The Atkins Diet
Health & Fitness Tip: Fact or Fiction: The Atkins Diet The Atkins Diet has been creating a bit of controversy of late especially since Dr Atkins past away due to heart problems. The Atkins diet makes a number of claims and puts forward a seemingly convincing ‘scientific’ argument to back it up. Unfortunately most scientists and doctors that look closely at the Atkins diet refer to the evidence that Dr Atkins presents as pseudo-science. The factual scientific evidence that is quoted by Dr Atkins, where all done between 1957 and 1975. Since I was born in 1976 there have been many scientific advances and Nutritional Science has not been left behind with technological (especially medical) advances. These out of date studies are not good experiments due to poor experimental design, often with no control group or only a few subjects. The Atkins diet is made of 20% Carbohydrate (compared with 55-60% in a healthy diet), 25-30% protein (compared with 12-20%) and 55-65% fat (compared with 30%). A lot of people lose weight whilst on the Atkins Diet. To simplify weight loss (but still stating facts); food is energy; you need a certain amount of energy each day depending on what activities you do (yes even sleeping requires energy); if you take in (eat) more energy than you use you will put on weight; if you consume less energy than you use, you will gain weight, the nutritional make up of the food only affects how the extra weight is stored. Because the Atkins diet restricts your food intake, you will lose weight. Now looking at other factors regarding the diet, it is high in fat, which as we all know excess fat creates problems with heart disease, leaving you prone to a stroke or other heart problems. Because of the low level of carbohydrate (especially fruit and vegetables) in the Atkins diet, the lack of fibre has been attributed to an increased risk of cancer of the colon, breast, pancreas, lung, stomach, oesophagus and bladder. • Does the Atkins Diet help you loss weight? o YES, but only in the early stages. • Is the Atkins diet easy to adhere to? o NO, most reputable independent scientific experiments with good experimental design that have been set up to look at the Atkins Diet haven’t been successful due to the large number of subjects that fail to stick to the Atkins Diet. • Is the Atkins Diet healthy? o NO, look at the increased risk of heart and cancer related problems and that Dr Atkins himself died due to a heart attack. For free nutritional guidelines please contact Ray Boardman (PGDipSportMed, BSc, DipSptSt) at Club Kelburn on 472-9299 or 021 FIT-RAY (348-729) or ray@clubk.co.nz