Big news

May 20th 2004, From The Economist print edition

The Atkins diet seems to work, and may bring other health benefits, too

http://www.economist.com/science/di...tory_id=2685717



FOR decades, the Atkins diet has been dismissed and disparaged by dieticians, doctors and nutritionists as faddy or dangerous or both. When Dr Atkins himself died in 2003, after slipping on an icy pavement, he had only just started to see the diet he invented considered seriously. This week, though, two papers in the Annals of Internal Medicine confirm earlier studies showing that the diet works, and demonstrate that it brings benefits to those with heart diseases or diabetes.

In both studies, a low-carbohydrate diet of the sort Dr Atkins recommended was compared with a low-fat diet over the course of a year. One of the studies was conducted by researchers at the Veterans Affairs Medical Centre in Philadelphia. Researchers at Duke University did the second, which was funded by the Atkins Foundation, an organisation set up by Dr Atkins to promote his ideas. Both studies found what dieters have known for a while: that weight is lost more quickly on Atkins. After six months, both Atkins groups had lost more weight than their low-fat counterparts. However, by the end of the study, each group of dieters had lost about the same amount of weight.

Although the Atkins diet is laden with protein and contains a plentiful supply of fat, dieters showed an increase in the level of their high-density lipoproteins (so-called “good” cholesterol) and no increase in the level of their low-density lipoproteins (“bad” cholesterol). In addition, people with diabetes had better control of their blood-sugar levels when on Atkins.

The reason that the diet has been the target of consistent abuse from the scientific establishment is that its rules contradict the central pillars of received nutritional wisdom. These are that eating a diet which is low in fat and high in starch reduces the risk to the consumer of developing heart disease and cancer, and also promotes weight loss. Food retailers responded to such advice in the 1990s with low-fat “healthy” options in milk, cheese, spreads, sauces and pre-prepared meals. Pasta and bread were to be favoured over meat-and-two-veg. And if meat was ever to appear in a meal, it was to be trimmed of fat. Atkins, however, says people must ditch the muesli and start tucking into bacon and eggs.

The most telling comment on the two new studies comes from Walter Willett, a nutritionist at the Harvard School of Public Health. In an editorial that accompanies the papers, he says “we can no longer dismiss very-low carbohydrate diets”, adding that “Dr Atkins deserves credit for his observations that many persons can control their weight by greatly reducing carbohydrate intake and for his funding of trials by independent investigators.” Nevertheless, some nutritionists are less than welcoming of the new findings, and are warning about the unknown health effects of following Atkins in the long term, and of nutritional deficiencies in the diet.

Although the ultimate outcomes of the low-fat and low-carbohydrate diets in the experiments were the same, in that people lost similar amounts of weight over the course of a whole year, this is unlikely to deter the hordes of Atkins aficionados who swear by the diet. They argue that it is easier to adhere to (proteins do indeed make people feel fuller for longer), and that they suffer from fewer of the hunger pangs and mood swings that are characteristic of low-fat diets.

Shortly before Dr Atkins died, Larry King interviewed him on his television show. “Do you have a feeling of I told you so?” he asked. Dr Atkins replied, “I've had that feeling all along.”