Long Term Atkins Studies?

[westerner]

I've seen a number of studies demonstrate that Atkins/low-carb can lead to significant weight loss in the short term, i.e., over a 6 month period.

Does anyone know of any studies that have followed Atkins/low-carb dieters over several years? I have not been able to locate any.

[Angeline]

That's because they aren't any...yet. Some are underway.

What you can get, in the mean time, are the anecdotal stories of many members here who have been on Atkins for years.

[adkpam]

There's Dr. Atkins himself, who was on it for 30 years with his wife.

In response to someone who said, "You can't fool me, his diet killed him," I said, "Yeah, in his early seventies, and he was playing tennis until the end."

[Kestrel]

Dr. Lutz, who wrote Life Without Bread, began his low-carb experience in 1958, retired from active medical practice in 1992 at the age of 79. Published his last book on low-carb nutrition in 1995. A fairly long history...

[tofi]

And Dr. Atkins had over 30,000 patients at his clinic in New York City who were followed over 30 years. NO kidney or liver damage, successful weight loss AND much improved cardiac health. Remember, Dr. Atkins was a cardiologist who put his patients on low carb for their HEART HEALTH and was amazed at how fast and easily they lost weight.

[westerner]

Hmm. If the Atkins diet has been around for 30 years, it seems odd that there aren't any long term published studies by now.

[gotbeer]

Human diet studies are extremely hard to do - they are expensive, have high drop-out rates, and even the best-designed studies have holes in them. For example, today a co-worker told me she was "back on Atkins" - as she mixed heaps of Coffeemate and sugar into her coffee. (I told her she should apply to be an Atkins' spokeswoman.)

The Atkins diet was not studied for decades because low-fat had become dogma and the barriers to such studies were enormous. If you applied for funding to do such a study, you were turned down flat. It would have been easier for a Southern Baptist preacher to get a grant to study Christianity in a Taliban-run academy in Afghanistan.

[mrfreddy]

gee, westerner, you wouldn't be coming in here as some sort of agent provocateur, now would you??

anyway, how about this long term study: 5 million years of human evolution, leading to your very own fine self sitting at a computer reading these words...

[tamarian]

Hmm. If the Atkins diet has been around for 30 years, it seems odd that there aren't any long term published studies by now.
Do you have any long term studies of any diet?

Let's say Weight Watchers... Do you have any long term studies for it?

Richard Simmons, Slimfast, or even the American Heart Associations diet, just any long term studies for any of those?

Until then, it's the hunter gatherer diet we evolved on, meat and vegetables.

Wa'il

[Angeline]

Well I think we were all part of an unofficial low fat experiment. We don't need any fancy statistics to show us the result of THAT.

[westerner]

Human diet studies are extremely hard to do - they are expensive, have high drop-out rates, and even the best-designed studies have holes in them.

The Atkins diet was not studied for decades because low-fat had become dogma and the barriers to such studies were enormous. If you applied for funding to do such a study, you were turned down flat.
Ok, I'll give you that. But it seems to me that the burden of proof is on Dr Atkins, given that he appears to recommend large amounts of saturated fat, which has been pretty conclusively linked to heart disease. The concerns raised about the Atkins diet by the established medical authorities are also troubling to me.

If you folks feel like the Atkins diet is right for you, go right ahead - it's your body. Personally, I'd rather wait for the outcome of the longer-range studies mentioned above. Good health to you all.

[Marge]

If the Atkins diet has been around for 30 years, it seems odd that there aren't any long term published studies by now.

Could be the established medical world didn't like what they saw because it was cutting into their practises of dealing with unhealthy people.

[mrfreddy]

[QUOTE=westerner]Ok, I'll give you that. But it seems to me that the burden of proof is on Dr Atkins, given that he appears to recommend large amounts of saturated fat, which has been pretty conclusively linked to heart disease.QUOTE]

that's not actually true, on several levels: 1) Atkins doesn't recommend large amounts of saturated fat, they just dont think there's any reason to avoid it, because 2) studies indicting saturated fat were all done in a high carb-high fat context, not a low carb, high fat context, and do not apply to the low carb diet, and 3) those studies, if you look at them closely, do not actually make a convincing case that saturated fat is bad for you at all. I dont have a set of links handy but do a google on Cholestoral Skeptics and you'll see what I mean...

[mrfreddy]

here's a good "long term" study for ya!

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BELARUS_OLDEST_WOMAN?SITE=MDFRE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

y YURAS KARMANAU
Associated Press Writer





MINSK, Belarus (AP) -- A woman believed to be the oldest in the world celebrated her 116th birthday Wednesday in the former Soviet republic of Belarus.

"I'll drink to my own health with pleasure," said Hanna Barysevich, a former farm worker who lives in a house outside the Belarusian capital Minsk.

"I'm tired of living already, but God still hasn't collected me," she said with a smile.

Barysevich was born on May 5, 1888, in the village of Buda, 37 miles east of Minsk, according to her passport. Her parents were poor, landless peasants.

"From my early childhood I didn't know anything but physical labor," said Barysevich, who never learned to read or write. She worked in a kolkhoz, or collective farm, until age 95, then moved to the house she shares with her 78-year-old daughter Nina.




Barysevich lived through the Bolshevik Revolution, two world wars and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The worst period for her was the reign of dictator Josef Stalin: Her husband Ippolit was declared an "enemy of the people" for allegedly harming the collective farm, arrested and taken to Siberia. He was never heard from again.

She raised her three children on her own, including throughout World War II, when she used to take her family to the woods outside the village to hide from the Nazis.

"A lot of men courted me but I preferred to live on my own," she said.

Today, Barysevich moves with difficulty but unaided. She complains of occasional headaches and worsening vision "but nothing else bothers me."

She attributes her longevity to genes: Her paternal grandmother was 113 when she died. As to diet, Barysevich prefers simple village food: homemade sausages, pork fat, milk and bread.
(note: I'll bet that's whole grain bread and full fat milk!)

Daughter Nina said her mother has a good appetite, a tough character and very strong nerves.

"Throughout my long life, I understood that it isn't worth it to get upset and take everything too close to the heart," Barysevich said.

For her birthday, she hoped for a raise in her monthly pension, equal to about $50, and a chance to go to a Catholic church for confession.

Last month, the Guinness Book of Records recognized a 114-year-old Puerto Rican as the world's oldest living woman. Barysevich said she'd never thought of applying for the distinction.

[gotbeer]

Of course, there are other diet-related issues other than heart disease. The food of Thailand - based heavily around coconut milk - is perhaps the highest in saturated fat in the world. Check out their stomach cancer rates - by far the lowest in the world. Low-fat Japan has one of the highest rates.

http://seer.cancer.gov/publications/raterisk/rates49.html

[gotbeer]

Regarding the burden of proof:

In science, the null hypothesis (in this case, that saturated fat is neither good nor bad) is the default assumption until it is proven wrong - it carries no burden of proof. The hypothesis that saturated fat is bad - very bad, in fact - is NOT a null hypothesis, and hence, the burden of proof resides clearly with those who claim this. Despite government-sponsored and healthcare-sponsored propaganda to the contrary, it has NOT been established to ANY degree of rigor that saturated fat is bad for you - the actual scientific evidence shows quite the contrary, but the paranoia over sat fat makes even otherwise careful scientists avoid making this contrary conclusion.

[LucyLucy]

There's no long-term studies on WW, Jenny Atkins, LA Weight Loss, etc., because the results don't favor them, almost all gain it back and starve in the process. I'm sure it's such a small percentage that kept it off it wasn't worth studying.

Did you ever notice when you see these 'miracle' weight loss products, be it pills, shakes, etc., that they ALWAYS say "results not typical". You have people supposedly losing 50lbs + and even the ones who lost very little it says "results not typical". Makes one wonder how many people fall for the hype.

LL :)

[Quinadal]

http://www.westonaprice.org/know_your_fats/know_your_fats.html

[VALEWIS]

The link for the Skeptics is www.thincs.org. This group of scientists from around the world do not believe there is a direct connection between cholesterol and heart disease, or any other disease. Check out Dr Kendrick's articles, and Dr Ravnskov, also others there. But there sure is a lot of vested interest in the cholesterol-heart hypothesis. As was said, the early studies that this is all based on did not control for carbs at all, but even so, there still is little in way of firm evidence anyway as the Framington study and more recent research indicated. Since cholesterol lowering drugs are the number one best seller, I don't see the mythology changing much. Of particular interest was Dr Ravnskov's meta analysis showing that only research that supports the chol-heart theory gets cited, and all the research that doesn't gets ignored...the politics of medicine and pharmacy.

So I think it is amusing that there is this huge peoples' rebellion against the low fat dogma.

Val

[woodpecker]

For the first time, the N.I.H. is now actually financing comparative studies of popular diets. Foster, Klein and Hill, for instance, have now received more than $2.5 million from N.I.H. to do a five-year trial of the Atkins diet with 360 obese individuals. At Harvard, Willett, Blackburn and Penelope Greene have money, albeit from Atkins's nonprofit foundation, to do a comparative trial as well.

Should these clinical trials also find for Atkins and his high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet, then the public-health authorities may indeed have a problem on their hands.

abstract from Gary Taubes "What if it has all been a big fat lie?"

[bluesmoke]

I am conducting my own long term Atkins study, it has a group of 1 with no control group (except my history of other diets). My observations: significant health improvements, weight loss without hunger, no weight gain during times of overeating, no obvious loss of internal organs or brain function, no more passing out during the day after meals, are just some of the benefits I have noted. This study is over 2 years long and continuing.
Nyah Levi

[VALEWIS]

I believe Dr Barry Groves has been low carbing for about 40 years. He has written a few books about low carbing and his writings are pretty accessible.

Val

[FromVA]

Thanks the posts with the links. It is great timing for me. My DH's doctor called him last night, in a tizzy, because his cholesterol has gone up and I want him armed with info before he goes in to see her. Oddly enough, his cholesterol had really dropped 8 weeks into Atkins and is now up 40 points. (Have been on Atkins, following it to the letter, OBTW, for 9 months.) The total count is 253. Have no idea of the breakdown...she called him on his cellphone while he is out of state on a business trip, got him all upset, and sent me rushing to this info-packed site to get my ducks in order!

Thanks again

[westerner]

I maintain a healthy skepticism but am not necessarily anti-Atkins. I think the good doctor may have been on to something about carbs - certain kinds at least - but he didn't have the whole picture. Research in this area is evolving and I think we would all benefit by keeping an open mind. I have already come to question some of the beliefs I had about certain low-fat foods (e.g. margarine) as I continue to educate myself.

Here's an excerpt from the Consumer Reports on Health October 2003 newsletter:

The low-carb diet made headlines in the spring with the publication of three independent randomized controlled trials that, for the first time, compared the standard low-fat reducing diet with the recently deceased Dr. Atkins’ “diet revolution”—the original and still dominant low-carb diet. Surprising obesity and heart experts, people on the Atkins or a similar diet lost more weight over six months than people in the low-fat group. Moreover, despite consuming unlimited meat, eggs, and full-fat dairy products, containing dangerous-seeming quantities of saturated fats and cholesterol, their blood lipids not only showed no ill effects, but also in some cases actually improved.

A less-publicized result of the studies is that the effectiveness of the Atkins diet seems to dwindle with time. While Atkins dieters lost more weight over six months, in the one study that continued for a year both low-fat and low-carb dieters regained some of the lost weight. The Atkins group had ... regained enough so that the difference between the two groups was no longer significant. “This suggests that it’s increasingly difficult for people to follow the diet over time because of its severely restricted nature,” says David Ludwig, M.D., director of obesity programs at Children’s Hospital in Boston...

Nor is it clear that a low-carb diet high in saturated fat and protein is safe for longer-term use. Scientists have long known that high-protein diets stress the kidneys; in fact, a standard treatment for serious kidney disease is to severely restrict protein intake. Since many overweight people suffer from undiagnosed diabetes— itself a major risk factor for kidney disease—the risk of possible kidney damage is real. This aspect of high-protein weight loss diets has not been adequately studied...

For those who need to control their weight, we recommend a related, but more healthful, alternative: the low-glycemic diet. Like low-carb diets, this eating plan reduces post-meal blood sugar surges that can lead to hunger pangs a few hours later. But a low-glycemic diet includes abundant carbohydrates in the form of whole grains, pasta, legumes, nuts, fruits, and pretty much any vegetable except potatoes.

Interesting stuff. They mention two books, “The New Glucose Revolution.” by Jennie Brand-Miller et al. and “Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy.” by Walter C. Willett. I'll try to find time to read them.

[VALEWIS]

I would just like to add that Atkins' for Life is effectively a low glycemic diet...most of the heavy critique has been aimed at Induction type dieting. I fail to see how eliminating a lot of starch and sugar from one's diet, while eating heaps of veg and meat as it comes, and no transfats is going to harm. Otherwise why do our own bodies manufacture fat...we need saturated fat for water soluble viramins, and meat itself with the fat left on, is in a way a perfect food...which is why Eskimos were able to live healthily on it almost exclusively. Our bodies were not designed to eat the foods that only started being produced in the last 10000 years, like grains, and pretty much all of the vitamins and minerals contained in them are available in other foods, such as almonds and avocados, meat and so forth. Those of us who are over 55 will remember that in our early years if you wanted to lose weight and/or control diabetes, you cut down your food quantity and cut out starch and sugar. I can remember being amazed that it was "OK" to eat lots of pasta..so for me, Atkins, Protein Power, Paleodiet, Schwarzbein, FAD, etc. are all pretty familiar and make a lot more sense than the cholesterol theory does. At least half the people who die of heart attacks have normal cholesterol, and people who eat low fat diets (such as the vegans of S India) are not more healthy, perhaps less, judging from the S India data, compared with the N India folks who eat meat and have less CHD.

Val

[VALEWIS]

Whoops- that should read "We need saturated fat for fat soluble vitamins!"

Val

[mrfreddy]

For those who need to control their weight, we recommend a related, but more healthful, alternative: the low-glycemic diet. Like low-carb diets, this eating plan reduces post-meal blood sugar surges that can lead to hunger pangs a few hours later. But a low-glycemic diet includes abundant carbohydrates in the form of whole grains, pasta, legumes, nuts, fruits, and pretty much any vegetable except potatoes.




gee, all this time I've been doing a low glycemic diet and didn't even know it, I thought I was doing atkins... wait a sec, I WAS doing Atkins... (well, except for the pasta, can't see any reason to eat that stuff, it seems too boring and tasteless, pass the prime rib please...)

[mrfreddy]

The Atkins group had ... regained enough so that the difference between the two groups was no longer significant.




there is a very significant difference, the low carbers are never hungry!

I think it's probably true that, in the long run, you can lose the same amount via low fat or via low carb, but unless you are a vegetarian or have heath issues (bad kidneys, MS, etc.), why on earth would you want to go the low-fat-be-hungry-all-the-time route?

[VALEWIS]

What about this recent little study:

"NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A relatively high amount of fat in the diet may be a boon to a healthy person's cholesterol levels, a small study suggests. On the other hand, limiting fat intake too much could have the opposite effect.

Researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalo found that when 11 healthy but sedentary adults followed a very low-fat diet (19 percent of calories from fat) for three weeks, they saw a drop in their HDL cholesterol -- the "good" cholesterol believed to protect against heart disease.

In contrast, three weeks on a diet that provided 50 percent of calories from fat boosted participants' HDL levels, according to findings published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition.

To circulate in the blood, cholesterol must be attached to a protein, forming a complex called a lipoprotein. HDL, or high-density lipoprotein, molecules carry cholesterol away from the arteries and to the liver to be cleared from the body. Experts believe that an HDL level of 60 or more helps lower the risk of heart disease, while a level lower than 40 raises the risk.

The new findings suggest that adequate fat intake can help ward off heart disease by raising HDL.
"That isn't to say we think everyone should be on a 50-percent fat diet," study co-author Dr. David R. Pendergast told Reuters Health.
But, he said, the findings do indicate that moderation, and not tight restriction, is the way to go. According to Pendergast, that means getting about 30 to 35 percent of calories from fat -- at or slightly more than the level health officials currently recommend.

But he also stressed the importance of calorie balance, which means eating only enough to meet the body's calorie expenditure. Fat has more calories per gram than either carbohydrates or protein, and if a person takes in more calories as a result of eating more fat, weight gain may follow.
While saturated fat is blamed for raising "bad" LDL cholesterol levels, Pendergast said it may in fact be the combination of lots of fat and too many calories that makes for unhealthy cholesterol profiles.

In his team's study, the high-fat diet -- rich in foods such as red meat and olive oil -- provided roughly the same number of daily calories as participants' regular diets, which contained about 30 percent of calories from fat.

The 19-percent low-fat diet had fewer calories, and men and women in the study lost a small amount of weight while following it. Their HDL levels, however, were significantly lower on this diet than on the high-fat one-an average of 54 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL), versus 63 mg/dL, Pendergast and his colleagues found.

What's more, the high-fat diet did not boost LDL cholesterol beyond the levels participants had on their regular diets.
Although the men and women followed each diet for only three weeks, Pendergast said he does not think the cholesterol effects are "transient."


He and his colleagues had previously conducted a similar study with endurance runners, in which a very low fat intake had negative effects on HDL cholesterol and on immune function. Pendergast said this research suggests that both healthy, sedentary people and healthy athletes are "probably not well served" by diets very low in fat.

Whether high- and low-fat diets have the same effects in obese individuals or those with cardiovascular disease is not yet clear, he noted.

As for why a high-fat, calorie-conscious diet might bump up HDL levels, one theory is that dietary fat leads to higher levels of the chief HDL transporter protein, ApoA1.


SOURCE: Journal of the American College of Nutrition, April 2004."


Mind you, the interpretation is still predicated on the heart-cholesterol theory, and I am skeptical about that anyway.

Val

[mcsblues]

I maintain a healthy skepticism but am not necessarily anti-Atkins. I think the good doctor may have been on to something about carbs - certain kinds at least - but he didn't have the whole picture. Research in this area is evolving and I think we would all benefit by keeping an open mind. I have already come to question some of the beliefs I had about certain low-fat foods (e.g. margarine) as I continue to educate myself.

Here's an excerpt from the Consumer Reports on Health October 2003 newsletter:

The low-carb diet made headlines in the spring with the publication of three independent randomized controlled trials that, for the first time, compared the standard low-fat reducing diet with the recently deceased Dr. Atkins’ “diet revolution”—the original and still dominant low-carb diet. Surprising obesity and heart experts, people on the Atkins or a similar diet lost more weight over six months than people in the low-fat group. Moreover, despite consuming unlimited meat, eggs, and full-fat dairy products, containing dangerous-seeming quantities of saturated fats and cholesterol, their blood lipids not only showed no ill effects, but also in some cases actually improved.

A less-publicized result of the studies is that the effectiveness of the Atkins diet seems to dwindle with time. While Atkins dieters lost more weight over six months, in the one study that continued for a year both low-fat and low-carb dieters regained some of the lost weight. The Atkins group had ... regained enough so that the difference between the two groups was no longer significant."
- This is a highly questionable conclusion - I suggest you read the studies and make up your own mind.
“This suggests that it’s increasingly difficult for people to follow the diet over time because of its severely restricted nature,” says David Ludwig, M.D., director of obesity programs at Children’s Hospital in Boston....
Wow - if you stop low carbing it doesn't work?? What they neglect to mention is that the drop out rate for low carb subjects is LOWER than the low fat subjects. Why? - because they do not need to go hungry- and as long as they (or you) follow the guidelines superior weight loss will continue.
“Nor is it clear that a low-carb diet high in saturated fat and protein is safe for longer-term use. Scientists have long known that high-protein diets stress the kidneys; in fact, a standard treatment for serious kidney disease is to severely restrict protein intake.
- Again they neglect to tell you that with out pre-existing kidney disease, there are plenty of studies to say a higher protein diet will not affect kidney function.
“"Since many overweight people suffer from undiagnosed diabetes— itself a major risk factor for kidney disease—the risk of possible kidney damage is real."
- Another good reason to start a low carb way of life to bring your blood sugar under control and "cure" your diabetes (whether diagnosed or not).
"This aspect of high-protein weight loss diets has not been adequately studied...
- Yes it has!
"For those who need to control their weight, we recommend a related, but more healthful, alternative: the low-glycemic diet. Like low-carb diets, this eating plan reduces post-meal blood sugar surges that can lead to hunger pangs a few hours later. But a low-glycemic diet includes abundant carbohydrates in the form of whole grains, pasta, legumes, nuts, fruits, and pretty much any vegetable except potatoes.

Interesting stuff. They mention two books, “The New Glucose Revolution.” by Jennie Brand-Miller et al. and “Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy.” by Walter C. Willett. I'll try to find time to read them.
My conversation with the infamous Brand-Miller is discussed in this article;

http://www.theomnivore.com/low_GI_vs_low_carb.html

An interview with Willett can be found here;
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/diet/interviews/willett.html

- although the Taubes story is more enlightening;
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/diet/interviews/taubes.html

Willett is sort of heading in the right direction, but he seems sadly confused on the saturated fat question.

Cheers,


Malcolm

[Lisa N]

The Atkins group had ... regained enough so that the difference between the two groups was no longer significant. “This suggests that it’s increasingly difficult for people to follow the diet over time because of its severely restricted nature,” says David Ludwig, M.D., director of obesity programs at Children’s Hospital in Boston...

What this suggests to me is that both groups had trouble sticking with it, not just the low carbers, and there was a higher drop out rate among those on the low fat plan. IIRC, the test subjects were not given a choice as to which plan they got to follow; they were assigned randomly. I'll have to see if I can find the link to the discussion we had on this study. I seem to remember that at the end of it, the Atkins subjects had still maintained a 50% greater weight loss (a number the researchers called "insignificant") and their cardiac profiles were still better than those following the low fat plan.

[westerner]

I would just like to add that Atkins' for Life is effectively a low glycemic diet...most of the heavy critique has been aimed at Induction type dieting.

I think you've got a point here. I believe we should distinguish between inducton dieting - intended as a reducing diet from what I gather - and the Atkins "maintenance stage" diet, which appears to have significant overlap with the low-glycemic diet. Here is what I understand so far:

Induction dieting
- for weight loss
- works through ketosis
- short term: lose more weight than low-fat diet
- long term effectiveness & side effects of ketosis = ?
- not for kids

Whether this is a good reducing diet is a separate question from what the ideal "maintenance diet" should be. I've now read all of the Consumer Reports on Health articles about Atkins/LC dieting, and the key point seems to be not low carbs, but controlled amounts of the right carbs. If I could modify your statement slightly, I would say

I fail to see how eliminating a lot of processed starch and sugar from one's diet, while eating heaps of veg and moderate meat as it comes, and no transfats is going to harm.

[westerner]

- This is a highly questionable conclusion - I suggest you read the studies and make up your own mind.

- Yes it has!

the infamous Brand-Miller
Just want to make sure you know who Consumer Reports is. They are published by Consumers Union, a 50+ year old non-profit dedicated to improving peoples' lives by honest and objective reviews about all types of products and services. They are beholden to no special interests, and are not so easily dismissed.

Consumer Reports (http://www.consumerreports.org)

[westerner]

What about this recent little study:

"NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A relatively high amount of fat in the diet may be a boon to a healthy person's cholesterol levels, a small study suggests. On the other hand, limiting fat intake too much could have the opposite effect.

Mind you, the interpretation is still predicated on the heart-cholesterol theory, and I am skeptical about that anyway.
This is one of many studies that shows that Atkins/LC is quite effective at weight loss, at least in the short term.

[Lisa N]

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=107100&highlight=year

Above is the discussion that I referred to in my earlier post. I still find it interesting that the researchers dismissed a better than 60% difference in weight loss at the end of the year study (on top of better cardiac profiles) as "not significant". I'd bet that had the low fat group come out on top they would have been shouting it from the rooftops as "more effective" than low carb. :rolleyes:
Regarding Consumer Reports; while they have provided a valuable service to the public for many years in reporting on products and services, I'm not at all convinced that they are in any way qualified to interpret the results of a scientific medical study. Report on it, perhaps, even give their opinion on it, but qualified to interpret the results? Nope.

[mcsblues]

Just want to make sure you know who Consumer Reports is. They are published by Consumers Union, a 50+ year old non-profit dedicated to improving peoples' lives by honest and objective reviews about all types of products and services. They are beholden to no special interests, and are not so easily dismissed.

Consumer Reports (http://www.consumerreports.org)

The opinion expressed on behalf of any organisation, no matter how old or "objective" can be easily dismissed if they tell you things which are demonstrably not true.

I would urge you to not take their word for it (or mine) and read the studies for yourself, and make up your own mind.

Cheers,

Malcolm

[LilaCotton]

Westerner, anyone who loses weight is going to gain it back if they revert to their old eating habits. That's the problem with most diets out there today. I know people who've followed Atkins, lost weight, then stopped the plan. Either they didn't think about it as a way of life, or at some point in time completely forgot what they learned on Atkins.

One thing I find very wonderful about following Atkins is that unlike low-fat diets like WW and Richard Simmons, I eat enough that my appetite is completely satiated. Granted, there are non-LC foods that I love, but with a satisfied appetite, whether or not I eat those foods really isn't a huge issue. With low-fat diets, where I was starving all the time, it did become a huge issue. I got so tired of being hungry I couldn't stick with any of them.

You mentioned low-glycemic diets for blood sugar control, and as you can see in Atkins for Life that's very much the maintenance phase of the Atkins plan. Unfortunately, though, losing weight on maintenance isn't easy to do--I know, I followed a low-glycemic way of eating for around two years before starting Atkins because it kept my blood sugar in check. I never lost a pound in the process. The problem was, even though I was eating low-glycemic foods, I was still consuming way too many carbohydrates.

I look forward to reaching my goal and going on maintenance. I've read Atkins for Life, and honestly it's going to be an easy path to follow. I can deal without pasta (haven't had one bite of pasta in 7 months now, which in retrospect is a little hard to believe!), can live mostly without potatoes (a little potato salad a couple of times a year isn't against Atkins for Life), and rice is just completely over-rated!

I know some refer to Atkins as restrictive. How on earth can eating the foods with the most flavor be restrictive? Carbohydrate-laden foods don't have flavor (with the exception of home-made white bread and fresh corn) until something is put on them! Look at potatoes--what do you add for flavor? Ever eat potatoes plain with nothing on them? Yuck! And rice? Ever eat it just out of the pan with nothing? Even worse than potatoes! And pasta's another one--it has no flavor without sauce.

I really think that when people call Atkins restrictive they simply have no imagination, and really don't appreciate the finer foods in life. ;)

[elijaeger]

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=107100&highlight=year

Above is the discussion that I referred to in my earlier post. I still find it interesting that the researchers dismissed a better than 60% difference in weight loss at the end of the year study (on top of better cardiac profiles) as "not significant". I'd bet that had the low fat group come out on top they would have been shouting it from the rooftops as "more effective" than low carb. :rolleyes:
It is very interesting, considering a recent short term study on low carb raved about the better weight loss on low carb vs. low fat. (don't know the study) but didn't bother the simple research to note the regular water loss occuring on keto diets.

Still, 60% is impressive, makes you wonder about metabolic advantage or simply issues of adequete protein. the water loss probably only amounts to 5-15 pounds.

[ItsTheWooo]

I've seen a number of studies demonstrate that Atkins/low-carb can lead to significant weight loss in the short term, i.e., over a 6 month period.

Does anyone know of any studies that have followed Atkins/low-carb dieters over several years? I have not been able to locate any.

I've been doing Atkins for approximately 14 months. It's been very successful for me. Never once have I "fallen off the wagon" nor have I wanted to. Never once have I gone up in sizes. I have sustained a continuously lower or stable bodyfat level for the entire duration. I have very little doubt that maintaining the atkins lifestyle indefinitely will be easy for me. I eat everything I want to eat and never feel deprived. Unless something physically happens to my body which would make this stop working (an illness of some kind), I don't worry too much about rebound weight gain.

[ItsTheWooo]

Sorry but I don't understand how anyone can call an atkins-like diet overly restricted and limited. I eat better than I did before. My meals pre-lc consisted of a bunch of "snacks" and a huge meal at dinner. For snacks i would have disgustingly bad carb foods... cereals, fruit juices & snack cakes/crackers, ramen soups, and WAY too much fruit. I was absolutely addicted to fruit and would eat it all day every day in huge quantities. LOL, I thought it was healthy! The kicker is it never satisfied my appetite, in fact the more I ate the more I wanted to eat. Dinner was the only time I would ever feel full and that's because dinner was the only time when I would eat real food: fatty meats and the like. It's unfortunate that along with fatty meats and low sugar veggies with fatty dressings I also had HUGE servings of starch and fructose/glucose drinks.

I replaced a bunch of chewy, bland, nutritionally-void flavorless raw energy from sugar and starch for delicious food. I eat tangy/spicy guacamole with soy chips... omelets... lasagne (trade the chewy calorie-laden starch for eggplant)... I don't even miss my starchy side dishes because I've replaced them all with LC alternatives (god bless you, cauliflower). In fact, I just got done eating a delicious to die for NY cheesecake w/ strawberries and sugar-free jam. Best of all, I am NEVER hungry... and if I am hungry I eat something because hunger is NOT part of the LC way.

I get to enjoy rich flavorful food, always feel full, and lose weight too. What more could you ask for in a plan?

[liz175]

I think that people have an unfortunate tendency to confuse the Atkins weight-loss phases with the Atkins maintenance phases. Atkins seems very clear (to me, at least), that as people approach their goal weight they need to increase healthy, low glycemic carbs and this will result in cutting the amount of fat in their diet. Most people (with the exception of people like me who start out with well over 100 pounds to lose) reach their goal weight in a couple of months.

If someone is concerned about eating saturated fat, there is no reason that person has to eat a lot of saturated fat while following Atkins. Yes, you do need to eat a diet that is higher in fat than the average American diet, but the majority of that fat can come from fish, olive oil, etc. There are quite a few people posting on this board who are following Atkins and don't eat red meat. I do eat red meat, but I don't love it and I only eat it a couple of times a week at most. I get most of my protein from fish, chicken, eggs, and cheese. That's my personal choice because those are the foods I like -- I am convinced that saturated fat is only unhealthy when consumed in combination with large amount of carbohydrates -- but there is no reason that someone who was concerned about eating too much saturated fat could not make the same food choices I do for different reasons. When I cook fish (which is one of my favorite foods, so I eat it several times a week), I put a mixture of olive oil and butter on the fish. Someone concerned about saturated fats could use all olive oil. Atkins doesn't say you have to eat lots of red meat; he just says that eating red meat in the absence of large quantities of carbohydrates will not have a negative effect on your cholesterol.

Given the lack of long-term studies on Atkins, I do think that those of us who are following the weight-loss phase of the diet for a long time should periodically get check-ups and monitor our physical health. I would feel the same way if I were following any other weight-loss problem long-term, since there are no good long-term studies on people who lose over 100 pounds and losing that amount of weight is a strain on one's body (although carrying the weight is an even bigger strain!). I had a check-up about a year ago, after nine months on Atkins. My cholesterol had dropped from 215 to 199, HDL was up, LDL was down, triglycerides had bottomed out at 52! My blood presure was also down. I have an appointment to get a check-up and more blood tests in a couple of weeks and I will post my results then. Given that my results were perfect a year ago, my insurance will not pay for tests more frequently than once a year or I probably would have gotten them done sooner.

Regardless of my blood test results (and I have every reason to expect them to continue to be excellent), I have a lot of trouble imagining that somehow I would be healthier than I am now if I was still carrying the 115 pounds I have lost, but I was eating more carbs and less fat! Losing the weight on a lowfat, low calorie diet was not an option for me. I tried that many times and could never stick to it. I thought that was because I had no willpower, but now I know it is because I was insulin resistant and the highcarb, lowfat diet created havoc with my blood sugar.

[tamarian]

Just want to make sure you know who Consumer Reports is. They are published by Consumers Union, a 50+ year old non-profit dedicated to improving peoples' lives by honest and objective reviews about all types of products and services. They are beholden to no special interests, and are not so easily dismissed.

Consumer Reports (http://www.consumerreports.org)
Just want to point out the obvious, Consumer Reports is not a long term study :)

Even their opinions on Slimfast and Weight Watchers is not based on long term studies, and never claimed to be.

Wa'il

[Marge]

Interestingly, I find I'm not eating any more protein then I used to eat, I'm just eating less of the fillers that go with meals in the form of pasta and bread (never was a big potatoe or rice fan). The other thing thats missing is the high carb/high fat snack foods like chips & chocolate. Go figure.

[VALEWIS]

Liz175,

Great post.

Val