NYT implies that Atkins' diet killed him
 

This irks me. The NYT implies that Atkins' diet killed him:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/...ck&login=google

They also imply that he died in his sixties from his diet; he was 72 and he died from hitting his head on the sidewalk after slipping on the ice.

Why am I unsurprised? The "respectable" world spread lies about his death as soon as it happened.

He was actually in fine shape and still playing tennis at his age.

WIll this story EVER die? Sheesh.

I think you're spitting hairs, here's the quote from the article. The use of language is fine in my view...

"...Nathan Pritikin, one of the foremost champions of low-fat diets, died at 69, nearly the same age as Dr. Robert Atkins, who believed in the opposite regimen."

The article doles out digs to all, it doesn't pick on Dr. Atkins. It mentions him exactly once as you have just read above. I don't think the sentence or article blamed any ones dietary views and practices on how they died. I think it points out that death is a pretty very fair arbitrator, no matter what your conviction.

We'll all die and I suspect it will likely be something we're not expecting as we live today. It's not the shark you see that gets you; it's the one that you don't.

;)

I was going to say pretty much the same thing because I did go to the link and read it and all it I got out of it is that no matter what diet they did, they all died as we will too!
No say it's not true!!! :daze:

My worst problem with the article is that the point that hundreds or thousands of subjects with well controlled data etc. is made, but the whole article seems to draw conclusions from a bunch of individual anecdotes. Also with calorie restriction, even Walford actually especially Walford would have known that calorie restriction even in rodents simply isn't as effective in adult animals as it is when started in youth.

This seems a rather trivial article. Yes we are all going to die eventually no matter what we do and many of the factors leading to our death are beyond our individual control but that doesn't mean that the choices we make individually don't matter. And the article does imply that Atkins was much younger when he died than he actually was. That's just sloppy journalism in my opinion. I think the author just needed to get Dr Atkins name in there because of his notoriety not because of what is true about him. Public health matters, as the article says, but individual choice matters too as does careful science and careful journalism. This article is too much of a mish mash to be of much value. The author could have picked a number of other anecdotes of people who lived long lives advocating other lifestyles and diets such Jack LaLanne or Herbert Spencer who was a vegetarian and advocated water fasting but of course that wouldn't have helped make the point.

None of these anecdotes prove anything of great significance but my n=1 experiment that reversed many disease processes in my life and greatly improved the quality of my life mean something, at least they mean something to me. I might get hit by a car and die while engaging in my daily walk for overall health but does that mean that my eating low carb doesn't matter? Would I have been better off not taking my daily walk? This article is just silly.

Jean

Such articles like to assure people that they are fine doing nothing to improve their lives, because a thousand years from now who will care?

Riiiiiiight. She said sarcastically.

Okay, this is maybe the least political bit I can take in here, what the whole article was building to. And, a non-political observation I can make here; good sewer systems, clean water supply, vaccination etc. does do a lot for the common good. But that doesn't take away the value of individual hygiene. Similarly, if government had any idea what a healthy diet was, and how to get people to eat it, they could probably improve the health of the section of the population they're more directly responsible for feeding. But a zillion n=1's would still be out there--and if they don't choose to eat well, they won't benefit. Also real benefit to a population doesn't occur without individual benefit--it may only be impossible to know who benefits, which people would have died from some disease without the intervention. It's fine to apply probability, but it is individuals who benefit, even if you don't know which ones. And in some cases, getting enough people to participate in a change for there to be a measurable cross-population benefit ought to involve individual commitment. Any surgeon who took up proper sanitation before it was the consensus is likely to have saved lives. Dr. Bernstein didn't need a second diabetic to make his n=1 a success, he only needed it to establish that his results weren't unique to himself.

This should not be individual responsibility/experience vs. common responsibility. There are things I should do for my own health and for my neighbour's health.

I take everything in the NYT with a grain of salt.

In the spirit of comity, I'll leave it at that.

First time I hear Atkins was a longevity researcher. I thought he was a medical doctor who treated patients in his clinic, and an author who wrote a couple of diet books based on this clinical practice.

I wanted to write something smart, I gave up.

Well, until they succeed, and they are accustomed to getting what they want, lifestyle changes are all we will have.

The trick is to stay alive and healthy until "Longevity escape velocity" is achieved -- and have enough money for the treatments. Perhaps in 30 years or so.

My point would be yes, they both died at nearly the same age, however, the Wiki quote about Nathan Pritikin says "In the early 1980s, he began to suffer severe pain and complications related to leukemia. He committed suicide on February 21, 1985"
Atkins was active, healthy, and fell and hit his head.... no comparison!

In all fairness, they weren't immortality researchers.