Low-carb diets may not be as harmful as once feared, but there’s a healthier way to lose weight and help your heart.

Three diet books that promise weight loss to anyone willing to chow down hamburgers but give up the buns are on The New York Times’ best-seller list of advice titles. Nearly 13 percent of U.S. adults have embraced the low-carbohydrate high-protein life, according to a recent study. They’re snapping up products ranging from beef jerky, whose sales have soared 20 percent so far this year, to low-carb breakfast bars, pancakes, ice cream, and even beer.


Click here to read the full report from ConsumerReports.org

It's obvious to the general population looking for a superficial "quick fix" that low carb really means "any junkfood with a low carb sticker on it"...

Then they'll pronounce low carb a "fad" and a failure....

just my opinion....

bob

I think there's some merit to the article. Not everyone is able to sustain the low levels of carbs it takes for some to lose on Atkins, and learning about how different foods affect your body can help you craft a food plan that works for you.

The whole article seems to be predicated on this tired, old and wrong conclusion;

"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 still lost more than the low-fat dieters, but 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."

- perhaps it was Ludwig who started this nonsense?

It seems to me that those pushing the GI/GL line tend to be scientists who have derided low carb for many years as ineffective and dangerous. Rather than admit now that they were wrong, in the face of the increasing body of evidence which supports both the effectiveness and safety of low carb, they latch onto a supposedly "healthier" alternative which they claim is sufficiently different to allow them to save face.

Cheers,

Malcolm

I haven't read any studies to prove the one-year average point wrong. Could you link me, please?

The average weight loss is correct. But the study shows that the people in the low-carb group weren't really low-carbing any more. Here's a comment from Anthony Colpo of the omnivore.com.

"Comments:
A look at the dietary composition data shows why the low-carb diet produced such a lacklustre result in weight loss during the last six months of the study; by 12 months, most of the subjects were no longer following a low-carb diet! Average carb intake was 120g, while protein had declined from baseline, from 84g to an anaemic 73g. Compliance with the diet, evidently, was poor.

http://www.theomnivore.com/Annals_l...ay_18_2004.html

The study itself

http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/140/10/778

- And the low carb group still lost, if I recall correctly, 60% more than the low fat group - but somehow this is reported as not being "statistically significant"??

Also while the level of compliance in the low carb group was poor, the dropout rate in the low fat group was a lot higher (a common finding in nearly all of these studies) and I would suggest that is significant in itself and if Ludwig was in any way impartial he would say that "it’s increasingly difficult for people to follow the diet over time because of its severely restricted nature" would seem to be more applicable to the low fat diet than the low carb!

Cheers,

Malcolm

Obviously the author hasn't read DANDR! How many times do we have to say Atkins is not about "no" carbs but "controlled" carbs and that Atkins uses glycemic indices precisely for the purpose of how carbs are added back in after induction.

Atkins for life is plenty generous with carbs.

Since being able to stay ON a plan is the only way to make long-lasting changes, I'd say the approach suggested in the low glycemic diet has as good a chance as any to succeed. If a person cuts out the refined junk, and is able to choose a bit more freely after learning which foods have more of an effect on insulin, they might be able to stick with it.

I lost most of MY weight in the first few months on Atkins and have struggled ever since. If I go much over 25 grams, I don't lose at ALL, so I can identify with the ones who just couldn't take it anymore.

I'm currently relaxing about it and loosely following a maintenance-level of carbs, and suprisingly enough, the weight has levelled off and started to inch downward again.

The only difference between Atkins and those other diets is that the weight loss phases of Atkins are intelligently restrictive w/ carbs so as to facilitate faster/more effective weight loss. I don't see the problem with that. Atkins maintenance is identical to any other balanced controlled carb plan.