Quote:
Originally posted by Lebette
Wahida Karmally, a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, told Reuters Health that these diets can cause muscle breakdown, weakness, nausea and dehydration. They limit the intake of entire categories of food that provide certain nutrients, such as potassium, she explained. "These effects can happen right away," she said.
SOURCE: Southern Medical Journal 2002;95:1047-1049.
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Low carbing (unless you eat no veggies whatsoever) does not eliminate foods high in potassium or calcium. Broccoli, Spinach and Avocados are all excellent sources of potassium and are not eliminated by the Atkins plan. Cheese, cream and broccoli are good natural sources of calcium and are not eliminated by the Atkins plan.
I already addressed the inaccuracy of the statement about muscle breakdown; this only occurs when protein consumption is very low as in fasting, starvation or low fat diets where protein consumption is likely to be low.
It's sad that the medical profession and the media are so quick to blame this girl's death on how she was eating instead of looking for the real cause and in the process unduly alarming a lot of people. IMHO, this young lady had some underlying medical condition that may have been aggrivated by what she was doing or had an eating disorder that her parents were not aware of and was even possibly abusing diuretics or over the counter diet pills. There's a good reason that Dr. Atkins recommends a complete medical exam before beginning....to make sure that you don't have an underlying medical condition that would make low carbing unadvisable.
Toxicology reports, by the way, only test for illegal substances and commonly abused substances, not over the counter diurectics or over the counter diet pills.
In healthy individuals, the body can go for up to 40 days without food (longer if you have a lot of fat stores), so I have a hard time with even speculating that eating meat, cheese and salads for a week or two caused this poor girl's death.
Suze_c....I never said that someone would die from lack of supplements, but they make it a lot less likely that you will develop a deficiency in something like potassium, calcium or magnesium which is important when you are following a diet plan like low carb, that has a diuretic effect where you will be losing more of those minerals that you would normally through your kidneys, especially at the beginning when carb levels are low and your body has not adjusted to the new way of eating yet.