Dr. Atkins: The nutritional approach in treating patients is individualized to the patients' problems. When the problem involves cancer or cancer prevention, we're interested in the most nutrient dense, medically effective examples of fats, proteins and carbohydrates. There are good fats and bad, good proteins and bad, good carbohydrates and bad. A cancer patient needs to know the difference in each category. There is no point in cancer patients eating food that does not have the secondary benefit of building up the body's immune defenses against malignancy.

If you are following Atkins on your own to lose weight, you will be eating about 60 percent natural fats such as olive oil and avocado, 30 to 35 percent animal protein and some dairy, and 5 to 10 percent carbohydrates in the form of vegetables, seeds and nuts. As you progress through the four phases of the Atkins Nutritional ApproachTM, you decrease your fat intake and increase your carbs. As long as you are burning fat for energy and eating healthy fats, this percentage of fat poses no risk. Only when your consumption of carbs is high should you curtail fat consumption.