http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/hea...cout531598.html

THURSDAY, March 16 (HealthDay News) -- The Atkins diet, which stresses low-carbohydrate, high-protein foods as a way to lose weight, might not be safe for everyone, new research suggests.

In a case report, Dr. Klaus-Dieter Lessnau, a clinical assistant professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine, and his colleagues describe a life-threatening complication of the Atkins diet that occurred in 2004 to a 40-year-old obese woman.

The report appears in the March 18 issue of The Lancet.

The patient had followed the Atkins diet, including Atkins supplements. She went to the hospital with difficulty breathing and was diagnosed with a condition called ketoacidosis.

Ketoacidosis results when dangerously high levels of acids called ketones build up in the blood. Ketones are produced in the liver during starvation. A low-carbohydrate diet such as Atkins can lead to ketone production, Lessnau's team notes.

"She had to be admitted to the intensive care unit," Lessnau said. "The diet actually caused her acidosis."

Lessnau is surprised that this problem with the Atkins diet has not been reported before. "This is something that is not well-diagnosed or may be underreported," he said.

"The Atkins diet is not a safe diet in everybody," Lessnau said. "It can cause potentially life-threatening problems."

One expert suspects the diet itself may not have caused the woman's problem.

"This shows that people who are obese and lose a lot of weight quickly should be doing so under medical supervision," said Gary D. Foster, director of the Center for Obesity Research and Education at Temple University. "Losing weight quickly brings its own set of problems."

Foster doesn't blame the diet itself. "It's a bit of a red herring to blame the diet," Foster said. "It's not clear from one case. We have known for a long time that losing weight quickly is a bad idea medically."

Another expert thinks that choosing a healthy diet is important when one wants to lose weight.

"One should be sensible when they want to lose weight," said Lyn Steffen, of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, and author of an accompanying commentary. "They should choose a diet that's healthy for them, as well as be physically active."

"My recommendation is to develop healthy eating habits for life," Steffen said. "The low-carbohydrate diet is not a diet for life."

Another expert said he's been against the Atkins diet from the time it was introduced in the 1970s.

"The Atkins diet is at odds with a strong foundation of knowledge about the fundamentals of healthful eating and sustainable weight loss," said Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Yale Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine, and author of The Flavor Point Diet.

One case report does not prove that it is a harmful diet, Katz said. "But the burden of proof has always been the other way around: diets at odds with conventional dietary wisdom must prove themselves healthful. In my opinion, the Atkins diet never did, and never will, meet this test."

NO ?!? I guess I should stop following the ONLY diet I have been able to follow for over 3 years now.



This is the only diet that improved my health miraculously!

Morons.

Oh my gosh. Seeing stuff like this makes me want to lose my lunch. The ignorance portrayed is stunning!

I still say they are idoits and I love Atkins, Im so tired of having to argue with eveyone about it. If you dont like it dont do it but for Us who do leave us alone

Another article on the report.
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/new...TH-DIETS-DC.XML

LONDON (Reuters) - Low carbohydrate, high protein diets may help to shed weight quickly but researchers warned on Friday that they can be unhealthy.

The diets can cause constipation, diarrhea, headache, bad breath and ketosis, which causes raised levels of ketones, or acids, in the body.

"Low-carbohydrate diets for weight management are far from healthy," said Lyn Steffen and Jennifer Nettleton, of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in Minneapolis, writing in the British Medical Journal.

They cited the unpleasant effects and a lack of trials to test the long-term effects of low-carbohydrate diets.

In a case report in the journal, doctors at New York University School of Medicine said they had treated a 40-year-old obese woman, who had followed the Atkins diet, for a life-threatening illness known as ketoacidosis.

The diet, based on research by Dr Robert Atkins who died in 2003, involves eating proteins such as meat and cheese and limiting carbohydrates such as bread and pasta.

"Our patient had an underlying ketosis caused by the Atkins diet and developed severe ketoacidosis," said Tsuh-Yin Chen, adding that mild pancreatitis or stomach infection may have contributed to the problem.

Ketoacidosis is caused by dangerously high levels of ketones in the blood. It can lead to coma and death if untreated.

Steffen and Nettleton said special care should be taken with diet plans because patients wanting to shed weight may have a wide range of risk factors for diseases.

"As researchers and clinicians, our most important criterion should be indisputable safety, and low-carbohydrate diets currently fall short of this benchmark," they added.

How can I say this without swearing and shouting......

Dr Atkins himself said, many times, the Atkins WOE is not for everyone. He said over and over people with pre existing conditions should NOT follow his WOE, he said over and over to do so under the supervision of an MD, he said over and over to get a baseline physical and blood tests to make sure one knows what shape they are in.

Also, I seem to have read boatloads of info stating that simply eating a LC diet CANNOT in itself cause Ketoacidosis! This woman, who I truly feel very sorry for, hadto have a pre exisiting condition for this to occur.

Now I am not against the possibility that some people cannot follow Atkins, or any other LC plan. People are amazing things, and every now and again, one comes along that defies all stereotypes.

But this article is just short of pig poo, to put it mildly. And once again, who are these often quoted, never named "experts"?

And why is the late Dr Atkins always the one these journalistic hacks go after?



And this line makes me want to kick these guys square in the cajones!
"As researchers and clinicians, our most important criterion should be indisputable safety, and low-carbohydrate diets currently fall short of this benchmark," they added.

Safe? Like the refined, enriched carbs and sugary crap they reccomend we all eat?

i thought it had been brought up before that pancreatitis itself or complications from it could cause ketoacidocis? there was something to that effect in a thread recently but i don't remember where i saw it. or was it diabetics with pancreatitis?

There are at least two logical fallacies in the article. First, correlation does not imply causation. Just because two events happen at the same time or close to each other in time does not mean that one event CAUSED the other event. Second, the author leaps to conclusions based on insufficient evidence (one example). I wouldn't let my first-year students get away with this.

Rachel

Here is another one from CNN
Report highlights possible Atkins health risk
Condition described in journal is rare, another doctor says

LONDON, England (AP) -- The popular Atkins diet could be linked to a life-threatening complication which one woman who claimed to be following it developed, according to doctors who published a case report on it Friday in a British medical journal.

The Atkins diet calls for restricting carbohydrates to achieve weight loss, then gradually adding them back in. However, many people who say they're following the diet actually eat large amounts of protein and fat.

Doctors from New York University wrote in The Lancet journal of a 40-year-old woman who developed a dangerous condition called ketoacidosis, a buildup of acids called ketones in the blood which can lead to patients falling into a coma.

However, some outside experts said the case is rare and does not reflect a major health threat associated with low-carb diets.

"I think this is an isolated case. The idea that serious ketoacidosis could be triggered by a low-carb diet does not happen very often," said Dr. Paul Clayton, president of the forum on food and nutrition at the Royal Society of Medicine in London.

Dr. Abby Bloch, vice-president of programs and research at the Dr. Robert C. Atkins Foundation -- a medical research charity run by Atkins' widow, Veronica -- said ketoacidosis was not triggered by diet and could only occur if the patient had an "abnormal clinical metabolic condition."

"It is not brought on by diet unless she had an underlying cause which she and her doctors weren't aware of," Bloch said.

"Ketoacidosis is an abnormal state that occurs when there is a clinical abnormality. It doesn't occur when there's a normal state like a low-carb diet."

The patient, who was not identified, was admitted to an intensive care unit for four days after becoming short of breath. Before being hospitalized, she had lost her appetite, felt nauseous and was vomiting four to six times a day, the doctors wrote in the paper.

Tests confirmed ketoacidosis.

Ketones are produced in the liver when insulin levels fall due to starvation or diabetes.

"Our patient had an underlying ketosis caused by the Atkins diet ... This problem may become more recognized because this diet is becoming increasingly popular worldwide," said Professor Klaus-Dieter Lessnau, who led the team from the New York University School of Medicine.

Clayton said that the main problem of high protein diets is in the strain they put on kidneys and the risk of renal failure.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

ketoacidosis—A condition of the body in which there is not enough insulin. Free fatty acids are released from fat cells and produce ketones in the liver. These ketones or acids result in an imbalance of the blood (acidosis). In the more acute state, the result is ketoacidosis. Large amounts of sugar and ketones are found in urine, electrolytes are imbalanced, and dehydration is present. The onset is usually slow. The condition leads to loss of appetite, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, rapid and deep respiration, and coma. Death may occur.

That is the definition of ketoacidosis from webMD. This happens in uncontrolled diabetics. This woman was probably a diabetic and did not know it. Even so, the Atkins diet would have nothing to do with this condition. A diabetic who is not taking insulin would develop this condition no matter what they are eating. If anything, Atkins would help. Morons. It amazes me the number of health professionals that don't know the difference between ketosis and ketoacidosis.

Same story from the BBC website today....


Low carb diet health risk fears

Cheese was a significant part of the patient's diet
Following a low carb diet could cause serious health conditions, doctors in the US have warned.
Medics from New York, writing in the Lancet, describe a 40-year-old woman on the Atkins diet who developed dangerously high acids in her blood.

Public health doctors writing in the journal said low carb diets were "far from healthy".

But a spokeswoman for the Atkins Foundation said the diet would not cause such health problems.

The patient treated by the New York team was obese.

She had been following the Atkins diet rigorously in order to lose weight and had taken recommended precautions, including using vitamins and other supplements.

This problem may become more recognised because this diet is becoming increasingly popular worldwide

Professor Klaus-Dieter Lessnau
Research leader

She arrived at the emergency department of the Lennox Hill Hospital in New York one night in February 2004 after becoming increasingly short of breath and was taken into the intensive care unit.

Before her admission, the woman had lost appetite and felt nauseous, vomiting four to six times a day.

Tests confirmed ketoacidosis - a serious condition that occurs when dangerous levels of acids called ketones build up in the blood.

They are produced in the liver when insulin levels fall due to starvation or diabetes.

Clinical problem

In the case of this patient, doctors concluded that the Atkins diet was chiefly to blame.

Professor Klaus-Dieter Lessnau, who led the team from the New York School of Medicine, wrote: "Our patient had an underlying ketosis caused by the Atkins diet and developed severe ketoacidosis possibly when her oral intake was compromised from mild pancreatitis or gastroenteritis.

"This problem may become more recognised because this diet is becoming increasingly popular worldwide."

The Atkins diet suggests rapid weight loss by cutting carbohydrates out of a diet.

For a month before she fell ill, the woman had lived on meat, cheese and salads, said the doctors.

She monitored her urine twice daily using dipsticks.

During the period when she dieted, she lost around nine kilograms of weight.

Vomiting, from a clinical problem which isn't triggered by diet, would have led to the ketoacidosis

Dr Abby Bloch
Dr Robert C Atkins Foundation

Dr Lyn Steffen and Ms Jennifer Nettleton, from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in Minneapolis, said: "Low carbohydrate diets for weight management are far from healthy, given their association with ketosis, constipation or diarrhoea, halitosis, headache, and general fatigue to name a few side-effects.

"These diets also increase the protein load to the kidneys and alter the acid balance in the body, which can result in loss of minerals from bone stores, thus compromising bone integrity."

They said "indisputable safety" was the most important factor when formulating prescriptions for weight loss, and added that "low carbohydrate diets currently fall short of this benchmark."

But Dr Abby Bloch, vice-president for programs and research at the Dr Robert C Atkins Foundation, told the BBC her diet could not have caused the woman's condition.

"Vomiting, from a clinical problem which isn't triggered by diet, would have led to the ketoacidosis."

She said millions of people were on low carb diets without experiencing health problems.

Dr Bloch added that "troublesome" and "inappropriate" comments had been made in the Lancet about claims regarding the ill-effects of low carbohydrate diets which had been disputed in many studies.

Any wonder why I don't like doctors?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,188177,00.html

anything to blame the diet
sandi

Lets see.. 2 things come to mind here .

1) I reached out and turned on my cars radio.. which I listened to religiously every day that I drive it.. and at EXACTLY the same time.. my tire went flat. Obviously my turning on the radio caused the tire to go flat.. uhm.. Right ? I mean. it happened at the same time so MUST be cause and effect.

2) I had exactly those symptoms when I had pancreatitis caused from gallstone blocking the pancreatic duct caused from being overweight etc .. and uhm.. this was in 2000 before I'd ever heard of the Atkins Diet.

Poppycock comes to mind

well, this must be one case, right but that does not mean it coulld not happen more. I dont know whjat to say, it is sacry but then on the other side i really dont want to think aboput it.

I really cant go deep in explanation of this subject.. Im not doctor.