Good points. I checked and you are right, Japan does have a higher stroke rate than the US. I'll check that book out like you suggested.

I guess I'm still not satisfied. I could probably come up with a list of ailments more prevalent in Japan. Certainly lung cancer is higher because they smoke more. But overall their life expectency is about 4 years greater than US (great list at this site http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/ib98-2.pdf). You could argue that this 4 year delta is the improvement one gets eating a Japanese diet over a high carb American diet.

But on that link above Japan has the highest male life expectency and the highest female life expectency of any country shown. Not too shabby. I am still not convinced that Atkins is better per se. Perhaps as I suggested before they produce similar effects.

The one area I have a certain amount of interest is osteoporosis (sp?). My girlfriend is now on the diet and I have heard (but have not done any research) which suggests calcium deficient bones exist in high protein & milk (ironically) consuming nations (US/Sweden vs. Japan/S. Africa). The story goes something like calcium is used in the process to flush extra protein out of your system and therefore can drain out calcium in your diet. Potentially an issue with Atkins.

I guess what I'm thinking about long term here is if these approaches are equivalent what separates them. Certainly they must have different side effects and perhaps one is more acceptable. I'm just trying to make an informed choice here while not trying to knee jerk into thinking one approach is right and one isn't. Maybe both are okay.