Got fat? Don't try Atkins diet craze

Got fat? Don't try Atkins diet craze

Date published: 3/7/2004

http://www.freelancestar.com/News/F...3072004/1271343

So, the jig is up. The Atkins high-protein-diet craze that has been sweeping the nation has shown its ugly underbelly, and it's heart disease (as well as a host of other chronic diseases linked with consumption of fatty meat and dairy products).

A consumer advocacy group released a medical examiner's report showing that the infamous Dr. Atkins suffered from obesity and heart disease.

Apparently, the dozen expert panels who reviewed thousands of diet and health studies over the past three decades were not crazy after all. Every one of them concluded that Americans should replace meat and dairy products in their diet with vegetables, fresh fruits, and whole grains. None reached the opposite conclusion.

As consumers, we need to be constantly vigilant for diet gurus who would exploit our obsession with physical appearance to promote their profit-driven agendas.

The price we pay, beyond an inflated food bill, is lifelong chronic afflictions and a curtailed life span. Let's hope that this lesson does not come too late for victims of the Atkins diet.

George Seppala, Fredericksburg

Date published: 3/7/2004

Man, this kind of crap really irks me.

and we should especially be wary of «experts» who don't bother to research...

As consumers, we need to be constantly vigilant for diet gurus, who would exploit our obsession with physical appearance to promote their own agendas. He should heed his own advice. I don't see how what he is doing is any different from the "profit-driven gurus". If this article is not from the PRCM it's most certainly from someone who share the same beliefs.

Disclaimer : I have nothing against vegetarianism, but I don't appreciate the inherent dishonesty in trying use health concerns to push their own agendas. If you don't believe it's right to eat meat, say so. It's your personal belief and I can respect that. Trying to pretend the diet that allowed humankind to climb up the evolutionary ladder is unhealthy is misguided at best, delusional at worst.

Excellent!

Hats off to my fellow Montrealer, Angeline!

*sigh*

Yet another journalist (and I use the term loosely here) who either didn't bother to check his sources and do his research or, on a more sinister note, is deliberately using the twisted information that PCRM put out to further his own agenda.



And who, pray tell, are these dietary experts and what are their credentials that I should pay any attention to their (IMNSHO) very misguided advice to shun meat and dairy in favor of a dietary regime to which my body has decidedly reacted negatively to?
I read stuff like that and I wonder if he thinks he is making dietary recommendations for sheep and horses or humans?

This article was so obviously self serving that it peed me off enough to write to the editor of the paper. Probably won't do a thing but here goes:

I wanted to share with you serious misgivings with the article you published on march 7.

First of all Mr. Seppala is basing his entire article on a fact that has been widely and publicly dispelled weeks ago.

"A consumer advocacy group released a medical examiner's report showing that the infamous Dr. Atkins suffered from obesity and heart disease."

This "information" has been discredited and recanted in every major newspaper, including the Wall Street Journal who first published it. Dr. Atkins hospital record proves that he was not in any way obese when he was admitted to the hospital. Unless you credit his subsequent weight gain to eating Twinkies while in a coma, you'll have to accept the fact this weight gain was caused by water retention due to major organ failures and the measures used to resuscitate him.

Perhaps you'll accept statements from Dr. Atkins' own doctor :

"The reason Robert weighed so much is that his body was terribly swollen. He was getting lots of intravenous fluid to keep his vital organs functioning and to decrease the pressure on his brain. They had to drain a tremendous amount of blood from his brain. It’s not uncommon to gain 60lb in those circumstances, even though it sounds a lot. The medical report states that he had “prominent” swelling in both legs. I could see at his bedside how swollen they were."

and

"His diet had nothing to do with his death. People forget that genetics plays a huge role in health. He had had a previous heart attack after he caught a virus in Turkey that gave him an irregular heartbeat and caused his heart to enlarge. He told everybody about it, he wasn’t hiding anything.. For somebody his age, his functional status was very good."

Last, but not least, this so called Consumer advocacy group is called the Physician Committee for Responsible Medicine. (PCRM). So far they have demonstrated a rather glaring lack of responsibility in their behavior by illegally obtaining a confidential medical report and making it public. However that's just the tip of the iceberg. Here is what the National Council against Health Fraud have to say about the PRCM.

"The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) is a nonprofit association that claims to promote "optimal diet for prevention of disease," says there is evidence that humans don't have a specific requirement for protein, and teaches that "too much dietary protein from animal sources is detrimental to health." [1] PCRM's reference to "animal sources" is key to understanding its true purpose. Its leader, Neal Barnard, MD, has been identified as medical adviser to the radical animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and PCRM may be substantially funded by it. Animal activists are highly successful fundraisers. The combined budgets for 15 of the leading animal protection organizations exceeded $115 million in 1994 (PETA took in $12 million) [2]. In NCAHF's view, PCRM is a propaganda machine whose press conferences are charades for disguising its ideology as news events."

And here is what the American Medical Associations thinks of the PRCM :

"The AMA finds the recommendations of PCRM irresponsible and potentially dangerous to the health and welfare of Americans. The AMA charges that PCRM is "blatantly misleading Americans on a health matter and concealing its true purpose as an animal 'rights' organization. In June 1990, the AMA formally requested PCRM to terminate the inappropriate and unethical tactics used to manipulate public opinion ..."

So this is the source for Mr. Seppala big story. When I read "Every one of them concluded that Americans should replace meat and dairy products in their diet with vegetables, fresh fruits, and whole grains" and "As consumers, we need to be constantly vigilant for diet gurus who would exploit our obsession with physical appearance to promote their profit-driven agendas.", I was forced to wonder exactly whose agenda is being served by writing and publishing such an article ,,,

Excellent, Angeline!

WOW Angeline! well done!!!!

Excellent!!! Very well written. Let us know if it gets printed.

WTG! Excellent rebuttal.

I sent a letter to my local TV station about an article that ran giving all kinds of mis-information about LC.

They never published it, or commented on-air, but within a few hours of sending it they pulled the article off their web-site. You could find it with a search, but it had been prominently displayed as a major story.

I'm sure it wasn't just my one letter that did it, but evey one counts!!!!!