I appreciate your insight as to what is happening - because I don't know how it works -- I know only that it does work.

You don't even have to look at exactly what happens inside your body. Just take several over weight people put them on the Atkins diet - and see what happens. They lose weight and their health improves (by no longer needing prescription drugs, having more energy, health problems are gone, concentration is much improved, eyesight is better, by looking at their blood tests, etc).

I'm waiting for GamePro magazine to headline their version thusly:

ATKINZ PWNS 0RNISH D!ET!!!111

Well, regardless of how it works, the good news here is that the researchers and reporters are paying attention! Even the rebuttals will help to stir things up a bit. I think sometimes the researchers are staring into their test tubes for too long and need to come up for air and look at the real world. While they are off studying, trying to find that magic pill, people are dying from obesity related illnesses. We need to get the word out on the street to use lower carb diets, regardless of which specific plan. I think this announcement will help do that.

i guess the lack of fat is impairing dean's ability to read and comprehend. the authors' conclusions are accurate; the women on atkins lost more weight and had better biomarkers after 12 months. the weight loss, after 12 months, was not statistically significant (notice how dean omits the word 'statistically'). the women lost twice as much weight as the ornish people - despite eating a diet composed of 34% carbs after 1 year.


also, note that dean claims the conclusions of the authors are false, but he only disputes the weight loss, not the metabolic factors.

which studies were these, dean? perhaps one that you conducted? atkins had severe heart disease? really? care to expound? you had your boys steal the autopsy report, but no such information was found. atkins suffered from myocarditis, a viral infection of the heart, which can cause weakening of the heart muscle and heart failure. i'm not sure dean would know the difference.

does it mean its bad for you? some evidence please. it's revealing that people like dean are now trying to dispute the benefits of low-carbing as opposed to telling us how bad it is for us. i guess this is how paradigms begin to change.

I'm an Atkins believer, as I have lost 50+ pounds on the plan. Your claim is unsupported by the facts and unsubstantiated in any literature. The reason anyone loses weight on atkins is because they consume fewer calories than they burn. We may burn it by a variety of mechanisms, but we still burn more than we eat, hence weight loss. The burden of proof is on you to prove your claim; there is 200 years of medical research to back up my claim.

You are mentioning set point theory. Our bodies tend to stabilize towards a specific weight. IF WE ARE NORMAL. I, however, have quite an abnormal food intake pattern. I can eat when my body tells me no. I have no such mechanism...hence morbid obesity exists for me and countless others. There are hundreds of ways to burn weight and our bodies adapt and adjust depending on the types of foods we eat...nobody disputes that. But we can't burn calories that aren't there to burn -- out of thin air -- so what we eat gets burned and the rest, if there is a deficit, comes from our bodies.

this is obvious. however, what's in question is whether one's metabolism can be modified to burn more calories simply by changing the composition of one's diet. it appears that energy expenditure goes up on lc diets without increases in physical activity. this would constitute a metabolic advantage over other types of diets and would come in addition to the reduced intake of calories that typically occurs when one reduces carb intake.

Begone, blasphemer! To Hell with you, heretic -- and take your unholy "biochemistry" with you!

And still another link to support Atkins.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_relea...c-sds030107.php

That's the same story. It doesn't count as additional evidence.

Certainly the medical establishment has believed this for years. Don't you think, with what you have learned about low carb that that is a bit of over simplification?

Little video report on it here

http://wjz.com/seenon/local_story_066074912.html

That is the most insulting, ridiculous, illogical thing I've ever read. Gee, I better start getting my HDL down or I'm going to die of a heart attack.
Is torcetrapib made from butter? Unbelievable how this guy twists words to suggest that "not everything that raises HDL is good".
The man obviously needs a steak.

Anecdotal at best, but I gained 30 pounds on a 1500 calorie/day diet.
I now maintain exactly the same weight (and have for 3 years) eating at least 2,000 calories/day. It has nothing to do with calories and everything to do with where those calories come from.
I believe in "energy in/energy out" when it comes to cars and gasoline, but not when it comes to Humans.

I absolutely hate msnbc. Their health section is riddle with garbage. I've written several hate filled diatribes about articles they've posted in a blog (that I've since taken down, as I'm looking for a job and don't want to see too angry .

You know how they posted this story? By giving Dean Ornish a podium to yell back from.

"Why I Disagree With this Study"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17490143/site/newsweek/

Yeah, if you go to the Health section, you get the normal article...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17484912/

but Dean's response gets posted on the actual home page.

Loved this...

“It’s a lot easier to follow a diet that tells you to eat bacon and brie than to eat predominantly fruits and vegetables,” said Dr. Dean Ornish, creator of the Ornish diet.

Yeah. Right. If you can't follow the diet, it doesn't work.

Loved this...

“To me, it just screams out for the need to prevent obesity,” Brownell said.

Thanks. Glad we solved that. We can just pack it up and go home now. How crazy is that? As if preventing obesity had an obvious solution.

I liked the opener...

"beating the Zone, the Ornish diet and even U.S. guidelines"

Like the U.S. guidelines were somewhere in the bible and found in cave paintings. I was doing a little research into the Pyramid. If you get some time, check it out.

Where does the pyramid come from? The government, right? Yeah, but what agency?

http://www.mypyramid.gov/

Ah. The Department of Agriculture. Wouldn't it make more sense to have the Food and Drug Administration do that?

Check out the mission statement on the USDA's site (http://www.usda.gov):

"expanding markets for agricultural products and support international economic development, further developing alternative markets for agricultural products and activities, providing financing needed to help expand job opportunities and improve housing, utilities and infrastructure in rural America..."

Seems like they have a lot of stuff to do. Not sure why they'd be coming up with food guidelines, unless they were selling something. To be fair, meat is made on farms too, but I'm guessing grains would have to actually kill you before they'd suggest you eat less of them.

Rant over.