I am not sure I understand the authors point. Ok the retention rate of Atkins in his eyes was too low. Ok if some people cannot manage to stay on low carb, that does not affect the large percentage of us who do. His second point was the increase of cholestoral. The study showed cholestoral dropped, and he pointed out that shouldn't suprise us as it was just the result of losing weight. But the issue isn't why it dropped, the point is it did not rise as everyone predicted, but in fact was reduced. This is similar to the argument that low carb is just a low cal diet in disguise. Who cares... we are losing weight, we are not hungry. That should be enough. It is amazing how when their predictions do not come to fruition they try to justify why they still were correct, even if the facts don't agree with them.