I saw a small blurb on the Atkins diet today on the news. In the preview you saw a father holding a picture of his daughter and saying don't let your family go on Atkins or you too might loose a son or daughter.

I was concerned that the reports it would consist of more baseless attacks, but I was pleasantly suprised. In the end it was fairly balanced. The report begun with a man blaming his heart disease on Atkins and again the father who lost his daughter and blames it on the diet. Then a short blurb on Neal Barnyard spewing his usual spiel and calling for an inquiry.

That was followed by the voice of wisdom in the form of a scientific looking guy in a lab coat (didn't catch the name) saying there was nothing in the Atkins diet that could possibly cause sudden death.

Then they mentioned that some studies had been positive.

But, here goes the best part, they actually exposed the PCRM agenda, saying they are a vegan group who naturally opposed the eating of meat.

All in all a fair report. They did give air time to more anti-Atkins drivel, but at least they countered it with a balanced opposing view.

ps
I really feel sorry for the father who lost his daugther. Here he is thinking that the diet caused his dauther's death. This must mean that he feels he could have prevented that death, had he only known. This is totally unfair to place this burden of guilt on him when she probably died of some pre-existing condition. Just one more example of how one bad diagnostic can end up hurting people

"I saw a small blurb on the Atkins diet today on the news. In the preview you saw a father holding a picture of his daughter and saying don't let your family go on Atkins or you too might loose a son or daughter."

The crappy part of this is, all the carefully demonstrated facts in the world won't make the impact on the public that this one image will. This poor man was manipulated into being a pawn of the radical vegans who mounted this campaign; his tragedy is awful. Their campaign is vicious and knowingly deceptive.

Where was this that the teenage girl died. I saw one last night that in Kansas City MO a girl died (heart failure) and the Mom said the only thing different in her life was Atkins. They are automatically blaming her diet. Who knows "HOW" she actually "DID" the diet. I have heard so many misconceptions from people. If they don't read the book and understand, then maybe they are doing something wrong. Did this girl take any nutritional supplements? Were her parents helping her & monitoring her diet?? Who knows. I just really believe I have found what works for me. I have joined (and failed) at Weight Watcher at least 18 times in the last 24 years. Never once made it to my goal weight. This is the most success I have ever had on a "diet". I'm sold!
P.S. I did see my doctor and consulted him about my diet.

I didn't get to see this news story,but I've heard good and bad about ALL weight loss programs.
I hae tried so many and yo yoed so much. Even lost 89 pounds in a few months with Jenny Craig,and kept it off for over a year.But the expense was getting too bad once I stopped and figured what I did spend.
My brother wnet on the Atkins and lost over 30 pounds in a very short time and then found he was diabetic. But that didn't come from the Atkins. We have it in our family and I carefully get checked for it.
In my opinion,I think whatever is good for you is for you.
If I was that girl's parents,I would check into it more and see what really caused her death. I don't think it was Atkins,tho.
Anything to make the news.

Oh I forgot the one other personal account they showed. They showed a man standing in front of the PCRM backdrop saying the following (as best as I can remember):

I went to a size 32 waist and got heart disease. I made a pact with the devil and that devil was Atkins!

I think I read about this poor girl in the London rags when I was there in August -- at least I think it is the same girl. The one I read about had died in class of heart failure which they attributed to a severe deficiency in potassium. The reason why I think it was the same one was because the mother was beating herself up that they had gone on Atkins together and were enjoying great success before the daughter died. Of course, the whole article was about "how dangerous the diet is" and "don't let your family members do this" in true British mag hyperbole. It occurred to me when I read about this, and it still strikes me now, that to die of low-potassium means she was not taking any supplements at all. I have a terrible time remembering to take them myself -- this was a good reminder for me. As a mom, I do feel terribly sorry for this family. A part of me feels that if blaming Atkins helps them vent their anger and deal with their loss, let them. These other folks though... the press, the physicians, etc.

Athena

I've read that with Atkins you do lose potassium. Did they mention whether she had any other deficiencies? Any low-thyroid or diabetes or other conditions?

Well...
Even though the Atkins diet, if followed properly, is very unlikely to cause sudden death, it is a risk. It should be mentioned that eating very little potassium rich food (as people do often do on a LC diet) while losing a lot of water (as the LC diet is in the very beginning) can lead to an electrolyte imbalance which interrupts the hearts rhythm which could result in sudden death. That's what I believe resulted in the death of that teenager.

I personally have suffered from heart palpitations and very low blood pressure (dizziness, blurriness upon standing, etc) when eating too few carbs, especially in warm weather. Now that I eat more reasonable amounts of carbohydrate it never is a problem, but before it was and I think it should be mentioned that for some people they might have this side effect.

Amazing! As sad as the death of this one young girl is, her case gets repeated over and over and over in the media. As I recall, she had been doing all sorts of diets before going on Atkins, and I think she was only on Atkins for a short time before her death.

I wonder how many people died just today from eating the typical American diet? I wonder how many people had their feet amputated today from the diabetes they got eating our typical high carb diet? PCRM doesn't care about those people; it only cares about animals.

There are all sorts of congenital heart conditions you can die from that have nothing to do with your diet.