Medical Students Taught About Risks of the Atkins Diet (UK)
 

October 17, 2004

Medical students taught about risks of the Atkins diet
Joanne Robertson

DOCTORS will be taught to warn patients of the dangers of the Atkins diet in the wake of studies claiming that the weight-loss programme could pose a risk to health.
The course, the first of its kind in Britain, will be introduced next year at St Andrews University.


Second-year medical students will be told to warn patients suffering from diabetes or kidney problems that the low-carbohydrate diet could put their health at risk.

Followers of the weight-loss programme, devised by Dr Robert Atkins, are encouraged to cut their intake of carbohydrates but eat as much meat, butter, fat and dairy products as they like. It is estimated that 3m people in Britain follow the diet, whose devotees include the actresses Jennifer Aniston and Renée Zellweger. More than 45m copies of the Atkins diet books have been sold worldwide.

However, a number of scientific studies have raised doubts about the safety of the weight-loss programme. Recent research has suggested that the diet can lead to dangerous side effects in the long term. Other studies have claimed that it can cause fertility problems and kidney damage.

Earlier this year an American follower of the diet sued the Atkins estate for $28,000, claiming the eating plan had caused his cholesterol levels to reach dangerous levels.

Dr Margaret Ritchie, a teaching fellow and research fellow at St Andrews University’s Bute medical school, said she had organised the course to equip GPs to deal with the growing interest in weight-loss programmes.

The aims of the course include alerting “students to the dangers and potential side effects of slimming programmes such as the Atkins diet”.

Ritchie said: “This is an issue which medical students will find they are going to come across. People are using slimming products and doctors are going to come across patients who will ask them, ‘I’m going to start on this diet. What do you think?’” “As far as I’m aware this is the first course of this kind in Scotland and the UK. Slimming is big business and we are trying to educate students to the fact that this is going on.”

The course will be run by Dr Annette Hudson, who has a background in sports nutrition and was a consultant for SlimFast, a slimming product company.

“Atkins is the most extreme diet that is around at the moment,” she said. “It’s high protein and could increase blood pressure and increase pressure on the kidneys.

“Diabetics have to control how much carbohydrate they’re taking. They need to have a maximum but they also have to have a minimum or their blood-sugar level will go all over the place. Any diabetic should go and see their GP before going on any diet.”

Despite her concerns about the Atkins eating plan, Hudson insisted that the rival SlimFast programme was “a good approach”. The rising popularity of the Atkins diet has led to a £140m slump in sales of SlimFast products, made by Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer giant.

The course has been condemned as “scare-mongering” by Atkins UK.

Dr Sarah Brewer, medical adviser for Atkins UK, said: “The Atkins Nutritional Approach (ANA) is not a fad — it has been going for over 30 years and it is estimated that around 50m people are following the ANA worldwide.

“It is a scientifically validated, lifetime nutritional philosophy based on controlling carbohydrates, not cutting out carbohydrates.

“It offers a healthy, balanced eating programme based on nutrient-dense whole foods and regular exercise. There is no convincing clinical evidence to suggest that it has any adverse effects on health.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/articl...1313929,00.html

... and, of course, SlimFast isn't a fad diet or dangerous ?? :rolleyes:

What a joke - Dr Ritchie is obviously yet another naysayer who has NOT READ THE BOOK or done any research.

If low carb is so bad, perhaps she could explain why most of the 'low carb diet' books have been written by doctors - Atkins, Eades, Bernstein, Schwarzbein, for example - in the first place.

I guess she hasn't read the study just out (authors: Gannon MC and Nuttall FQ ) of type 2 diabetics on a low carb diet (20% cho) for 5 weeks. They dramatically reduced their circulating blood sugar from 198 mg/dl to 126, and glycated haemoglobin from 9.8% to 7.6 and still decreasing at the end of the study towards an estimated 6.3-5.4%. The authors state: "Potentially this could be a patient empowering way to ameliorate hyperglycemia without pharmacological intervention". More studies like this should kill off that course.

It SHOULD kill that course, but it won't.

The reason why is in the sentence prior. "...without pharmacological intervention". So long as the LC WOL works, and the drug companies are unable to make pots of money from it, it will be fought tooth and nail.

IMHO, of course. It has already saved my family thousands of dollars in prescription medicines, and it might just be the road to reversing our health crisis in the U S. The drug companies would really hate that!

Did I read that right? The person teaching the course was a consultant for Slim Fast? Uh...talk about conflict of interest. I'd say that I can't believe this kind of thing happens in higher education, but I'm currently reading 'Brainwashed' so I've become aware of the crap that passes for 'college'. :/

This is wrong on so many levels...

#1) That the resistance to Atkins is motivated by monetary incentives. High carb diet industry (slimfast) and the pharmaceutical/surgical industry (doctors) are essentially working in collusion to eliminate competition for customers with weight problems (Low carb diets).

#2) As if #1 weren't unjust enough on it's own, the product & service choice being eliminated by this industry thuggery is the one that is by far the most effective. Calorie controlled sugared drinks and pills/surgery aren't nearly as effective for improving health and weight as good old fashion healthy eating & living as outlined by Dr. Atkins (meat, dairy, veggies, cold pressed plant oils, nuts, seeds, fruit, and course low starch grains (mostly bran/germ), etc).

#3) If #1 and #2 didn't cause you to lose your faith in humanity, the fact that those working in the entertainment industry (e.g. mainstream journalists) are siding with and sensationalizing this wanton corruption simply to sell papers should about do it.
I can see the headlines...
"DOCTORS BEING TAUGHT TO WARN AGAINST UNHEALTHY NO-CARB ATKINS DIET"


It's so so offensive and disheartening.

Nope, they won't. See bold.

Of course they have to teach LC is bad! Otherwise these upcoming docs will miss out on prescribing unnecessary medications and treating people for "complications" that could have been avoided! Think of the impact on their practices!!!!!!

The funny thing on this is that if we could go back in time in Britain let's say, 300-400 years, after the Dark Ages and before the mass introduction of sugar, we would find the average well-off Briton eating a very Atkins-like diet (except for a relatively large quantity of homemade bread and potatoes), with a breakfast of bacon, herring, and eggs and butter on toast, and with a choice piece of meat at most every meal, along with potatoes and vegetables fried in suet or bacon fat...(at least in the relatively comfortable families, i.e. those with the longest life expectancies...).
I think it was Kyrasdad (Sp?) who made an absolutely great remark in pointing out that it is really unbelievable that dieteticians and doctors would condemn a diet of meat, vegetables, fish, dairy, nuts, and fruit...While enthusiastically endorsing weight-loss surgery! What gives??

Strange
 

It is estimated that 3m people in Britain follow the diet, whose devotees include the actresses Jennifer Aniston and Renée Zellweger. More than 45m copies of the Atkins diet books have been sold worldwide.

Is there some particular reason why the British press cannot manage to mention the Atkins diet without mentioning Jennifer Aniston and Renée Zellweger? Is the British public unable to remember what diet is being referred to until these two actresses are mentioned, at which point John Q. Reader says, "Oh, that diet!" ?

Studies show this studies show that, has anyone else noticed that they never ever state what studies or what specific research they are referring to.

Lez

Hahaha.... Good one turtle

Well I'm a cynic too, but not so much as you and wwdimmitt. I think it's through the diabetes research that low-carb will becoming respectable and mainstream because the evidence is so strong. Articles like this are appearing in diabetes journals, so how are they going to keep the lid on this? They'd have to stop the research and it's too late, the genie is out of the bottle. Atkins research foundation's tens of millions will help keep it going for one thing. The only diabetician I know has already changed his view considerably.

Also, British medical students are as steeped in cynicism as the rest of us, they'll smell a rat if they read newspaper articles like this---there's lots of clues in it after all.

Potatoes were from the New World and weren't a dietary staple in Europe 400 years ago, Other than that, I agree with the statement. Nyah Levi

They are trying to make it seem like a foolish fad that all the image obsessed non-thinking tv watching people are falling for.