Back in early December, I posted on the Atkins diet, and Michael Fumento's attack on it in reason magazine. I sent an e-mail to Mr. Fumento and a copy of the post to reason online. Now, Mr. Fumento has responded in a comment to the original post. Given that most folks won't be dipping that deeply in my archives, I'll post his reply here:
I know that in your mind anecdotal evidence beats scientific evidence every time. And I know that you completely ignore the advice of nutritionists that like any fad diet Atkins can provide short-term weight loss like yours but not long term. Still, some of your more open-minded readers might be interested in the results of the the first of the famous Five Unpublished studies to be published.http://www.fumento.com/fat/faddiet.html
First, I relied not just on personal experience, but I did a little research as well, finding that there are studies which support Atkins diet plan. This article provides a decent summary of recent studies showing the Atkins diet to be just as effective over the long term, and more effective over the short term than a low fat diet, like the one recommended by the AHA. More importantly, the studies have found that there are no significant health risks associated with the diet, at least over the short term.
Second, I did not ignore medical advice; in fact, my doctor was happy to see that I'd gone on the diet, as it had worked for many of his patients. He did caution me to take a fiber supplement, but that was his only concern.
As for being open minded, you might try that yourself. From your article:
Nevertheless, at least there seemed no evidence that all that saturated fat in the Atkins diet increases the risk of heart disease.In neither study did the Atkins dieters have increased LDL or "bad cholesterol," and the 12-month one even found a small increase in HDL or "good cholesterol." Finally the triglycerides (fatty compounds in blood) of the Atkins dieters decreased. Lower triglyceride levels have been linked to lower rates of heart disease.
Further, the 12-month study indicates even that was probably a doomed effort. Here again, the Atkins group lost considerably more weight for the first half year. But thereafter not only did it begin packing the pounds back on, it did so faster than the higher-carb group. Ultimately, concluded the researchers, "the differences were not significant at the end one of[sic] year."
The most that can be said from these two studies is that the Atkins diet presents no short term health risks, results in higher short term weight loss than a standard low fat diet, is no harder to stay on than the low fat diet, and over the long term is at least as effective as a low fat diet.
It's hard to see how this could be used to say that "Atkins still doesn't work", unless you are also claiming that the AHA recommended low fat diet also doesn't work.
Posted by Rich at June 2, 2003 12:30 AM | TrackBack