After reading article after article that completed dissed the Atkins diet without any actual knowledge of the subject, I finally decided to write into my local paper.

I waited for several agonizing days waiting for the article to appear in the editorial. Finally I was called and was told that due to the article's length, they would have to either cut it down or hold until the monthly health magazine in March.

My response was immediate - hold it until March!

Well, the health magazine came today, and appeared on page 3. This means that it will be the FIRST thing that people see when they open up the health magazine!

After my mother read the article she informed me that it was hydrogenated fats that clog arteries... so now I feel stupid. I was so SURE that hydrogenated fats and saturated fats were the same thing!


Anyway, if you'd like to read my article, here it is:

The Atkins diet is not the evil thing that dieticians, doctors, and folks everywhere try to make it out to be.

I started the Atkins diet around the first of October. I have suffered from low blood-sugar for most of my life, and I can tell you, it's not pleasant. Ever since I started eating this way I never had low blood-sugar again.

Much of the negative information around stems from the fact that many people are ill-informed. Some don't have the whole story, while others have it all wrong to begin with.

It's rare to see an article that does not claim that Atkins discourages fruits, vegetables, and breads and encourages fats and protiens. Although partially true, this type of statement is very misleading.

Ever since going on the Atkins diet, I eat more vegetables than I ever have before. My daily diet includes at LEAST one salad with all the good stuff - tomatoes, radishes, onions, green peppers, sprouts, and more. And even if I don't have salad, you can bet I'm having something else like steamed broccoli or cauliflower. This diet, in fact, encourages eating vegetables!

Instead of eating an apple (which doesn't have many vitamins anyway), I eat high-vitamin raspberries, strawberries, or blackberries. They are much more flavorful and do not cause a hypoglycemic reaction. When the mood for dessert strikes I will sometimes have low-carb ice-cream with strawberries. Nuts, which are high in fiber and minerals, are also eaten frequently.

It is quite true that the Atkins diet discourages bread products, as they are high in carbohydrates and low in almost everything else. If you look at the nutritional information on most grain products, you can see that most of it is really quite low in fiber, as it's all been processed out. Even "whole-wheat" products are sadly lacking in this department. If it weren't for the fact that these products were enriched with vitamins, they would have virtually no food value at all!

The Atkins diet does encourage fats and protiens, and this is often where people really start to point fingers. Fats and cholesterols, we've been told, clog arteries. According to Dr. Atkins' research, it's actually the saturated fats that clog arteries. The fats and cholesterols themselves are quite harmless - and are paying the price for a crime they did not commit!

Many say that the Atkins diet is very restrictive, and can be very difficult if you do not like eggs. I myself cannot stand eggs. At first, it was a challenge learning how to eat differently, but it didn't take long to convert many favorite foods to low-carb. I'm very fond of French toast made with low-carb bread, then topped with berries and cream. Stir fries (no noodles!), ground beef with marinara, and bunless burgers are in my menu. You would not believe how wonderful a hamburger patty fried with mushrooms and onions taste without the bun.

With Atkins, a person does not stay at a super-low carb level forever. Instead, the daily intake of carbohydrates are slowly increased and fats are moderately decreased until the person finds his or her critical carb level. Once the person reaches his or her goal weight, he or she eats just enough carbs to maintain that weight. In the end, a person is not even really "low carbing." "Moderate carbing" would be a more accurate term.

It's also claimed that people on Atkins become ill. What often happens is that, for a few days, a person goes through "carb withdrawl." It's quite similar to nicotene withdrawl, although not as severe. It takes the human body a little time to ajust from getting its energy from mostly carbohydrates to getting its energy from fats and protiens.

Some also say that Atkins causes hair loss. While it is true that the stress of carb withdrawl can cause some hair loss a few months down the road, the increased intake of fats and protiens actually causes hair to grow in thicker and richer than before!

One of the silliest things I've ever heard is that you will put the weight back on after you stop the diet. Well, of course you will. It's also true that you will put the weight back on after quitting any diet!

The difference? I've been on Atkins for over four months, and I feel like I could keep going on this way for the rest of my life.

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great article, well organized, clear, to the point, and not angry...

just one little quible, I dont think this part is true, is it:

"According to Dr. Atkins' research, it's actually the saturated fats that clog arteries."

I thought Dr. A argued saturated fat is fine, as long as it's consumed in a low carbohydrate context, right?

He mentioned he messed up in his preamble.

Good article! Also, hair loss on any weight loss diet is common.

Great article! Good job.

Let the sound of truth ring out like a bell!
Right on.

Good for you for posting this!!

Yes particularly the partially hydrogenated oils are created by chemically altering vegetable oil to make it more shelf-stable and solid. That's the "trans fats" that you hear about.

Saturated fats, on the other hand, in their regular form are frequently one component of other natural oils (such as olive oil), and high in quantity as part of butter, present in dairy and in meats.

Dr. A has indicated that saturated fats are not the demons that they are made out to be as they do serve a heart-healthy purpose in the body. There is still debate over this... particularly because in a low-carb state, fats are processed differently by the body than they are in combination with a high-carb diet. Many of the low-carb experts indicate that saturated fat is not a heart danger unless it is accompanied by a high carb diet, although South Beach and some of the other low carb plans tend to go the traditional route of limiting saturated fat.

However, every nutritionist lc or not will agree with Dr. A that trans fats are universally bad for heart health.

I think the usual reference for UNsaturated fats clogging the arteries more than saturated fats is given in the Lancet Medical Journal (1994, 344-1195). There are no reported effects of heart disease in the tradional Eskimo culture that consumes a diet full of saturated fats plus omega-3 oils.

Well said!

You're partially correct in that saturated fats and hydrogenated fats are the same thing. Prepare for a little organic chemistry! Fats are made up of two types of chemicals, glycerols and fatty acids; usually, the fat that we talk about is a triglyceride, or three molecules of fatty acid attached to a glycerol "head". The fatty acid "tails" on the glycerol "head" are what people talk about when they talk about "saturated" and "unsaturated" fats. Fatty acids are composed of long chains of hydrocarbons with a carboxyl group on one end. We're going to ignore the carboxyl group and just talk about the hydrocarbon chain. A hydrocarbon chain is a long chain of carbons all linked together, with each carbon having bonds to both hydrogens and other carbons. Like this:

H H H H H H H
C C C C C C C
H H H H H H H


The chain has certain properties, depending on how long it is and on some other things that we're going to talk about, like saturation. A carbon chain is "saturated" when every carbon has two hydrogens attached to it. The chain above is saturated: each carbon is attached to two other carbons and two hydrogens. Think of it as if the carbons were people and the hydrogens were balloons. Every person is holding hands with two other people and has a balloon tied to each foot.

Now, imagine that two of the people are not just holding hands, they're linking feet as well. They don't have space anymore for the balloons on the linked feet, so they get rid of them. This is called double-bonding, and it's what makes a fat unsaturated. Unsaturated fats come about when the carbons double-bond with themselves. Then it looks like this, with the equals sign representing a double bond:


H H H H H H H
C C=C C C C C
H . . . H H H H

The two carbons are bonded to each other twice. This means they don't have room for two hydrogens, only for one (remember, each person had to let go of a balloon?). A polyunsaturated fat just means that there are lots of those double bonds in the hydrocarbon tails.

Now, we've laid down the groundwork, but talking about trans fats involves some deeper explanation of organic chemistry. So take a deep breath, and here we go!

Carbon chains are pretty fluid things; each carbon is spinning all the time in relation to its neighbors. Imagine the people holding hands dancing around, waving their balloons everywhere. They can move as much as they want as long as they keep holding hands. They can even do flips -- as long as they keep holding hands. Now, remember the two people who were holding hands and linking feet? They're kind of hampered in their movement. Double bonds restrict spinning. This is important because it means that the hydrogens which are bonded to the carbons can get stuck in certain positions. Chemists have names for these positions:


H H H H H H
C C C C=C C
H H H . . . H


When the two hydrogens are next to each other, that's called a "cis conformation". The hydrogens don't like being so close, and so a cis conformation causes the entire chain to bend -- there's a kink in the chain at the cis double bond. This is what makes unsaturated fats fluid at low temperatures. Their fatty acid tails have kinks in them, so they can't pack as tightly, and they remain fluid at lower temperatures than saturated fats, which don't have kinks and thus pack tightly. Imagine a bunch of straight wires -- they lie together neatly, right? Now think about bending a few of the wires in a few places. The wires won't lie together neatly anymore. That's what cis double bonds do to fats.

Ok. So we've got saturated fats, unsaturated fats, and cis double bonds. Guess what the next type of conformation is? That's right -- trans.


H H H H H . . H
C C C C C=C C
H H H H . . H H


A trans configuration is when the two hydrogens are NOT next to each other. They're across from each other. This means that there is no kink in the chain, and therefore the fats pack tightly. But there's still a double bond. This configuration isn't natural, and only happens when unsaturated fats undergo partial hydrogenation. Trans fats act a little like saturated fats, but aren't saturated. That's why they're so bad for you.

Whew! Hope that clears things up :-> Any questions?

EDIT: The periods are to improve formatting in the chemical diagrams. Otherwise, for some reason, all the hydrogens get squished against the left side of the page.

Wow.

This is an excellent and informative post, Bookery, and I think I'll be printing it out for my binder. Well said!

Yes, well done. I'll save that too.

Sorry for not getting back here sooner, but I'm glad you guys liked the article.

Thanks for posting the information on fats, Bookery.