Most people don’t know, but Dr. Atkins lost his medical license for malpractice. He also has been known to pass out while giving lectures (probably low glucose levels). His claim that our ancestors ate like his diet in our “hunter gatherer” days is erroneous. Wild animals are far different than farm raised domesticated animals. Their fat content was mostly polyunsaturated, not saturated. We also know that life expectancy back then was very low.There are a host of problems with the diet. The body can not possibly produce enough glucose from a ketogenic diet. The first thing it will do in the absense of carbs is to use the liver glycogen. Once those stores are exhausted, the glycogen from the brain is used to fuel basic body functions. People might tell you that recent studies vindicated Dr. Atkins, but those studies were short term and focused on only weight loss and short term cholesterol manipulation. Anyone in the nutrition field can tell you that the studies were inconclusive at best. They also didn’t address many of the other concerns about the diet. 
Also, keep this in mind. Atkins diet has you taking a ton of supplements. What does that say about it’s ability to meet your nutritional needs. He also happens to sell all the supplements -always a warning sign to me.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 5:40 pm and is filed under Diet Plans at a Glance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.