Dangers of the Atkins Diet by Joel Fuhrman, MD Robert Atkins' books, as well as other authors, advocating high-protein weight

loss plans, recommend diets for health and weight loss with significantly more animal protein than is usually consumed by the average American. Americans already eat almost 50% of calories from animal products, and as a result of such nutritional extravagance we have seen a tragic skyrocketing in cancer rates and heart disease rates in the last 50 years. In spite of the hokum and hoopla, as a result of hundreds of scientific studies, the link between animal protein and various cancers is as solid now as the link between smoking and lung cancer. This is not to say that animal foods are the sole cause of cancer, but clearly it is the increased consumption of animal product and the decreased consumption of fresh produce that has the most powerful effect on cancer risks. These recent books aren't new, just a rehash of the same diets advocated years ago. They are just as dangerous today. Unfortunately, the lay public has always been easily taken in by quick, painless ways to achieve weight loss results, especially ones that let them continue their love affair with rich foods. Dr. Atkins' book actually recommends such foods as fried pork rinds and bacon cheeseburgers. It states on the first page: "Imagine losing weight with a diet that lets you have bacon and eggs for breakfast, heavy cream in your coffee, plenty of meat and even salad with dressing for lunch and dinner!" No wonder Dr. Atkins calls it a "diet revolution." There are numerous ways to lose weight. However effective they may be, some are just not safe. We certainly would not advocate smoking cigarettes or snorting cocaine for weight loss (even though they may be effective) as both these methods sharply increase one's risk of a heart attack. We should not advocate weight loss via drugs, or high-protein, high-fat diets for the same reason; you will very likely pay a substantial price: diminished quality of life and diminished years of life! A meat-based, low fiber diet like Atkins advocates with no fruit, or starchy vegetables, will almost double your risk of certain cancers, especially of meat-sensitive cancers, such as colon cancer. Stomach and esophageal cancer, for example are linked to populations that do not consume sufficient fruit. Atkins' menus average 60-75% of calories from fat and initially contain no fruit (and the fruit that is added in later is not enough fruit, and is still added in to an otherwise unhealthy diet). One reason he gets support is that the diet does work to cause weight loss and the conventional diet is so unhealthy and fattening that people need to do something that works. Being overweight is such a health risk that there are some real health benefits one receives from losing weight, even if the mode of weight loss places the person at increased risk. Losing weight, even by a high-protein, high-fat, low-fiber diet will lower triglycerides, decrease insulin resistance, and lower blood pressure, for example. Since these high-protein/high-fat diets strongly forbid refined carbohydrates and junk food and the nutritionally depleted white pasta and bread most Americans live on, and recommend the dieter consume hundreds of dollars of nutritional supplements each month, they may offer more micronutrient density than the diet the person was on prior. However, no matter how much supplements and psyllium fiber are prescribed, it is simply impossible to make up for the destructive effects of so much cooked animal products and so little fibrous produce. It is indeed difficult to believe so many people can't see through this insanity, and actually take everything we know about cancer prevention and longevity, and do the exact opposite. The diet is completely

opposed to our primate heritage, with almost no fiber, utilizing the precise foods known to be the primary causes of cancer and heart attacks. The foods that have been shown to prevent cancer such as fruit, and green leafy vegetables have been specifically excluded from the diet. Then they are told to take supplements to make up for the deficiencies. Does this make sense to you? So how does this diet work? How can you eat all the fat that you want and still lose weight? When the body can't find enough carbohydrates to properly run its machinery, it produces ketones, an emergency fuel that can be utilized in times of crisis or fasting. Built into our genetic code is the ability to survive periods of time without food, such as periods of food scarcity, or natural disasters. Since we are primates, designed by nature to survive on a plant-based diet, rich in carbohydrates; when our cells realize they are not receiving sufficient fuel (glucose), the body receives messages to dip into its fat reserves to produce ketones as an emergency fuel. Ketones rise in our bloodstream and the body begins to lose fat in spite of a large consumption of high fat animal foods. This plan works to cause weight loss much in the same manner as an insulin dependent diabetic. The high levels of sugar can't enter the cells without insulin, so the cells are still starving for glucose. Ketones then flood the bloodstream, and loss of body fat occurs. One pays a substantial price from such a diet which causes chronic ketosis. Besides the increased cancer risk, the kidneys are placed under increased stress and will age more rapidly. It can take many, many years for such damage to be detected by blood tests, and by the time it is detected, irreversible damage might have already occurred. The blood tests that monitor kidney function do not begin to raise red flags until more than 80% of the kidneys have become non-functional. Even in my private medical practice, I have already seen numerous diabetic patients who have permanently damaged their kidneys as a result of attempting weight loss and diabetic control with highprotein diets. One diabetic patient, John Lyle, lost weight after being a patient at The Atkins' Center, and his diabetes did improve, but his creatinine, a marker of kidney function went from 1.2 pre-Atkin's to 2.3 when he stopped one year later. This represents a loss of 95% of his kidney function in one year while on the Atkins' diet. He was not informed at The Atkins' Center that a plant-based diet of natural foods would also cause fast, effortless and permanent weight loss and cure his diabetes without causing him serous health risks. John was angry he wasn't given such a choice. It is the extra weight, the fat on the body, and the excessive dietary fat that creates this condition, that causes "insulin resistance." As long as one successfully loses weight, carbohydrates are not a problem to the diabetic. Remember, losing weight healthfully is the key ---------When Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution was first published, the President of the American College of Nutrition said, "Of all the bizarre diets that have been proposed in the last 50 years, this is the most dangerous to the public if followed for any length of time." When the chief health officer for the State of Maryland, was asked "What's wrong with the Atkins Diet?" He replied "What's wrong with... taking an overdose of sleeping pills? You are placing your body in jeopardy." He continued "Although you can lose weight on these nutritionally unsound diets, you do so at the risk of your health and even your life."

The Chair of Harvard's nutrition department went on record before a 1973 U.S. Senate Select Committee investigating fad diets: "The Atkins Diet is nonsense... Any book that recommends unlimited amounts of meat, butter, and eggs, as this one does, in my opinion is dangerous. The author who makes the suggestion is guilty of malpractice." The Chair of the American Medical Association's Council on Food and Nutrition testified before the Senate Subcommittee as to why the AMA felt they had to formally publish an official condemnation of the Atkins Diet: "A careful scientific appraisal was carried out by several council and staff members, aided by outside consultants. It became apparent that the [Atkins] diet as recommended poses a serious threat to health." The warnings from medical authorities continue to this day. "People need to wake up to the reality," former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop writes, that the Atkins Diet is "unhealthy and can be dangerous." The world's largest organization of food and nutrition professionals, calls the Atkins Diet "a nightmare of a diet." The official spokesperson of the American Dietetic Association elaborated: "The Atkins Diet and its ilk--any eating regimen that encourages gorging on bacon, cream and butter while shunning apples, all in the name of weight loss--are a dietitian's nightmare." The ADA has been warning Americans about the potential hazards of the Atkins Diet for almost 30 years now. Atkins dismissed such criticism as "dietician talk". "My English sheepdog," Atkins once said, "will figure out nutrition before the dieticians do." The problem for Atkins (and his sheepdog), though, is that the National Academy of Sciences, the most prestigious scientific body in the United States, agrees with the AMA and the ADA in opposing the Atkins Diet. So does the American Cancer Society; and the American Heart Association; and the Cleveland Clinic; and Johns Hopkins; and the American Kidney Fund; and the American College of Sports Medicine; and the National Institutes of Health. In fact there does not seem to be a single major governmental or nonprofit medical, nutrition, or sciencebased organization in the world that supports the Atkins Diet. As a 2004 medical journal review concluded, the Atkins Diet "runs counter to all the current evidence-based dietary recommendations." A 2003 review of Atkins "theories" in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition concluded: "When properly evaluated, the theories and arguments of popular low carbohydrate diet books... rely on poorly controlled, non-peer-reviewed studies, anecdotes and non-science rhetoric. This review illustrates the complexity of nutrition misinformation perpetrated by some popular press diet books. A closer look at the science behind the claims made for [these books] reveals nothing more than a modern twist on an antique food fad."