Atkins Health and Medical Information Services Research Update

Controlled-carbohydrate research from around the world

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Volume 3, Issue I
April 2004

NEW YORK, April 8 /PRNewswire/ -- As an ongoing service from Atkins Health & Medical Information Services to practicing physicians and medical and lifestyle journalists, our
communications department provides the latest developments in clinical research on controlled-carbohydrate nutritional practices and the Atkins Nutritional Approach(TM) (ANA) as they occur and are reported. If you would like any further information or access to our complete library of published controlled-carbohydrate research, please contact Gina Mangiaracina at 212-457-9243, 212-457-9240 or gmangiaracina~atkins.com. You can also find the complete library of published studies in The Science Behind
Atkins section at http://www.atkins.com.


THE DIET-HEART HYPOTHESIS: A CRITIQUE
"Low-Carb science can no longer be ignored ... "

In a recent article published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Dr. Sylvan Weinberg, MD, MACC, calls for medical professionals to recognize the validity of low-carbohydrate/high-protein diets like Atkins in the fight against heart disease. Additionally, he asserts that it is no longer reasonable to accept or endorse on faith alone the superiority of the low-fat, high-carbohydrate approach to coronary health.
Dr. Weinberg's call to action came in response to an article from the same publication by Kappagoda and others, which challenged the value of a low-carbohydrate/high-protein diet (LCarb-HP), despite an abundance of research showing its favorable impact on obesity, lipid patterns, type 2 diabetes and the metabolic syndrome.
Dr. Weinberg's critique follows the history of the diet-heart hypothesis for the last hundred years. He describes how the promotion of low-fat diets began in earnest following the National Institute of Health (NIH)-sponsored Lipid Research Clinics Coronary Primary Prevention Trial in 1984, which produced evidence that lowering serum cholesterol was essential in the
prevention and management of coronary artery disease (CAD).
Dr. Weinberg suggests that the current crises of obesity, type 2 diabetes and the metabolic syndrome reached epidemic proportions due, in part, to the inevitable result of a low-fat/high-carbohydrate diet (LF-HCarb) that led to the over consumption of low-fat products deemed healthy by respected organizations like the American Heart Association, the NIH and the USDA. To
make matters worse for the consumer, this dietary approach was promoted aggressively by medical professionals, the media and the government.
Dr. Weinberg goes on to point out that Kappagoda, et al, challenges the role of the LCarb-HP and its role in clinical cardiology, citing theoretical, yet unproven, dangers of this nutritional approach. Also, he mentions that the article's authors tended to dismiss recent, promising studies on LCarb-HP
diets, including those from Westman, Yancy and Guyton, and a published peer-reviewed study in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In conclusion, Dr. Weinberg calls for a balanced re-evaluation of the diet-heart hypothesis, which has historically suggested that diets high in fat intake increase the prevalence of coronary artery disease, as well as the role that the LF-HCarb diet may well have played in the current epidemic of obesity, abnormal lipid patterns, type 2 diabetes and the metabolic syndrome.
He believes it is no longer tenable to defend the LF-HCarb diet simply because it conforms to current traditional dietary recommendations. Additionally, Dr.Weinberg believes that there is no justification for the ongoing categorical rejection of experience and increasingly favorable medical literature,
suggesting that the much-maligned LCarb-HP diet may have a favorable impact on type 2 diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome and lipid patterns.

Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Vol. 43, No. 5. 2004 -
Sylvan Lee Weinberg, MD, MACC

Click on the link above for more articles in this journal.