In sickness and in health: breaking the mould

Dr James Le Fanu (Filed: 11/01/2004)

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Excerpt:

Every new year I receive at least a couple of requests for slimming pills to help kick-start a long-overdue resolution to lose weight. My confidence in suggesting that these people might first see what can be achieved with a spot of willpower has been bolstered by the astonishing physical transformation of several of the surgery staff - vivid testimony to the effectiveness of Dr Atkins' controversial high-fat diet. My initial scepticism that this might be yet another dietary fad has been confounded not just by its dramatic results - with pounds of excess flesh apparently disappearing into thin air - but also by the general consensus that it is a surprisingly easy diet to stick to.

Its success is certainly a great embarrassment to the legions of nutritional experts who, for the past 20 years, have been denouncing a high-fat diet as being uniquely harmful. The imagery linking foods such as meat, milk and dairy products with heart disease and obesity might seem compelling enough, but Dr Atkins' diet, it would appear, is based on a better understanding of the complexities of human nutrition, for by denying the body a ready source of its main fuel, glucose, it is forced to obtain its energy by mobilising its own fat stores.

There is another way of achieving the same effect, which is to eat less than one thinks one needs. Alick Dowling, a retired family doctor from Bristol, has been advocating this approach ever since he needed to lose three and a half stones to take the strain off his increasingly painful and arthritic knees. He expands his philosophy in the appropriately entitled booklet Enjoy Eating Less, obtainable for £3 (including p&p) from 1 All Saints Road, Bristol BS9 2JG.