Safety and Effectiveness Of the Atkins Diet

I wish they had done an autopsy on Dr. Atkins to examine his coronary arteries. One reason this is a curiosity is because of the diet he recommends for weight loss. The question becomes: did he practice what he preached, and if so, what do his coronary vessels look like? After all, what kind of diet did he recommend:.huge portions of steaks, meats, eggs, and pure protein meals with gobs of fat. But in the Atkins diet you don't touch that slice of bread. No potato, no desert, or orange juice - or you'll balloon out again. . Just fat and protein on the initial weight loss program.

But, the diet miraculously causes rapid weight loss as long as there is no sugar, or carbohydrate in the diet. And the weight loss is rapid; 15 lbs in a week is not uncommon. Tons of fat just melts off of the body. But – can it be a life style? And what are the effects of all of that fat and meat on the heart?

In short Atkins diet works, and it's a wonder it does. Here's a thought experiment.

Imagine 20 lbs of blubber hanging over your belt. Now visualize waking in the morning and frying up a huge steak or two, with three eggs or 4 if you like. At 1O am you feel hungry so you eat half a can of cashews - or the whole can. Now you are ready for lunch, and so you cut up a turkey and eat a pound or two of breast, and maybe a leg or two. More nuts at 2 PM or two more eggs scrambled in gobs of butter (no milk in the mix, it has lactulose, a sugar.) And for supper - you can have two pounds of baked haddock with a salad, consisting mostly of greens, heavy on the salad oil (there's nothing wrong with frying the haddock either, but don't use breadcrumbs - they have sugar in them.). Maybe you only ate a pound and a half of haddock, and you finish off another half pound at 11pm as a snack -adding more nuts

Now, I suppose you are just trying to prove a point, as normally you aren't such a pig. But it's OK, you are doing this for science. It took you 12 years to acquire that gut. But imagine eating nothing but protein and fat for 3 weeks, in voluminous amounts, and seeing that gut disappear at the end of that time. Well, that's what happens. You could even eat the amounts I just described as incredible as that sounds.. And here's why:

There's something conspicuously missing in this gluttonous rampage:

SUGAR

We could also say, starch, or carbohydrate...but these are nothing more than long chains of glucose molecules. There's no Glucose in your diet. And, every cell in the body runs on glucose. Glucose is the gasoline of every cell, from nerve cells to cardiac cells, and bone cells - without it, these cells die.

And so, what the body does is compensate by pulling KETONES off of the triglyceride molecules that are the “filling” of the fat cells in your gut. The ketones can be converted into PYRUVATE, and enter the citric acid cycle of the cell (pictured below.). This is the engine that manufactures energy for the cell inside of the cell mitochondria - with the end product being ATP (energy) and water and CO2. Water and CO2 are what you breathe out as the end products of cellular metabolism. Otherwise, with adequate sugar, it is the breakdown of that sugar to pyruvate that goes into the cell energy cycle.

The excess is converted to Ketones, which go into the fat cells, attaching to fat molecules in fatty acid chains. ( That storage is what made your gut grow.) With Atkins you are taking advantage of the body's ability to convert what is essentially the stuff of fat (ketones) into energy. In fact, one way to know if the diet is working, and you are using these ketones, is to buy ketone test strips, and test your urine. The strip will go from blue to purple if you are doing it right.And this because any excess is ecreted in urine to prevent the blood from getting too acid, the kidney dumps the excess.

(Note: drink lots of water if you try this diet to fascilitate this process).

A famous Jewish Comedian, whose name I forget said it many years ago:

“Eat all of the Pastrami you want...it's the bun that's gonna kill ya.”

I guess he'd figured this all out intuitively in the 1960's. So...now the reader knows why this diet works. But, is it safe?

Because this diet is so counter intuitive, it has shocked the “Green” types in the nutritional community who place emphasis on decreasing fat, saturated fat, and calories and increasing excercise..They cannot envision a diet that is not weighted vegetables. What nutritionists have emphasized for years is “balance” in the diet. But – we see imbalance in the Atkins diet. And this is one of the reasons I wanted to see Dr. Atkins autopsy report. I know he didn't die of a heart attack – he died of viral cardiomyopathy. But were his vessels clogged?

I think there is something to be said for concern. But – there is also something to be taken from the Atkins diet. As, it appears, the root culprits in epidemic obesity are high sugar/ high fat diets...from fast food habits and their quick meal analogues at the supper table..

( A note here:The "McD" diet, have you seen the size of their drinks in the numbered menu items? All sugar and fat - very little protein. In the 1960's the bottles of coke were 8 oz, small at McD's cokes now are 16 oz... add to that the high carb/hi-fat fries - large fries and cereal padded burgers, sweet condiments -. you get a recipe for obesity -.never mind the calorie content: 1200 calories, or 2/.3 of what most people need in a day. And so, if the Atkins diet seems drastic, consider the norm It may be an unbalanced, but it could be a practical solution to an unbalanced culture..) .

The Atkins diet is probably good for medically monitored morbid obesity weight reduction. It is good for short term diets to loose a few pounds. And it is good for bringing a consciousness to the fact that deprivation, and sugar excess do something very powerful to fat storage mechanisms. So the diet may teach people to weight their diets more protein, less carbohydrate.

But because the diet is so weighted in protein, it is definitely contraindicated in people with renal disease. There is also a concern for how it affects diabetics. That they are so prone to keto-acidosis, etc...and they have been educated to follow a diabetic diet. If they take insulin, they have to take sugar, or – they'd be in big trouble. So research and medical consults should be done before people decide to loose a few pounds with an Atkins approach.- as some type 2 diabeticis could benefit from rapid weight loss. (Some other legitimate concerns are the absence of vitamins minerals and fiber in the diet but these problems are solved easily with modified atkins diet, after the desired weight loss is achieved..concerns about blood lipids and cholesterol can be alleviated by measuring these levels and making ajustments in saturated fat and cholesterol.)

There is a sensible "Atkins for Life" approach which one can research which is a modified Atkins diet for weight maintence. The big population that I haven't read about yet, as to how they could benefit from an Atkins approach, is the vegetarian group. When I get more information on that group, and how Atkins is applied to Vegetarianism, I will add that information here as a footnote. I hope you understand that the gluttonous example I gave is only for demonstration purposes, even tho, 100% meat daily in any amount – even that amount – would produce the same result. But that volume of food is bordering on absurd. I have a theory that one of the things that contributes to obesity, is the way gluttonous eating stretches the stomach, and as a result of that stretching more food is required to trigger the satiety mechanism which shuts down the sensation of hunger. Huge meals should be avoided for many reasons (except on Holidays) frequent smaller meals are best. The point of this article is to show the power of both sugar, and protein, and how protein weighting can cause weight loss.

So if you are healthy, and you want to loose a few pounds, try Atkins. And if you have a morbid obesity problem, and want to use a diet that will work, and not starve you – consult a physician. And an open minded nutritionist to examine this effective option.

Addendum: A question was asked about high blood levels and atkins. I did a little research since then, those high levels are called KETOSIS, but ketosis is different from ketoacidosis. I have only found one suspected case of Ketoacidosis, in reading more, and the info seemed to be in error, read here: http://weightoftheevidence.blogspot.com/2006/03/ketoacidosis-complication-of-atkins.html

Also I found several links to augment this discussion with respect to vegetarianism, and type 2 diabetes: http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_articles/ecoatkins_lowcarb_diet_vegetarians and here:

http://altmedicine.about.com/od/popularhealthdiets/a/AtkinsDiet.htm And so now you should be on your way to being informed about higher protien diets benefits and risks.

Here's more research that may add weight to those concerned about coronary artery disease and Atkins. This research does not preclude much lower carb, higher protien diets, what it does suggest is that the libertine use of saturated fat makes the sorloin lifestyle still too risky. Perhaps the answer is low fat higher protein vegetarianism, or lean meats decreased cholesterol, and saturated fat. It appears that someone who has coronary artery disease should not loose weight the easy way:http://www.atkinsexposed.org/atkins/45/The_Proof_is_in_the_SPECT_Scan.htm

But for weight loss and weight maintenence, weighting meals more protein we than we do, reducing simple sugars and starches, and saturated fat may be the middle ground.