Dr. Robert Atkins dies....

[Dr Mordrid]

of massive head injuries sustained in a recent slip and fall on ice. Dr. Atkins controversial low carb/high protein & fat diet was recently vidicated by multiple studies done by the very medical establishment that has critisized it for over 25 years.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/ap20030417_883.html

Dr. Mordrid

[KvHagedorn]

Must be a slow news day...

[Pace]

Also heard that the diet has links to brittle bones...and he died in a fall...

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Pace
Also heard that the diet has links to brittle bones...and he died in a fall...

He was 72, and landed on his head after slipping on ice. People 50 years younger are likely to break their head in such an incident.

Could you back up your supposition that it leads to brittle bones? If anything, a high-protein diet would seem to lean the other way, as opposed to carbo-loading.

[Jon P. Inghram]

How about just eating a well balanced low calorie diet as opposed to some wierd protien or carbohydrate low calorie diet?

[GT98]

IIRC The Atkins Diet is based off what Humans ate since the dawn of time....IE Meat and unrefined grains. Makes some sense since you didn't have kids coming down with adult diabetes back 100 years ago or so.

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Jon P. Inghram
How about just eating a well balanced low calorie diet as opposed to some wierd protien or carbohydrate low calorie diet?

Part of that is that it's not just the calorie count as much as what makes up the calories though. 1500 calories a day according to the venerated food pyramid is actually pretty likely to be bad for you. Doc's got some good links somewhere.

[Sethos]

Befor the medical community seemed to have shunned his ideas on dieting, but now (one would suppose because of his death) they are giving it another look, heard that on CNN this morning...

Must be a slow news day...

yeah no bombs going off, major earth quakes, or alien invasions...


~Sethos

[Wombat]

Actually, people were finally coming around to his ideas a few years ago. Just a few decades late.

[Gurm]

Well, I don't give his ideas any more credence than the opposite camp. Is he the high-protien or high-carb guy? *shrug*

Here's how you lose weight...

1. Eat right.
2. Exercise.



- Gurm

[Ribbit]

Originally posted by Gurm
Here's how you lose weight...

1. Eat right.
2. Exercise.

And I'll add:

3. Discipline and Patience.

[Dr Mordrid]

And before you take advice from dietary sacred cows like the Feds food paradigm that says fat is bad and carbs are good.

That simplistic advice is total BS, and the FDA etc. have known it since they put out the old food pyramid. Now that its clear that this wonderful advice isn't working, and is in fact hurting people over time, there're being forced to re-define it.

As normal someone's beaten them to it.

First read this;

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0007C5B6-7152-1DF6-9733809EC588EEDF

Then check out the old food pyramid vs. the authors recommended a new food pyramid;

Old food pyramid



New food pyramid



Their analysis explains why a lot of people that followed the old food paradigm ended up fat and with type 2 diabetes, all the while thinking they were eating a "healthy" diet.

Note the banishing of some foods at the bottom of the old food pyramid (eat 6-11 servings/day) to near the top (use sparingly!!). This group includes foods previously presumed to be staples of a healthy diet including rice, pasta and breads made from processed grains (white bread etc.). In fact the new pyramid places them in the same catagory as candies and sweets

Why? Because these food are simple starches that are easily digested, which means they are converted directly into sugars and absorbed into the bloodstream very easily. Once there they raise the blood sugar to high levels, signalling the body to release high levels of insulin to fuel the body with the excess being laid down as body fat. These high levels of insulin over time cause the body to become insulin tolerant or resistant, which in turn often leads to type 2 diabetes.

So much for getting good nutritional advice from the medical & governmental establishments

Also note that in the new pyramid recognizes that many fats, particularly those from vegetables, that previously were in the "use sparingly" catagory are actually good for you and now form a co-equal part with whole grains as the base of the pyramid (what you should eat most).

The science here is that relative to their caloric intake fats satisfy the apatite better and for a longer time than carbohydrates. They are also relatively more difficult to digest, which means no big spikes in the blood sugar levels and a reduction in the bad effects from that. In addition many fats raise HDL (good) cholesterol, which actually scrubs LDL (bad) cholesterol out of the blood stream....among other benefits.

Times, they are a changin'.....thank God....

Dr. Mordrid

[Pace]

Originally posted by Wombat
He was 72, and landed on his head after slipping on ice. People 50 years younger are likely to break their head in such an incident.

Could you back up your supposition that it leads to brittle bones? If anything, a high-protein diet would seem to lean the other way, as opposed to carbo-loading.

It was not my supposition

I cannot back it up at all, I just heard it. However, the report on the links was published on the day he died - that's all I know

As for his age and type of fall, I didn't know - obviously some tabloid report has ignored that part...

(I heard this at work from a mate, who was probably reading some very crap paper )

[Dr Mordrid]

I believe he was 71. He slipped on the ice in front of the Adkins Institute offices and hit the back of his head on the sidewalk, developing a subdural hematoma (blood clot between the brain and skull) which caused an increase in intracerbral prssure and eventually brain death.

Dr. Mordrid

[Bohrn]

I'm with Gurm, Ribbit and the Good Doctor on this one.

Eat right, excersise and patience. Plus know what the hell eating right is