Campaign issues diet warning
Jeremy Kelly, Fay Burstin and Leanne Edmistone
15mar04
AN unprecedented government campaign against the popular high-fat, low-carbohydrate Atkins diet will be launched today.

Victoria's Labor Government will be the first in Australia to roll out a hard-hitting educational campaign to alert people to the dangers of the diet.

And Queenslanders have been warned to seek medical advice before trying any sort of radical diet.

The warnings come as the diet's popularity surges, with estimates of up to a million Australians embracing low-carbohydrate diets.

Those same people are risking heart disease, cancer and depression, experts say.

While the Victorian campaign will spell out the risks using posters and pamphlets in doctors' waiting rooms, gymnasiums and universities, a spokeswoman for Queensland Health Minister Gordon Nuttall said the department had not been approached to provide any official recommendations.

"We'd simply recommend people see their GP before going on any type of diet," she said.

Victorian Health Minister Bronwyn Pike said the decision was common sense.

"When we know something is bad for people, like smoking, then we let people know what the health risks are."

The Atkins diet tells people they can eat unlimited fats, meat and other high protein foods at the expense of carbohydrates.

The diet has boomed in popularity in the past five years with sales of Atkins' products soaring by 400 per cent in the past six months. Celebrity adherents include actors Jennifer Aniston and Renee Zellweger.

Nutritionist Sharon Natoli, from Food and Nutrition Australia, said she treated many former followers of the Atkins diet who had abandoned it in despair.

She said most people lost weight on the Atkins regime but were probably losing fluid and breaking down muscle rather than losing fat.

"Most people complain of a lack energy because the body is not getting any carbohydrates which it needs for fuel," Ms Natoli said.

Australian Medical Association obesity spokesman Dr Rick Kausman said low-carbohydrate diets were now the most popular.

"But they are unhealthy and inappropriate, both nutritionally and psychologically, because it's unsustainable in the long-run and can make things worse."

Ms Pike said short-term effects from ultra-low carbohydrate diets were constipation, dehydration, bad breath, low energy and poor concentration.

There were concerns such diets increased the likelihood of cancer, heart disease, depression and osteoporosis.

Dietitians Association of Australia Queensland spokeswoman Kate Di Prima yesterday said fad diets were potentially dangerous and did not follow basic good nutritional guidelines.

"People need to be wary of any diet that cuts out huge groups of food, that claims to be easy with no effort, and says you will lose large amounts of weight quickly."

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