Atkins Challenges Copycat Diet Claims

Friday May 21, 9:49 am ET

Atkins experts: 'Show us the science'; Cautions against turning America's health crisis into a fashion war

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040521/nyf053_1.html

NEW YORK, May 21 /PRNewswire/ -- After three decades of fighting low-fat bias, Atkins, now supported by 27 scientific studies, and the low-carb consumer are facing a new set of obstacles: copycat diets that misrepresent Atkins in order to sell their diets as "unique." At the expense of consumer clarity and at odds with objective scientific findings, the Atkins Nutritional Approach(TM) has been misrepresented when compared with newer entrants into the low-carb field.

"A lot of derivative low-carbohydrate programs have sprung up over the last few years," says Dr. Stuart Trager, medical director of Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. "They are all trying to claim that they are the new and improved Atkins when, in truth and in fact, there is little, if any material difference between them and Atkins -- other than the Atkins Nutritional Approach(TM) has been scientifically proven to work. While Atkins is busy encouraging studies on how to promote better health, others are busy misrepresenting themselves and Atkins. The result is a lot of confusion and speculation as to how to do low-carb properly. We should be rooting the discussion in science to help battle the overweight and obesity epidemic."

"The South Beach Diet is a prime example of how copycats misrepresent the 'difference' between themselves and Atkins," says Dr. Trager. "The South Beach Diet has been positioned as a 'healthier' Atkins, conjuring up fashionable images of tropical beaches and trim bodies. However, factual comparisons between Atkins For Life and The South Beach Diet reveal few differences in the published menus. Independent analysis of the menus in both books reveals that there is no statistically significant variation between levels of healthy fats and healthy carbs between the Atkins and South Beach programs. And, yes," says Dr. Trager, "that includes the amount of saturated fat included in a typical week's menu for both programs. The suggestion that the South Beach program is a 'lower or healthier fat approach' when compared to Atkins is simply wrong."

"Figuratively speaking, The South Beach Diet correctly replicates the heart of the Atkins program," says Dr. Trager. "The balance relies on trend- driven pop culture. In fact, the part that does not originate with Atkins is the same low-fat conjecture that Atkins has been battling for decades, and that science of late has shown to be questionable. South Beach also tells people they don't have to count carbs. Well, virtually all of the peer reviewed, objective science shows us that when people DO count carbs, they enjoy the weight loss and health benefits of a low-carb Atkins lifestyle."

Another copycat fabrication is the idea that Atkins lumps all carbs together. "That is pure fiction" says Colette Heimowitz, M.Sc., vice president, Atkins Health and Medical Information Services. "Since Diet Revolution was published in 1972, Dr. Atkins made it clear that healthy fruits, vegetables, seeds/nuts and whole grains should be the source of a person's carbohydrates, and they should avoid the simple carbohydrates -- the flour and sugars -- that create spikes in blood sugar levels."

"The public needs a healthy approach to eating based on peer-reviewed science, not 'variations' named after stylish beaches like South Beach and The Hamptons," emphasizes Dr. Trager.

Dr. Trager sees the problem only getting worse as consumers get confused about the false "variations" among the low-carb diets. As a result, they may drop low-carb nutrition altogether in their true health battle which is the battle over obesity.

"New diets will spring up all the time, and yes, they will make small changes and create catchy terminology to make their program sound new and hip and 'evolutionary,'" he says. "But we cannot let what sounds good replace science, and we can't let fiction replace fact. Controlling carbohydrates is not about subtle differences in fat grams or exotic oils, it is about controlling carbohydrates, and when it comes to controlling carbohydrates, to date only Atkins is the time-tested and scientifically-validated time and again solution."

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Source: Atkins Health and Medical Information Services

Haha this article is kinda funny. Basically they are positioning themselves as the well established authority and challenging the new "fadish" diets.

I agree that the current copycat diets are bringing nothing new to the table but doesn't anyone else see the irony in their position?

One could also take the position that Atkins took liberally from other low carb advocates that came before him such as Banting and MacKarness, to name a few, who had written papers and books on the subject well before Atkins published his first book.

Ah, but Atkins NEVER DENIED that he built his diet on the works of authors whom he credited in all his books, right from the first edition of DANDR published in 1972. These later authors of "other low carb diets" seem to pretend that they never heard of Atkins. Or any other earlier "low carbers".

And some others don't refer to or bash Atkins, such as Protein Power and The Schwarzbein Principle. But they are not referenced in this article either.

Atkins Nutrititionals funded the Duke research on its WOE. I am not aware that the SB guy has funded squat to research his own diet. I think the SBD is such a knock-off that it makes no sense. He no only does not credit Dr. Atkins, but whacks Atkins as wrong.

The fundamental disagreement is the SBD guy saying that there are "good fats" and "bad fats". If by the latter he means transfats, no disagreement from DANDR. But he also includes saturated fat among the bad fats.

While I agree that there are a lot of copy cat LC diets out there now, I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing.

In my opinion, Atkins is not a perfect plan. First of all, it makes it very, very easy to stall on it because Atkins does not spend enough time educating dieters about the importance of portion sizes. You're almost left with the impression that on a LC diet calories don't matter at all when this is a complete fallacy.

Lots of myths have been born about LCing because of this, the three most ridiculous being:
A) you can lose weight regardless of total caloric intake being consumed on a LC diet
B) it is impossible to store fat in absence of a high carbohydrate diet and
c) if you are stalled on your LC diet, you probably should eat more calories as you are in "starvation mode"

Of course, these are either outright untruths or gross misconceptions. However, many people still believe them. I think the Atkins diet and its irresponsible attitude towards the importance of "energy in" is largely responsible.

Most of the diets out there, though, really don't seem to be improving on Atkins. The south beach diet basically has all the flaws of Atkins, plus a few more politically correct ones (e.g. the "importance" of eating "whole grains", the "evilness" of high cholesterol diets & sat fat). The new diets are basically taking Atkins selling points (no need to count calories, eat whatever you want) and adding a few more (no need to give up grains & fruit). The thing about selling points is that they often come with a price - reality and results.

I've found SBD to be a nice stepping stone to getting people onto Atkins. When a couple of gal pals stalled out on SB, I had them go full-bore Atkins. They are wonderfully thin now, and their only regret is all the time they wasted on SBD.

I agree, Atkins is a superior plan to TSBD.

Yeah, I've been harranged on these message forums for not eating enough calories. Yet I stall when I eat more calories. Then there's the whole "refeed" thing. Nothing makes me grit my teeth more than someone jumping into a conversation about doing low-calorie/low-carb and saying we're all wrong, we should be eating more calories and consuming masses of carbs once a week.

My body is pretty well convinced that in order to lose weight I have to eat fewer calories. I don't think you can reason with a fat cell or your body's metabolic processes.