Defending Dr. Atkins

Wife of famous diet doctor fights critics' claims

By John Hockenberry, NBC News

Updated: 1:58 a.m. ET Feb. 21, 2004

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4327741/

America has an epidemic of obesity. Right now, it's all the rage to fight the battle of the bulge with a low carbohydrate food plan that cuts pasta, grains, bread and more. And there's no low-carb diet more popular or controversial then the one pioneered by Dr. Robert Atkins. Now, there's a new controversy about the doctor's health before his death. Was he done in by his own diet? Dateline got extraordinary access to Dr. Atkins and his family just weeks before he died.

He's there when she turns on the TV, and picks up a newspaper. Veronica Atkins has had to watch as new questions are raised about the Atkins Diet and the wisdom of the man behind it, her late husband diet doctor Robert Atkins.

Veronica Atkins: “They're tearing him apart. And all he has done, he has helped people. He never wavered. For 30 years, he never wavered, once he discovered the truth.”

Since his first book was published back in 1972, spreading his more fat low-carb dieting message Dr. Robert Atkins’ popularity and financial success have never faltered. But now allegations about Atkins’ own weight and cardiac health have once again challenged the safety of the Atkins approach. This time the question is more pointed: Did Dr. Atkins lose one of his patients, one of his patients who'd been on his high fat diet for 43 years – namely, himself?

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg didn't realize he was being recorded when he made off-hand remarks that “the guy was fat,” a few weeks ago about Dr. Atkins reported death from a fall on icy pavement, saying, "I don't believe that bull, that he dropped dead after slipping on the sidewalk... yeah, right."

Mrs. Atkins fired back three days later.

Veronica Atkins: “I'm sick and tired of my husband being always maligned and his life's work being trivialized. And Mayor, you did it and I do demand an apology for that.”

She got one. But then there was a missile fired over the horizon in the form of a fax: an official and confidential document from the New York City Medical Examiner's Office sent to the news media by Atkins' opponents. It purported to show that Dr. Atkins weighed in at 258 pounds at the time of his death, obese for a six-foot-tall man. And the notes listed a surprise history of serious heart problems including myocardial infarction (a heart attack), congestive heart failure and hypertension.

Dr. Neal Bernard: “The Atkins Web site says that his good health and his clean coronary arteries were apparently due to his diet. An extraordinary claim. And apparently one that was not at all true.”

Dr. Neal Barnard is head of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, the vegetarian activist group which distributed the confidential coroner's document.

Dr. Bernard: “This is not a joke. This is serious business. This is a major public health problem.”

And it would be a major health problem for millions of people who swear by the Atkins regime if the doctor's alleged health problems were true and could be linked to his diet. But Veronica Atkins says her husband was in good health when he died and she has no problems with the Atkins regime. She compares dr. Barnard's group to another regime.

Veronica Atkins: “These things are lies. They're like the Taliban. They're the vegetarian Taliban. Oh, I mean, I shouldn't insult vegetarians. But they're like the Taliban, these people. They're nasty.”

Dr. Stuart Trager was an associate of dr. Atkins for three years. He insists this vegetarian group is trying to destroy Atkins’ reputation to promote its own agenda.

Dr. Trager: “Here's a group of people who compare eating cheese to heroin, feeding children meat to child abuse. They don't think anyone should eat animal products. And it's clear they'll go to any extreme, any extreme, including giving out records, breaking ethical violations to try to convince people.”

But the release of only limited details have made Dr. Atkins' health the subject of a very public and intense debate. The medical examiner's report is not an autopsy. It is a coroner's description of what the outside of Atkins' body looked like at the time of death. Atkins opponents say the report proves he was in poor health when he died. Mrs. Atkins says that wasn't the case at all.

Veronica Atkins: “My husband's weight never was 258. In his whole life, it was not 258.”

Atkins’ widow insisted that the weight on the leaked medical examiners report was the result of fluids pumped into him during nine days in intensive care as his life slipped away, a claim supported by numerous independent doctors we spoke with. Mrs. Atkins says she remembers this unnatural swelling all too well.

Veronica Atkins: “My husband was so bloated. He had very slender hands. And when he was in this bed, his hands were like ham hocks, this big. He was bloated, he did look like a balloon.”

And Dr. Atkins' hospital admissions form seems to back her up. It shows he was a technically overweight but not obese 195 pounds. That was also born out by Dateline’s visit with Dr. Atkins six weeks before the fall that killed him. He was an active 72-year-old, big, but not bloated and hardly obese.

What we could not see was the health of his heart.

Doctors who treated Dr. Atkins told Dateline that they knew of no hypertension or heart attack, but they confirmed that Dr. Atkins heart was weak. His congestive heart failure was a complication of a cardiac arrest he suffered in 2002. His coronary arteries also had problems requiring treatment, even though Atkins’ doctor described them a year before his death as normal.

Dr. Patrick Fratellone treated Dr. Atkins from 1999 until 2002, and also worked with the doctor at the Atkins Center. He says Atkins suffered from cardiomyopathy, a chronic heart weakness. But this condition, he says, was caused by a virus not his diet.

Dr. Fratellone: “I was his attending cardiologist at that time. And I made the statement… When we did his angiogram, I mean, the doctor who performed it, said it's pristine for someone that eats his kind of diet… Pristine, meaning these are very clean arteries. I didn't want people to think that his diet caused his heart muscle – it was definitely a documented viral infection.”

Dr. Fratellone stopped treating Dr. Atkins 10 months before he died, but insists the Atkins Diet was unrelated to his heart problems and had nothing whatsoever to do with his death.”

Dr. Fratellone: “The man slipped on the ice and had a head injury, so he died. Don't blame his diet.”

Proving that Dr. Atkins was not done in, in part, by his diet, has become a crusade for Veronica Atkins, to preserve the well over $100 million value of the Atkins name, and the reputation of the man she still calls Bobby. It's a battle she plans to win. So what would she say to someone worried about the Atkins diet?

Veronica Atkins: “I would say please read the studies. I will devote my life to prove that he was right. I'm going to prove it scientifically. I will not let anything, anybody, denigrate my Bobby.”



The Atkins Diet was created by Dr. Robert C. Atkins, founder and medical director of the Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine in New York. What follows are answers to some FAQs provided by the Atkins Center and is not a recommendation for or against the plan. Remember, you should always check with your doctor before changing your dietary habits.

Focusing on the consumption of nutrient-dense, unprocessed foods and vita-nutrient supplementation, the Atkins diet restricts processed/refined carbohydrates, such as high-sugar foods, breads, pasta, cereal and starchy vegetables.

While some Atkins dieters eat fewer calories than before, Atkins says it's not because the diet is unduly limiting of food intake, but rather because people are generally less hungry and are less obsessed with food. The reason:

Stable blood sugar throughout the day ensures that you will have fewer food cravings or false hunger pains.

The food you eat (meat, fish, cheese, nuts, eggs, low sugar/starch vegetables and fruit, etc.) is less processed and more nutritious.

You'll start to burn fat for energy: Since carbohydrates are the body's primary energy source, you'll start to use your secondary energy source, you own body fat, for energy.

You won't feel hungry in between meals: By cutting the carbs, you'll maintain a more even blood sugar level throughout the day.

Your overall health will improve and you'll feel better: Many of the toxins you take into your body are stored in your fat cells. By getting your body to burn stored fat, you allow it to clean itself out.

While intake of carbs is limited and the diet tends to be high in protein, Atkins cannot provide the exact percentages of each food group for the general population as it is individualized depending on a person’s sensitivity to carbohydrates, among other factors.

A person who performs a lot of aerobic exercise and who doesn't have a weight problem has no reason to be on a carbohydrate-restricted diet, Atkins says.

The diet calls for core vita-nutrient supplementation with a full-spectrum multi-vitamin and an essential oils/fatty acid formula.

The Atkins Diet is not a no-carbohydrate diet. The diet focuses on very limited consumption of the types of carbohydrates that tend to spike blood sugar levels the most, including non-whole grain bread, pastas, refined sugar products, juices and high sugar/starchy fruits and vegetables.

While many lament the consumption of fat as the root of America's weight problem, Atkins says that fat consumption has actually declined the past few decades. It’s carbohydrate consumption (mostly refined) that has increased, he says. During this time:

Obesity increased from 25 percent of the population to 33 percent. Heart disease now accounts for 50 percent of all deaths, up from 40 percent in the 1970s

Cases of diabetes are growing

Hypertension, chronic fatigue and attention deficit disorder are now well recognized conditions.

Source: The Atkins Center