I think the Brits call it an In QWHY ree

[PacNW]

What a freakin' waste of British pounds:

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Inquiry ordered into Atkins diet
The controversial Atkins diet is to come under government scrutiny amid growing concern over obesity figures, it is reported.

The investigation will be carried out by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (Nice).

About 10m Britons are believed to be following a diet at any one time, a third of them choosing Atkins-style, high-protein regimes.

Three-quarters of adults in the UK are reportedly overweight or obese.

The Atkins diet involves eating lots of fat, meat and other high protein food while cutting out carbohydrates

The team that will evaluate it will be made up of up to 20 doctors, nutritionists and dieticians, the Independent on Sunday reports.

Unhealthy?

Critics of the Atkins diet claim it can have consequences such as kidney damage, thin bones and high cholesterol.

The potential long-term consequences of high-fat diets are still unknown, they warn, and are likely to include a higher risk of diabetes and early heart attack.

A recent study warned that the diet might also reduce woman's chances of conceiving.

But the diet, which leads to rapid weight loss, has been praised by scores of celebrities, including singer Robbie Williams and actress Jennifer Aniston, and has proved hugely popular with the public.

The Atkins company, which has launched a special food range to go with its diet books, has a turnover of about £60m.

Obesity 'epidemics'

Its biggest markets are the USA, Britain, Japan and Italy.

Sales of potatoes in Britain - which Atkins diet followers are advised not to eat, along other high carbohydrate foods such as bread and pasta - reportedly fell by 4.5% last year.

The investigation into the Atkins diet is part of the most comprehensive study of obesity in Britain so far.

It will be carried out by Nice, a regulatory body which provides national guidance on treatments and care in England and Wales, together with the Health Development Agency.

The inquiry comes in the wake of a damning report from the Commons Select Committee on Health, which criticised ministers for failing to tackle growing obesity rates.

The results of the study, which will be published in a year's time, is expected to have an impact on how doctors choose to treat their overweight patients.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/3545850.stm

[mio1996]

Let us pick apart this article, shall we? The media bias is amazing.

What a freakin' waste of British pounds:

I'll agree with you right off. There is over 130 years worth of anecdotal evidence concerning the effectiveness and health promoting quality of lc, but someone has to spend hard-earned money on "official studies." Sheesh!

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Inquiry ordered into Atkins diet
The controversial Atkins diet is to come under government scrutiny amid growing concern over obesity figures, it is reported.

The investigation will be carried out by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (Nice).

Is there a line in the british constitution that allows national authorities to spend money on such things? I don't know honestly. The US constitution does not allow such, but they do it anyway.


About 10m Britons are believed to be following a diet at any one time, a third of them choosing Atkins-style, high-protein regimes.

Atkins is a high-fat and high-nutrient program, not high-protein.


Three-quarters of adults in the UK are reportedly overweight or obese.

Which they wouldn't be if they were on lc!


The Atkins diet involves eating lots of fat, meat and other high protein food while cutting out carbohydrates

So fat is a high-protein food? Also, what about the mammoth servings of vegetables Atkins' Dieters are allowed? They don't mention those.


The team that will evaluate it will be made up of up to 20 doctors, nutritionists and dieticians, the Independent on Sunday reports.

These are the same people who tell us to eat high-sugar, low-fat, low-protein and we will be healthy! They are not objective!


Critics of the Atkins diet claim it can have consequences such as kidney damage, thin bones and high cholesterol.

There is not a single study proving this. If there is, I wish they would quote it.

The potential long-term consequences of high-fat diets are still unknown, they warn, and are likely to include a higher risk of diabetes and early heart attack.

Wait a minute...I thought before they said atkins was a high-protein diet? Yes, cultures living on lc diets (like the Inuit) have a higher risk of heart disease and diabetes--when they start eating metabolic poison! Atkins is a WOL. Stay with it and your risk will go down, or I'll eat my hat.


A recent study warned that the diet might also reduce woman's chances of conceiving.

Maybe we don't need so many kids to continue the survival of our species if we are NOT POISONING OUR BODIES EVERY DAY!


But the diet, which leads to rapid weight loss, has been praised by scores of celebrities, including singer Robbie Williams and actress Jennifer Aniston, and has proved hugely popular with the public.


So out of that entire article there is one paragraph telling anything positive. The rest is negative. Whatever happened to objective reporting?

[bevbme]

Look on the bright side. If they actually do a study of people following Atkins for a full year instead of doing a "parrot talk" of the PETA press releases, maybe they will find that the health risks are not there after all.

[diemde]

It really bugs me that so many of the media folks call Atkins high protein. I just wish they'd learn before they write!

[LondonIan]

Just to clear up - yup the British do fund these kind of studies. Since we have a Public National Health Service, the role of NICE is do an cost/benefit evaluation to discover if a given treatment protocol should be funded via the NHS.

The media bia may be obvious, what will be more interesting is what NICE comes out wityh and who they appoint. The results published by this organisation are almost always based on metaresearch rather than original studies nad are inherently conservative. ON the other hand, they are massivley concerned with , 'what's the cheapest protocol that works?'. It's why so many US treatments are unavaiolable here - they are not considered adequately researched or proven. So... we shall see.

[Turtle2003]

Just think about the way in which the media presents misinformation about low carb eating. Now, think about all the other news the media presents to us. If the rest of the 'news' is as accurate as what they say about LC eating, then we can't believe much of what they are telling us. Kinda makes you worry a little.

[LondonIan]

When dinosaurs ruled I used to have a little involvement with the press and got interviewed a couple of times. Both articles had straight quotes from me (obviously verbatim since they were in quotation marks). Bore no resemblance to anything I'd said.

I sometimes have the insider info on local stories and the press articles are invariably wrong or immensely slanted. Sad.

[Lisa N]

Three-quarters of adults in the UK are reportedly overweight or obese.

If this figure is true, then the UK has passed the US in percentages of overweight or obese adults (current US figures are 60% overweight or obese).

A recent study warned that the diet might also reduce woman's chances of conceiving.

Horsefeathers! Low carb has been used quite successfully with women who suffer with PCOS to increase their odds of conception, not decrease it, since PCOS is linked to hyperinsulinism, insulin resistance and diabetes. Oh...and the study that they referred to was performed on mice (a vegetarian species), not humans and even the researchers admitted freely about having doubts as to whether the results could be extrapolated to humans. So..what they're referring to is a study that showed that fertility in a vegetarian species is lowered by a high protein diet. What a surprise. :rolleyes:

[kyrasdad]

I continue to be amused at the intense scrutiny low carb diets receive. Good that the Brits are doing research, though. If it's good research, they won't be able to say that since Atkins or the Beef Industry funded it, it's invalid.

I can't imagine why anyone thinks a diet of mostly whole foods, meats, cheeses, and vegetables could be detrimental to health. My lunch menu today includes a chicken breast, 1/4 cup sliced tomatoes (salted), cheddar cheese, and a small cup of sugar free Strawberry Jello. Every day, I have salad, brocolli, etc. along with all the protein they mention in the news article (the protein is all they seem to be able to verbalize).

What is possibly unhealthy about that? I've cut baked bread and sugar out of it; otherwise it's much like the food anyone else eats. If I need bread, how come ancient man survived so well without it? If I need refined sugar, why didn't he?

[Nancy LC]

It's unhealthy to the profits of potatoe growers and cereal producers! And we've just come out of a couple of decades of "All fat is bad" and now we're in the phase of "saturated fat is bad". Takes a long, long time to erase the bad programming of the nutrition-bots.

[PlaneCrazy]

The little trick of putting the words, usually criticism, you want to say into the mouths of anonymous sources is a common one in the press here in the states, especially cable news shows. It's amazing how often you'll here the words, "some people say" or "some critics say" followed by some unsubstantiated drival that is supposed to pass as news or even as commentary. It's a cowardly and lazy way of spouting opinion without having to back it up with facts or support it if caught in a lie. You always can point to "that's just what people say, not me."

It's also valuable as a way to set up a straw man. You might find a commentator talking about all the meat and eggs and butter allowed in the Atkins diet and then add "Some people say that eating all fat is good for you, but studies show you need some vitamins as well" with the implication that "all-fat" is referring to the diet you were just describing. The connection is never directly made, and is fully denyable, but the implication is clear and usually understood by the listeners not quick enough to catch the verbal slight-of-hand.

So, next time you're watching a news show or a bunch of talking heads on television, watch out for those red flags.
"Some people say" (including all tenses like "people are saying"
"Some critics say"
and others.

Just three examples
CNN (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22people+say%22+site%3Acnn.com&btnG=Google+Search)
Fox News (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22people+say%22+site%3Afoxnews.com&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8)
BBC News (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=%22people+say%22+site%3Anews.bbc.co.uk&btnG=Search)

And some antidotes:
List of Critical thinking skills (http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/envrnmnt/drugfree/sa3crit.htm)
Excellent brief descriptions of critical thinking as well as fallacies (http://www2.sjsu.edu/depts/itl/graphics/main.html) My favorite that I see all the time nowadays is the False Dilemma (http://www2.sjsu.edu/depts/itl/graphics/adhom/dilemma.html)

Plane Crazy
Critical-Thinker-Wanna-Be but the lack of carbs is fogging my brain. :)