbing works

An amazing thing thing was in this morning's Ottawa Citizen health section. The front page has a little head line saying to why Atkins works, see inside. Then the article explains that there are all these studies trying to disprove low-carbing that all discover it works, including a new unreleased study by the Amercian Heart Institute. It basically says, increasingly there is too much proof showing low-carbing works to discount it. A calorie is not a calorie when it comes to carbohydrates.

Hopefully, someone with more time they I have can type it in for everyone to see. Yesterday's health article was also good about explaining dieting and not putting down low-carbing.

It funny because a couple weeks ago the Citizen ran a series of dieting articles that said the usual put-downs on low-carb. Kind of like last month when CTV news rated the major diet plans according to Health Canada food guidelines and Atkins was the worst.

What a cool time to have already discovered low-carbing, and watch everyone else learn what we already know.
Reply With Quote
Sponsored Links
  #2   ^
Old Wed, Feb-26-03, 10:57
doreen T's Avatar
doreen T doreen T is offline
Forum Founder
Posts: 37,199
 
Plan: LC paleo/ancestral
Stats: 241/188/140 Female 165 cm
BF:
Progress: 52%
Location: Eastern ON, Canada
Default

The good news about eating fat

A high-fat diet is contrary to everything the establishment believes. But even nay-sayers are giving the Atkins diet a second look. Daniel Q. Haney reports.

Daniel Q. Haney

The Associated Press


Wednesday, February 26, 2003


Is it just possible that Dr. Robert C. Atkins's high-fat, low-carb plan, ridiculed for 30 years as dangerous nonsense, actually is a good, safe way to lose weight?

The dietary elite are not ready to change their collective mind, but new studies have taken an objective look at the presumed evils of Dr. Atkins. The results have been astonishing:

- During a few months on the Atkins diet, people lose about twice as much as on the standard low-fat, high-carbohydrate approach.

- They do so without seeming to drive up their risk of heart disease. Rather than going kaflooey, their cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure and ominous bloodstream inflammation generally improve.

- They appear to lose more weight even while consuming more calories than people on a so-called healthy diet.

All of the experiments were short and small. None by itself would make a big stir. But taken together, they undermine much of what mainstream medicine assumes about the Atkins diet.

"Some scientists are dismayed by the data and a little incredulous about it," said Gary Foster, who runs the weight-loss program at the University of Pennsylvania. "But the consistency of the results across studies is compelling in a way that makes us think we should investigate this further."

Until now, the essentially unamimous medical opinion has been: Any diet that emphasizes meat, eggs and cheese and discourages bread, rice and fruit is nutritional folly.

On the Atkins diet, up to two-thirds of calories may come from fat -- more than double the usual recommendation. Eating calorie-dense fat is what makes people fat, and eating saturated fat is what kills them, says the establishment.

Despite this, Dr. Atkins's books have sold 15 million copies, uncounted millions have tried the diet, and practically everybody has heard of someone who dropped a lot of weight on the Atkins plan.

Finally, several U.S. research teams have put Atkins to the test, driven largely by weariness at having nothing solid to tell patients and, in some cases, a desire to prove Atkins wrong. One study was even sponsored by the American Heart Association, long an Atkins skeptic.

None has been published, but summaries have been given at medical conferences. "They all show pretty convincingly that people will lose more weight on an Atkins diet, and their cardiovascular risk factors, if anything, get better," says Dr. Kevin O'Brien, a University of Washington cardiologist involved with one of the studies.

But the studies say nothing about how much people lose when they stay on Atkins more than a few months, whether they keep the weight off for good and whether their cholesterol rebounds when they stop losing weight.

Nevertheless, three decades of dietary gospel are in doubt, and those questioning it include some of the most prominent names in obesity research. For instance, one of the new studies was conducted by Dr. Foster with Dr. Samuel Klein and Dr. James Hill, the current and past presidents of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity, the premier professional group.

"I'm part of the obesity establishment," said Dr. Foster, who has published more than 50 scientific papers on the subject. "I've spent my life researching ways to treat obesity, and 100 per cent of them have been low-fat and high-carb. Now I'm beginning to think it isn't as it has appeared."

His Atkins study was intended to "show it doesn't work," yet after three months, the overweight men and women had lost an average of 19 pounds, 10 more than people on the standard high-carb approach.

The big surprise was cholesterol. The Atkins dieters' overall profile changed for the better. Although their bad cholesterol went up seven points, their good cholesterol rose almost 12. (Changes in the high-carb dieters were less dramatic. Their bad cholesterol went down slightly while their good cholesterol remained unchanged.)

The largest difference was in triglycerides. The Atkins dieters' dropped 22 points. The low-carb dieters' didn't budge.

"It was unexpected, to put it mildly," Dr. Foster said. "It made us think maybe there is something to this."

The Atkins diet still gives many health professionals the willies. It encourages people to eat bacon, butter and prime rib and lectures against such mainstay carbohydrates as grains, pasta and starchy vegetables, especially in the diet's first cold-turkey stage.

"There are many principles in the Atkins diet that go against what we know," said Dr. Robert Eckel of the University of Colorado, senior author of the heart association's policy on high-protein diets. "It keeps people away from staples of the diet that we know are associated with less heart disease."

Volumes of research suggest that people have the best chance of avoiding heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer if they eat a varied diet with plenty of fruits, vegetables and grains.

The Atkins camp argues that saturated fat is bad only if eaten with large amounts of carbohydrates. Otherwise, it's harmlessly burned off.

"When carbs are the primary fuel source, there are certain risks in excessive fat consumption," says Colette Heimowitz, the Atkins organization's research director. "But in a controlled-carb setting, when fat is the primary fuel source, the rules change."

So how do the traditionalists explain the cholesterol improvement seen in the Atkins dieters? Weight loss. Slimming down reliably improves cholesterol levels, and they say its benefits probably overshadowed any damage done by all the unhealthy fat.

Why people lose more weight on the diet is not clear, although some researchers say they buy one of Atkins' arguments: People stick with it because they are not constantly hungry.

A far more contentious Atkins idea is that people lose more weight on his plan even if they actually eat more calories. That violates the laws of thermodynamics, skeptics say.

"A calorie is a calorie as far as weight reduction is concerned," said Dr. Michael Davidson, director of preventive cardiology at the Rush Heart Institute in Chicago.

Or is it? Some of the new studies suggest otherwise.

Dr. Stephen Sondike of Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City put overweight teenagers on comparison diets for two months. The ones on Atkins lost twice as much as those on the low-fat diet. Yet they appeared to eat about 700 more calories a day.

Less dramatic but still startling results came from another study at the University of Cincinnati. Women on Atkins lost twice as much while eating the same number of calories as the low-fat dieters.

Researchers who did these studies still feel they know too little about the diet's long-term effects. A large new study will randomly put 360 overweight men and women on the Atkins plan or the U.S. Department of Agriculture's standard high-carb, low-fat diet, then watch them in detail for at least two years.


http://www.canada.com/ottawa/news/s...70-D9A49B762B82
Reply With Quote
  #3   ^
Old Wed, Feb-26-03, 11:03
Natrushka Natrushka is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 11,512
 
Plan: IF +LC
Stats: 287/165/165 Female 66"
BF:
Progress: 100%
Default

I saw the front page this morning walking out the office - pulled out the A section and folded it on page 12 - It's now being passed around the office

Nat
Reply With Quote
  #4   ^
Old Wed, Feb-26-03, 12:31
bike2work bike2work is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 4,536
 
Plan: Fung-inspired fasting
Stats: 336/000/160 Female 5' 9"
BF:
Progress: 191%
Location: Seattle metro area
Default

Quote:
"I'm part of the obesity establishment," said Dr. Foster, who has published more than 50 scientific papers on the subject. "I've spent my life researching ways to treat obesity, and 100 per cent of them have been low-fat and high-carb. Now I'm beginning to think it isn't as it has appeared."
I'm always impressed by people who can admit they were wrong. Kudos to Dr. Foster!

Quote:
The Atkins camp argues that saturated fat is bad only if eaten with large amounts of carbohydrates.
I think this is the first article about low-carb that has gotten this point right. They usually just point to fat consumption on Atkins without mentioning that fat consumed without carbs has a different effect that fat consumed with carbs.

Great article! Thanks for posting.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Maclean's magazine Feb 24 -- Cover story "Diets - What Works, What Doesn't doreen T LC Research/Media 12 Thu, Jun-19-08 15:20
[CKD] Is this a good plan for a depletion work out before carbing up? Fietser Specific Exercise Plans 9 Tue, Oct-29-02 13:43
I know this works Shana Introduce Yourself 4 Wed, Oct-31-01 06:16
Ottawa area get-together? Michelle Canada 7 Sun, Jan-07-01 07:37


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 12:32.


Copyright © 2000-2024 Active Low-Carber Forums @ forum.lowcarber.org
Powered by: vBulletin, Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.