Did the Atkins Diet Really Kill Dr. Atkins?

Science, not scare-mongering, should be dominating the low-carbohydrate versus low-fat diet debate.

By Anthony Colpo.
February 17, 2004.

Dr. Robert Atkins was never a stranger to controversy. His high-fat, low-carbohydrate dietary guidelines contradicted virtually every closely-held tenet of mainstream nutrition, bringing him under constant attack from defenders of the low-fat diet doctrine. Atkins died in April last year from a head injury he sustained after falling on an icy New York footpath, but his demise has done little to stem the controversy surrounding his dietary recommendations. As the recent commotion surrounding the New York diet guru's death report clearly illustrates, his nutritional legacy is still a subject of heated debate.

The current uproar began after a Nebraska-based cardiologist by the name of Richard Fleming wrote to the New York medical examiner's office requesting a copy of Atkins' death report. Despite the confidential nature of such reports, someone at the office readily obliged Fleming, who, after receiving the report, passed a copy along to his acquaintances at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). The PCRM in turn contacted the Wall Street Journal, who broke the story and ignited a world-wide debate in the process.

The ease with which the PCRM has been able to cause such an uproar is a sad indictment of the woefully inadequate investigative methods employed by many journalists reporting on health and nutrition issues. As an independent researcher, one of the first things I do when studying new information is to verify its source. Foremost among my concerns is whether or not the information has come from someone with a vested interest, and whether the information is being issued in order to advance some sort of concealed agenda.

Read full article here: theomnivore.com

Is This Man Obese?

Source: B2DAY

"It's hard to believe Robert Atkins weighed 258 pounds when he died last April, as the Wall Street Journal contended Tuesday. Last February, just a couple of months before his death, I had dinner with the diet doctor at a French restaurant on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and was most struck by how frail he seemed. He wasn't thin, but it was hard to see his physique exactly because it was the day after a big blizzard and he was wearing a thick sweater. Atkins ordered fish, went without bread or potatoes, and had cappuccino with cream. He did say something about wanting to take off a few pounds. But we're talking three, not 50. These photos were taken for our story on February 24, about two months before Atkins's April 17 death. Does he look as if he's 60 pounds overweight to you?"



[click to enlarge]

Steak Through the Heart?

By Neil Cavuto

I think it's time to update you on a few key facts on this Atkins situation.

Update 1: He's dead. He can't defend himself.

Update 2: His medical records were made public. How would you like that to happen to you, or a loved one?

Update 3: The people who revealed those records were a group called the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

Update 4: That group advocates vegetarianism and is among the Atkins diet's biggest critics.

Update 5: They seem to have an axe to grind.

Update 6: They seem to be selective when they grind that ax.

Update 7: Atkins was not, and I repeat was not, obese at the end of his life. According to a hospital record obtained by USA Today, the good doctor was all of 195 pounds when he was admitted to a hospital after a fall on April 8, 2003.

Update 8: He lapsed into a coma and died nine days later. No one, and I repeat no one, knows for sure how much weight he gained with water retention while he was comatose. But clearly, it wasn't the fault of a guy downing ring-dings. For god's sake, he was dying!

Update 9: Dr. Atkins had cardiomyopathy that resulted from a viral infection, not his diet.

Update 10: I had a chance to see Dr. Atkins several times over the last few years. He always seemed in pretty good shape to me. And why wouldn't he be? He was the face of a diet revolution for more than 40 years! You don't stay on message if you're not staying in shape. And Atkins did and was.

They say dead men tell no tales. I just pity the fact this dead man can't tell his critics where to get off.

Let them eat their vegetables. But for god's sake, let this man rest in peace.

Watch Neil Cavuto's Common Sense weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on Your World with Cavuto.

Source: foxnews.com

Veronica Atkins on Illegal Distribution Dr. Atkins' Medical Records

Press Release Source: Veronica Atkins

Statement by Veronica Atkins on the Illegal Distribution of Personal Medical Information Regarding Her Late Husband Dr. Robert C. Atkins

NEW YORK, Feb. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- I have always assumed that my husband's personal medical history is private and of no concern or relevance to the media or general public. Prior to today, I have not seen any reason to share Dr. Atkins' private information with the public. I am sure that any one of you would be offended and perhaps even horrified to have complete strangers intrude into your personal family matters, especially with regard to something as intimate as your medical records or those of your loved one.

It has now become clear to me that if I don't speak out, unscrupulous individuals will continue to twist and pervert the truth in an attempt to destroy the reputation and great work of my late husband. These individuals have gone so far as to obtain my husband's personal and confidential medical information from the New York City Medical Examiner's office for distribution to news organizations in direct and knowing violation of federal law. Obviously such people will have no trouble picking and choosing bits and pieces of fact and supposition to mislead the world.

But here is the truth: my husband's medical records have been reviewed by knowledgeable doctors and his medical condition discussed with cardiac specialists. It is clear that Dr. Atkins developed a condition called cardiomyopathy approximately three years prior to his death. It is also true that when Robert developed cardiomyopathy his coronary arteries showed only minimal and clinically insignificant signs of coronary artery disease, consistent with what would be expected in a 69-year old man. Cardiomyopathy is a serious and progressive condition and was, I have been told, in Robert's case, caused by a viral infection. Though this condition significantly weakened his heart, its cause was clearly related to an infection and not his diet.

All of this was well documented and openly discussed by Robert himself on national television. Additionally, as Dr. Atkins explained on Larry King Live and other public appearances, he did have a witnessed cardiac arrest in April of 2002. All accounts and records related to this event, and the insight of his treating cardiologist, are consistent with conditions arising from his cardiomyopathy, rather than a lack of blood flow. While Robert did have some progression of his coronary artery disease in the last three years of his life including some new blockage of a secondary artery that was remedied during this admission, he did not have a heart attack.

There is no evidence to suggest otherwise and for any physician to suggest so would be irresponsible, unethical and represent nothing more than an attempt to tarnish the reputation of a man who dedicated his life to solving one of medicines greatest challenges -- the obesity epidemic. Let me state emphatically that I have been assured by my husband's physicians that my husband's health problems late in life were completely unrelated to his diet or any diet.

It is also clear that my husband's death resulted from a serious head injury that occurred April 8th, 2003. Hospital records obviously and unequivocally detail the unfortunate clinical course that transpired following arrival of Emergency Medical Services through the entirety of hospitalization, confirming that after losing consciousness en route to the hospital, Robert's condition failed to improve despite emergency neurosurgical treatment for bleeding within his head. In life, Dr. Atkins was adamant about not wanting life support and when his wishes were honored, and ventilator life support was withdrawn on April 17th, he passed away as has been widely reported in the media.

But it has become clear to me that something as simple as the truth will be perverted and manipulated by dishonest individuals who will stop at nothing and will proceed without any regard for medical ethics or the previously private medical history of Dr. Atkins in an attempt not only to discredit my husband's work but to profit from his death. Work, I might add, that has been consistently and repeatedly vindicated by 18 independent scientific studies over these past three years. I now find myself in the uncomfortable position of having to relive his horrific accident and defend my late husband from people who would convince you that stolen and irrelevant bits and pieces of Dr. Atkins' medical history carry more validity than published scientifically controlled and peer reviewed research out of Harvard, Duke University, the American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health.

It is for these reasons that I realized that I must put aside my grief and pain and speak out. Make no mistake about it, Dr. Atkins, at the end of life, was struggling with the effects of his cardiomyopathy and did not hide that fact. Despite repeated, often pathetic and now even illegal attempts by his most bizarre and extreme detractors to make the health of this 72 year old man THE central issue in the all important obesity debate raging in this country and around the world, it is not and never will be relevant. It is a sad and distracting sideshow, taking time away from an intelligent debate of the known science. We should all ask, is caring about what someone else eats so important that some doctors are willing to betray their most basic of oaths, to protect a patient's dignity and confidentiality? It is time to forget the myths and urban legends perpetuated by extremists like those who acted unethically in disclosing my husband's records and pay more attention to the real issues and all available peer reviewed science. I will do my utmost to put an end to this nonsense so that responsible physicians can focus on a debate rooted in fact and moderation and objectivity. We will not engage in espionage, tabloid journalism, or try to shout louder than these shameless individuals and I look forward to the day when Dr. Atkins' soul can rest in peace and I can grieve uninterrupted.

Source: Veronica Atkins
biz.yahoo.com

*FURTHER READING*

Press Release Source: Stuart Trager, M.D.

Statement by Stuart Trager, M.D., Chair, Atkins Physicians Council on February 10, 2004 Report on Dr. Atkins Weight at the Time of his Death

NEW YORK, Feb. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Today's Wall Street Journal ran a story on the health of Dr. Robert Atkins and grossly distorted and inaccurately reported information that Dr. Atkins was obese at the time of his death. In fact, up until the time he became comatose and lay in the hospital for two weeks. Dr. Atkins' average weight was actually 60 pounds less than reported in the Journal. The newspaper article was based on incomplete personal medical records that were illegally delivered to the newspaper in violation of federal law, coming from a known group of Vegan and animal rights extremists.

Dr. Atkins' weight was consistently and frequently documented in the years and months prior to his fall; as he was suffering from cardiomyopathy, his health was monitored closely. Due to water retention, this robust 6-foot plus man, who competitively played tennis frequently during the week, had a weight that varied between 180 and 195. During his coma, as he deteriorated and his major organs failed, fluid retention and bloating dramatically distorted his body and left him at 258 pounds at the time of his death, a documented weight gain of over 60 pounds. How and why the Journal reported that he was obese, remains the only unanswered question in this pathetic situation.

Any implication that Dr. Atkins was obese or fat prior to his coma, shows a blatant disregard or even worse, lack of understanding of the medical facts surrounding this case, or of the physiology of severe heart failure and the degree of fluid retention that occurred during this hospitalization. None of us would expect the physicians at PCRM to reveal this in light of their past and their current motivation ... but surely as physicians they understood that this was not obesity, I guess it just didn't support the point they cared to convey ... so they chose to ignore it?

Source: Stuart Trager, M.D.
biz.yahoo.com

From the Atkins Newsletter

Your friends at Atkins® encourage you to click on the link below to view Dr. Stuart Trager’s interview on "Good Morning America," which aired on January 20th. Dr. Trager explains that Atkins has not changed its position on fat and refutes the report printed in last Sunday's The New York Times.

View the video clip

Atkins Research Update

Press Release Source: Atkins Health & Medical Information Services

Atkins Health & Medical Information Services Research Update
Monday January 12, 9:03 am ET
Controlled carbohydrate research from around the world

NEW YORK, Jan. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- As an ongoing service from Atkins Health & Medical Information Services to practicing physicians and medical and lifestyle journalists, our communications department provides the latest developments in clinical research on controlled carbohydrate nutritional practices and the Atkins Nutritional Approach™ (ANA) as they occur and are reported. If you would like any further information or access to our complete library of published controlled carbohydrate research, please contact Gina Mangiaracina at gmangiaracina@wwafsp.com. You can also find the complete library of published studies in The Science Behind Atkins section at www.atkins.com.

Press Release Source: Atkins Health & Medical Information Services
ATKINS NUTRITIONAL APPROACH SHOWN TO REDUCE EPILEPTIC SEIZURES

Although the efficacy of a low-calorie ketogenic diet in treating epilepsy without medications is well documented in the literature, maintaining the level of caloric restriction necessary to produce the needed level of ketosis is challenging. Specifically, these results are typically obtained by mimicking the effects of starvation--restricting a patient to a high-fat, low carbohydrate, low-protein diet that provides only 75 percent of the recommended caloric intake. Researchers believe that this Spartan regime controls seizures by creating ketone bodies in the blood, which are burned by brain cells in the place of glucose. Though primarily prescribed for children, this diet may be beneficial to adult epileptics as well.

Eric H. Kosoff, M.D., of Johns Hopkins, wondered whether the Atkins Nutritional Approach™ (ANA), which achieves ketosis by less severe means- restricting carbohydrates but not caloric intake-might be as effective in reducing seizures in patients with epilepsy. To test this hypothesis, the researchers put six epileptic patients at the Johns Hopkins Hospital of Neurology on the ANA. The patients, who were equally divided between male and female and ranged in age from 7 to 52 years old, had previously failed treatment with anticonvulsants.

In half the cases, the patients' seizures appeared to be controlled by the ANA. Given the small size of this study and the relatively short duration of seizure freedom observed, the researchers have not yet recommended Atkins as a replacement for the usual ketogenic diet in the treatment of epilepsy, claiming that larger studies are clearly needed.

In the meantime, the researchers suggest that patients awaiting in-house treatment with ketogenic diets may be put on the ANA, which has the additional virtue of having "an easily readable and widely available paperback" to test their ability to comply with a low carbohydrate diet (compliance can easily be checked by testing for ketosis) and its possible effectiveness.

Kossoff, Eric H., Krauss, Gregory L., McGrogan, Jane R., Freedman, John M. Efficacy the Atkins diet as therapy for intractable epilepsy. Neurology. In press.

FAT INTAKE DOES NOT INCREASE SERUM MARKERS FOR
ATHEROSCLEROSIS WHEN STARCH IS RESTRICTED

In an earlier study, while testing a dietary approach to controlling diabetes involving the replacement of starches by saturated fats, James Hays, M.D., and his colleagues at Christiana Health Services, Inc. in Newark, Delaware, were struck by the fact that patients following this diet lost weight with no apparent adverse effects on serum lipids.

To shed additional light on these intriguing findings, and to clarify issues relating to "the changing mix" of medications patients were receiving, these researchers embarked on a second study to look specifically at the effect of their high-fat, starch-avoiding diet on serum risk factors for atherosclerosis in a group of obese patients with established atherosclerosis.

Preliminary results of a six-week study involving 17 men and six women were encouraging: On average, participants lost 5 percent of their total body weight with no adverse effects on serum lipids, in fact, showing decreased fasting glucose, insulin and triglyceride levels.

This is remarkable in light of what the researchers call the "overwhelming evidence" that the addition of saturated fat to an otherwise low-fat diet leads to increased serum markers of atherosclerosis. The diet Dr. Hays and his colleagues arrived at to treat patients with chronic diabetes and atherosclerosis is similar to the ANA with regard to restricting carbohydrate intake rather than fat consumption. In Hays' study, half the calories came from saturated fat and protein from red meat, cheese, eggs. Carbohydrates were severely restricted. However, participants were prescribed a consistent calorie intake, as this was favored for the management of diabetes. According to Dr. Hays, "We have prescribed a consistent intake of certain fruits and vegetables rather than the Atkins step-wise approach, and this may have resulted in some other differences." As a result, only five of the participants in the study went into ketosis, a metabolic shift considered key to appetite control and weight loss in the ANA. In light of this, caloric restriction likely explains the observed weight loss, in contrast to that seen with a typical Atkins approach.

According to the researchers, these studies "suggest, but by no means prove, that long term compliance with a high-saturated fat, starch avoidance diet can result in continued weight loss without adverse effects on serum lipid levels."

James H. Hays, MD, Angela DiSabatino, RN, MS, Robert T. Gorman, PhD, Simi Vincent, PhD, MD, Michael E. Stillabower, MD, Effect of a High Saturated Fat and No-Starch Diet on Serum Lipid Subfractions in Patients With Documented Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease, Mayo Clin Proc, November 2003, Vol 78, pages 1331-1336.

LOW-FAT DIET INFLAMES FATTY LIVER

One frequent consequence of obesity is a condition known as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), the accumulation of fat in the liver. NAFLD is a serious disease, which can lead to fibrosis or cirrhosis. Common sense would suggest that lowering dietary fat might benefit those with NAFLD. However, a recent study done at Johns Hopkins shows that this supposition is wrong, and that a low-fat diet can exacerbate the condition, leading to increased liver inflammation, while high-fat diets seem to reduce the inflammation.

In a paper presented at the 54th Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, Jeanne M. Clark, M.D., described her study in which she examined liver biopsies taken from 74 morbidly obese patients undergoing surgery for their obesity. Before the surgery, the patients filled in a 24-hour food recall questionnaire, which allowed the researchers to estimate the total calories, carbohydrates and fats in the patients' diets. Of the patients biopsied, 89 percent had fatty livers, 69 percent had inflammation and 41 percent had progressed to fibrosis. Clark found that compared to those patients with the lowest carbohydrate intake, those who ate a high carbohydrate diet had a seven-fold increased risk of liver inflammation. By some mechanism that is still a mystery, a high-fat diet seems to shield the fatty liver from damage.

HIGH-FAT DIETS MAY BE EFFECTIVE IN MANAGEMENT OF TYPE 2 DIABETES

The importance of diet in the management of Type 2, or adult onset, diabetes is universally acknowledged. Exactly what this diet should consist of is somewhat more controversial. Recently, physicians have been prescribing diets high in monounsaturated fats with a restricted amount of starches. The reasoning behind such diets is that, since dietary starches act like sucrose, if monounsaturated fats are substituted for these starches, control of blood sugar would improve. Now, a group of researchers has taken this idea one step further by totally eliminating dietary starch from the diet in exchange for an unlimited amount of saturated fat. To the researchers' surprise, the extra consumption of dietary cholesterol and saturated fat did not increase serum lipids, and patients not only lost more weight, but blood sugar also was better controlled.

The study compared 151 patients on the no-starch, unrestricted saturated fat diet, and 132 control patients following a diet that allowed unrestricted monounsaturated fats and a controlled amount of starch. The study was not randomized, and the varying cocktails of drugs consumed by the patients made analysis difficult, which the researchers admit clouded their conclusion that substituting saturated fat for starch leads to better control of diabetes. Still, they conclude in their article that, "the stark differences between the high-saturated fat plus starch-avoidance diet and the diet currently recommended by the ADA [American Diabetes Association] are disturbing. Nevertheless, this information needs widespread critical appraisal, not because it conclusively proves the superiority of a dietary prescription so much as it provides reason to question the relatively recent dietary prescription of high-carbohydrate diets to patients with diabetes mellitus."

James H. Hays, Robert T. Gorman, K.M.M. Shakir, Results of the use of Metformin and replacement of starch with saturated fat in diets of patients with type 2 diabetes, Endocrine Practice, 8 (3), pages 177-183.

LOW GLYCEMIC INDEX MEALS SATE HUNGER IN ADOLESCENTS

Despite a general reduction in fat consumption, one in five children are overweight. One hypothesis about why this is so is that children today consume more high-glycemic foods that quickly raise blood glucose levels, than in the past. To determine the effect of high-glycemic diets on children, University of Utah researchers fed 10 adolescents (5 boys, 5 girls) meals with either high- or low-glycemic index.

As expected, blood glucose and insulin levels were much lower after eating the low-glycemic index meals. More intriguing, however, was that after consuming a low-glycemic index meal, the adolescents waited longer (3.9 versus 3.1 hours) before requesting additional food, though they then ate as much as after a high-glycemic meal. The researchers speculate that this prolonged period of satiety might reduce the daily caloric intake of adolescents on a low-glycemic index diet and lead to long-term weight control.

Ball SD, Keller KR, Moyer-Mileur LJ, Ding YW, Donaldson D, Jackson WD., Prolongation of satiety after low versus moderately high glycemic index meals in obese adolescents, Pediatrics. 2003 Mar;111(3):488-94.

LOW CARBOHYDRATE DIET HAS POSITIVE EFFECT ON BLOOD LIPIDS

To investigate the effects of very low carbohydrate diets on the blood lipids and other markers of cardiovascular disease in women, investigators attempted to repeat work previously completed on male subjects, using female subjects. This balanced, randomized two-period crossover study looked at numerous serum markers in 10 healthy women who consumed both a low fat (<30%) and a very low carbohydrate (<10%) diet for four weeks each. Although modest increases were noted in LDL, favorable effects on cardiovascular disease risk status occurred by virtue of a relatively larger increase in HDL and a decrease in fasting and postprandial triglyceride levels.

Volek, J.S., Sharman, M.J., and Gomez A.L., et al., "An Isoenergetic Very Low Carbohydrate Diet Improves Serum HDL Cholesterol and Triacylglycerol Concentrations, the Total Cholesterol to HDL Cholesterol Ratio and Postprandial Lipemic Responses Compared with a Low Fat Diet in Normal Weight, Normolipidemic Women," The Journal of Nutrition, 133(9), 2003, pages 2756- 2761.

STUDY SUGGESTS DIETARY FAT INTAKE HAS LITTLE EFFECT ON STROKE

In a result that has confounded the expectations of physicians and medical researchers, scientists at Northwestern University and Harvard have shown that the amount of fat a person consumes apparently has no effect on stroke risk.

Northwestern University's Ka He, M.D,. and his colleagues at Harvard monitored a group of almost 44,000 male health care professionals for 14 years. The men periodically mailed in detailed questionnaires about their diets, lifestyles and medical histories. Men who initially reported cardiovascular disease or diabetes mellitus were excluded from the study. After analyzing the results, the researchers found that the total amount of fat consumed had no appreciable effect on the incidence of ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke. Diets rich in animal fat, vegetable fat, saturated fat, monounsaturated fat or trans fat were all equally benign with respect to stroke. The consumption of red meat, high-fat dairy products, nuts or eggs also was not related to the incidence of stroke.

Ka He, Anwar Merchant, Eric B Rimm, Bernard A Rosner, Meir J Stampfer, Walter C Willett, Alberto Ascheri, Dietary fat intake and risk of stroke in male US healthcare professionals: 14 year prospective cohort study, British Medical Journal, 23, pages 777-780.

CORONARY ARTERY CALCIUM, DIABETES AND METABOLIC SYNDROME

The amount of calcium deposited in the coronary arteries is a strong predictor of future fatal cardiac events in apparently healthy individuals. It is also known that people with diabetes or the metabolic syndrome, also known as Syndrome X, have an increased risk of cardiac disease. But until now the relationship between diabetes, the metabolic syndrome and coronary artery calcium has not been studied.

The metabolic syndrome is closely related to insulin resistance, which makes it related to, and possibly a precursor of, diabetes. People suffering from the metabolic syndrome have at least three of the following health issues: obesity, low HDL cholesterol, high triglycerides, glucose intolerance and high blood pressure. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, examined 1,823 patients, measuring their coronary artery calcium in addition to the various symptoms of metabolic syndrome and diabetes. They found that the more factors of the metabolic syndrome a patient had, the higher the coronary artery calcium. Similarly, diabetics also had an increase in coronary artery calcium, raising the need for further investigation as to the relationship between these findings and the risk of future cardiovascular events in the subset of individuals with metabolic syndrome or diabetes and coronary artery calcification.

Wong ND, Sciammarella MG, Polk D, Gallagher A, Miranda-Peats L, Whitcomb B, Hachamovitch R, Friedman JD, Hayes S, Berman DS., The metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and subclinical atherosclerosis assessed by coronary calcium, J Am Coll Cardiol. 2003 May 7;41(9):1547-53.

LOW CARB DIET EFFECTIVE IN SHORT-TERM TREATMENT OF OBESITY
IN SCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN

With childhood obesity reaching epidemic proportions, physicians everywhere are looking for treatments that are effective. Doctors at the Marshall University School of Medicine in Huntington, West Virginia. report that 23 percent of their pediatric patients are obese. In an effort to find an effective treatment for these patients, they performed a small study comparing a low-fat, calorie-counting diet to a low carbohydrate, calorie-unrestricted diet.

The study consisted of 70 obese children divided into two groups. One was given a low-fat, hypocaloric diet whose calories consisted of 55 percent carbohydrates, 15-20 percent protein and less than 30 percent fat. The other group was put on a diet without calorie restriction that kept the carbohydrates to about 7 percent of the daily caloric intake, protein at 49 percent and fat at 44 percent. The result was that of the 47 children who completed the study with a minimum of two months of follow up, those on the low carbohydrate diet lost an average of 6 kilograms, with a decrease in body mass index of 2.6 kg/m2 compared to those on the low-fat diet, who gained an average of 4.6 kilograms and whose BMI increase by .8 kg/m2. While this study was small and the error bars large, the result does suggest that the low carbohydrate diet is indeed an effective treatment for juvenile obesity.

Misty Trent Strow, James R. Bailes, Adrian R. McGinnis, Lewis Spangler, Jr and Isabel Pino, Successful Short Term Treatment of Obesity in School-Age Children, West Virginia Chapter American Academy of Pediatric Residents Research Contest Winner, 2001.

COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES, THE BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

Carbohydrates come in two basic varieties: sugars and starches. Sugars, also known as simple carbohydrates, are quickly absorbed by the body. Starches-complex carbohydrates-must first be broken down into simple carbohydrates before they are absorbed by the body. This difference can have an important effect on energy and appetite, as a recent study shows.

Researchers in the Netherlands fed 26 male subjects breakfasts high in simple carbohydrates one day and high in complex carbohydrates on the next. For the four hours following their meals, the researchers measured the subjects' blood glucose, insulin, triglycerides, free fatty acids and cholecystokinin levels. Following the simple carbohydrate breakfast, glucose and insulin levels were both higher at 30 minutes after feeding, triglyceride levels were higher at 180 minutes and free fatty acids were higher at 180 and 240 minutes. In addition, the subjects were asked to assess their satiety and levels of fatigue. The researchers found that those consuming a complex carbohydrate breakfast (whole grain breads and cereals) felt more energetic and less hungry than those who ate simple carbohydrates.

Pasman WJ, Blokdijk VM, Bertina FM, Hopman WP, Hendriks HF., Effect of two breakfasts, different in carbohydrate composition, on hunger and satiety and mood in healthy men, Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 2003 Jun;27(6):663-8.

Source: Atkins Health & Medical Information Services

Parthenon Capital Acquires Majority Interest in Atkins Nutritionals, Inc.

Press Release
Source: Atkins Nutritionals, Inc.
Parthenon Capital Acquires Majority Interest in Atkins Nutritionals, Inc.
Wednesday October 29, 5:21 pm ET
ANI Management Remains Intact; Sale to Yield Major Endowment For the Dr. Robert C. Atkins Foundation

BOSTON, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Parthenon Capital, a leading middle-market private equity firm with offices in Boston and San Francisco, announced today that it had acquired a majority interest in Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. (ANI), the category leader in controlled carbohydrate information, food products and nutritional supplements. Goldman Sachs Capital Partners is also a significant co-investor in the transaction. Specific terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Parthenon Capital will have the controlling interest in Atkins Nutritionals in partnership with Goldman Sachs, the senior management of Atkins Nutritionals and Dr. Atkins' Estate. There will be no changes in ANI's management. Paul Wolff and Scott Kabak, ANI's CEO and President respectively, will be members of the Board of Directors with Wolff serving as Chairman.ANI's vision is to change the way the world eats to promote good health. The Atkins Nutritional Approach™ (ANA) has been validated by over 400 published studies in support of the scientific principles behind the ANA and in over 15 studies during the past three years, specifically on its safety, efficacy and health benefits. Today, the ANA is a nutritional plan that is finding increasing acceptance in many nations as people around the world suffer from health conditions resulting from the obesity and Type II diabetes epidemics.

Dr. Atkins' surviving spouse, Veronica Atkins said, "Bob and I, with the support of ANI's management, made the decision to welcome an investment in ANI because we knew that an investment in the company from people who support our vision would provide for a substantial endowment for The Dr. Robert C. Atkins Foundation, which in turn would ensure that funding would be available for scientific research on controlled carbohydrate nutrition. He would have been delighted to be working with Parthenon Capital and Goldman Sachs."

John Rutherford, co-CEO of Parthenon Capital said, "Atkins Nutritionals has a superb management team, the number one brand in the controlled carbohydrate category and a solid strategy for growth and long-term success. Parthenon Capital believes that ANI has an important mission that extends well beyond the financial numbers, and we are committed to continuing the current course and strategy of the company in partnership with the company's current management, employees, customers and suppliers."

"We consider this a very attractive investment opportunity," added Muneer Satter, Managing Director of Goldman Sachs. "Atkins Nutritionals is well-positioned for growth with a new product pipeline that may be one of the strongest and most promising of any food company in today's market."

Paul D. Wolff, Chairman and CEO of Atkins stated that, "The partnership with Parthenon Capital and Goldman Sachs is both essential and exciting. It provides the financial and intellectual resources necessary to drive ANI's vision and Dr. Atkins' dreams to an entirely new level."

Atkins Nutritionals, based in Ronkonkoma, Long Island, was founded by Dr. Robert C. Atkins in 1989. Today, Atkins Nutritionals is a fast-growing international enterprise providing a broad range of convenience foods, supplements, baked goods, snacks, condiments and information products designed to serve the millions of consumers who have adopted the controlled carbohydrate lifestyle. The company's products are sold in the natural, nutritional, food, mass and drug retail channels as well as direct through their catalog and Web site. For more information, please visit www.atkins.com.

Parthenon Capital is a leading middle-market private equity firm that was founded in 1998 and has $1.1 billion of capital currently under management. The firm provides strategic support and financing for recapitalizations, management buyouts, consolidations, privatizations and growth/expansion funding. Parthenon Capital is focused on partnering with middle-market companies with the goal of building them into world-class competitors. They invest in a variety of industry sectors with particular expertise in consumer products, food and beverage, business and financial services, healthcare, and value-added distribution. For more information, please visit www.parthenoncapital.com.

Goldman Sachs is a global leader in corporate equity and mezzanine investing. To date, Goldman Sachs has formed ten investment vehicles aggregating over $17 billion of capital. With $5.25 billion in committed capital, GS Capital Partners 2000 is the current primary investment vehicle for Goldman Sachs to make privately negotiated equity investments. GS Capital Partners seeks long-term capital appreciation by committing equity to high-quality companies with superior management in a variety of situations, including leveraged buyouts, recapitalizations, and growth investments to fund acquisition or expansion. The Fund invests across a broad range of industries and creates value through meaningful involvement with portfolio companies' strategic decision-making and operating philosophy. For more information, please visit www.gs.com/pia.

Source: Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. - Yahoo!

Center for low-carbohydrate diet closes

NEW YORK (AP) _ The Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine has closed its doors, six months after low-carbohydrate diet guru Dr. Robert C. Atkins died at age 72.

The center was shuttered on Oct. 15, and patients were notified two weeks earlier.

Dr. Keith Berkowitz, a specialist in internal medicine and the center's acting director, announced Wednesday that he would open his own practice later this month that would continue Atkins's philosophy for good health.

Read full article: newsday.com

Dr. Atkins' Medical Practice Closes

Press Release
Source: Atkins Health and Medical Information Services

Dr. Atkins' Medical Practice Closes; Clinical Legacy Lives on Through The Dr. Robert C. Atkins Foundation and Atkins Nutritionals, Inc.

NEW YORK, Oct. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- The medical practice of Dr. Robert C. Atkins, who passed away earlier this year, will be closing its doors on October 15. Also known as The Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine, the practice has been in the process of winding down for the past few months as required by New York State law. Arrangements are underway for the transfer of records and the notification to patients.

Read full article: yahoo.com

The Fat Fast (Atkins)

Counterintuitive as it may sound, if you can't budge the scale on Induction, a few days on this regimen may well allow you to break through metabolic resistance.

Certain individuals are so metabolically resistant that only more intense dietary restrictions prove successful. Once medications, thyroid problems and candida are brought under control, almost all overweight people who diligently adhere to the Atkins Nutritional Approach™ will lose and keep off weight. But for the small group of people for whom it does not work, more extreme measures are necessary.

To help these metabolically resistant people, Dr. Atkins has modified what he calls "the most effective weight-loss eating pattern ever described." British researchers Alan Kekwick and Gaston Pawan developed it, and Frederick Benoit and his team confirmed its superiority in burning off fat, compared to an absolute total fast. This extreme diet consists of 1,000 calories daily, comprised of 90 percent fat. No other weight-loss regimen has matched its ability to burn off stored fat. Dr. Atkins modified the Kekwick diet to make it as enjoyable as possible and dubbed it the "Fat Fast." He tried it on scores of patients and found it often worked for those who were unable to lose weight in any other safe, drug-free way.

The Kekwick diet forces the body into lipolysis so it burns its stores of fat. Lipolysis cannot take place if there is a significant source of glucose. Since all carbohydrates and some protein convert to energy by way of glucose, eliminating almost everything but fat from the diet forces even the most resistant body into lipolysis. That explains the 90 percent dietary-fat component. Lowering the caloric intake accelerates the need to burn up body fat—thus the
1,000-calorie limit.

The Fat Fast is one controlled carb program where you do have to count calories. You'll eat 1,000 calories a day, with 75 percent to 90 percent comprised of fat. Frequent feedings prevent hunger better than three meals a day, so you consume five feedings, perhaps one every four hours, comprising 200 calories
each. Because of the high fat content and frequent feedings, very few people
experience much hunger. The stumbling block for some people is the absence of
conventional meals. But most are willing to stick with it for a few days, even
if the food selections are unfulfilling.

Caution: The Fat Fast is actually dangerous for anyone who is not metabolically resistant. For people who lose weight fairly easily, the rate of weight loss is too rapid to be safe. But it carries very little risk for people who can barely lose on any other regimen.

Step One: Eat Mostly Fat
Begin with five 200-calorie feedings per day and follow for four or five days. Each item equals approximately 200 calories:

*[Note:* 1 ounce is about 25g]

• one ounce of macadamia nuts or macadamia nut butter
• two ounces of cream cheese or Brie
• one ounce of tuna or chicken salad with two teaspoons of mayonnaise served in one-quarter of an avocado
• two deviled eggs made with two teaspoons of mayonnaise
• two ounces of sour cream and two tablespoons black or red caviar
• two and a half ounces whipped heavy cream topped with sucralose zero-calorie syrup
• two ounces of pâté (check label for fat content)
• two egg yolks (hard-boiled) with one tablespoon of mayonnaise

Step Two: Modify the Fat Fast
If increasing the fat-to-carbohydrate ratio and cutting calories work, any
dietary change in that direction might get the job done. Next, you can try four
meals a day of roughly 300 calories for a total of 1,200 calories. That should
work, too, and what it allows is definitely more appealing to the taste buds:

• two ounces of beef chuck (do not drain fat) cooked in two tablespoons of
  olive oil
• two scrambled eggs with two strips of nitrate-free bacon
• two tablespoons of full-fat sour cream with a tablespoon of sugar-free syrup
  one-quarter cup chicken or tuna salad made with two tablespoons of mayonnaise
• three ounces of pâté (check label for fat content)
• one-and-a-half ounces of macadamia nuts

Step Three: Return to Induction
Try the 1,200-calorie regimen for a week, then go back to Induction. Or simply follow the concept of increasing the ratio of fat to protein. No one should have to feel that losing weight is hopeless. Sometimes the key to achieving your goal weight permanently is quite difficult to adhere to, but rarely is it simply impossible.

Source: atkins.com

Further reading: CarbSmart

In sickness and in health: Atkins at large

Dr James Le Fanu says eat more fat and grow thin

There is nothing equivocal, no "ifs and buts", about the scientific vindication of Dr Robert Atkins's politically incorrect "high-fat" diet, as reported in this paper last week.

For the best part of 20 years, legions of nutritionists, doctors, health educationists, food faddists and other busybodies have solemnly warned us about the wickedness of saturated fats in meats and dairy foods - how they make you fat, clog up the arteries, cause cancer and, indeed, virtually any illness known to man.

If only we were to embrace the more wholesome and ascetic virtues of a low-fat diet - piling our plates high with pasta, pulses and bread - we would be slimmer, our cholesterol levels would be lower and we would live forever.

As we now know, however, that is not how it has turned out. When the two types of diet were directly compared, those on the Atkins high-fat diet won hands down, losing twice as much weight, with lower levels of glucose and a better balance of fats in the blood. This outcome, so contrary to prevailing opinion, requires some explanation.

Full article: telegraph.co.uk

'I didn't even feel hungry'

Clinical trials published last week show that the controversial Atkins diet really can help people lose weight. That's not news to Suzanne Levy, now a size 12

26 May 2003

As moments go, it was one of the sweetest. I'm in the changing rooms, trying on a skirt. It fits - and it's a size 12. I'm blinking, squinting at the label. Is this a mistake? I've been a 14, and then a 16, for years. But there's no mistake - I look at the mirror, see my newly slim shape, and feel like weeping. I love Dr Atkins.

And it looks like it's not just me. Last week, the first clinical trials of the Atkins diet were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The diet, which involves cutting out carbohydrates such as bread, pasta and rice, but eating plenty of protein and usually forbidden fats, has sold millions of copies and is much praised by celebrities such as Renée Zellweger. It has attracted plenty of controversy, too. Yet these trials show that people lose weight faster on this diet than using other methods and that it doesn't appear to damage your health, as its critics have suggested...

Full article: independent.co.uk

Praise the Lard

Detractors are being forced to eat their scathing words after two studies last week found that the Atkins diet works - and it's good for you, report Olga Craig and Robert Matthews.

Full article: telegraph.co.uk

Atkins diet 'is beneficial and twice as effective as rivals'

The controversial Atkins diet, which severely restricts carbohydrates in favour of unlimited amounts of fat and protein, is twice as effective as conventional diets at shedding excess pounds, new research has shown.

In a six-month trial, volunteers following the regime lost twice as much weight as those on more traditional low-calorie, high-carbohydrate diets.

And despite fears that the bestselling diet could be harmful in the long term, researchers found that the diet protected against heart disease by increasing levels of "good" cholesterol.

Full article: telegraph.co.uk

Sorting Out an Eating Plan in a Nation Filled With Dietary Confusion

A couple months ago, I met Dr. Robert Atkins in a green room for "New York Close-Up," the talk show on NY1. Dr. Atkins and I both had new books to talk about. His will sell a million copies. Mine won't. Dr. Atkins looked fit and lean, if a little worn from a busy interview schedule. I was a little worn too, but not so fit and lean. "So how's your cholesterol?" I wanted to ask him, but didn't, because he probably knew what his was and I didn't know my own. He also had a plan for losing weight, and I didn't. Like many Americans when it comes to thinking about health, I have lived, until recently, not in passive denial but in active avoidance.

Meeting Dr. Atkins, who died last month after slipping on an icy sidewalk, was like meeting the conundrum of the American diet in the flesh. Americans are overweight in record numbers, by record amounts, and at improbably young ages as well. Obesity is no longer a personal problem in this country; it's an epidemiological problem. We are maladapted, in an evolutionary sense, to the most abundant foods around us. We live in a wilderness of dangerous fats and highly refined carbohydrates, suitable perhaps for some other kind of creature but not for us. And what makes that wilderness of foods all the more dangerous is the feeling that somehow we're entitled to eat them. They're convenient, cheap and brightly packaged, symbols of the American way of life. We give ourselves permission to eat them. We feel we deserve to eat them. It was a hard day, after all.

Full article: New York Times [registration required]

Applauding Atkins

By Joel Beck
Friday, April 25, 2003

Swampscott diet guru Barry Sears remembers his late friend and colleague

When Dr. Barry Sears had dinner with Dr. Robert Atkins in Boston last October, Sears had no idea it would be the last time he would see his longtime colleague. Nonetheless, Sears now finds himself paying his final respects to the man whom he debated many times on the topic of health and nutrition.

Sears, a Swampscott resident and creator of the Zone Diet, was as stunned as many people throughout the country when he learned that Atkins, the man behind the famed Atkins Diet, died last week. On Tuesday, April 8, Atkins was walking from his home to his office when he fell and hit his head, suffering severe head trauma. He died just nine days later.

"It just demonstrates how temporal life really is," says Sears in recalling the untimely death of his friend and colleague, who was 72 years old. Atkins' latest book, "Atkins for Life," was released in January and became the number one New York Times bestseller within days.

Also, Atkins was named one of People magazine's 25 Most Intriguing People at the end of the 20th century and was one of Time magazine's "People Who Mattered" at the end of last year.

Atkins was a cardiologist whose diet theory revolved around controlled carbohydrate intake, a method which challenged conventional medical and nutritional science.

Sears says even thought he didn't always see eye to eye with Atkins, the two always had a mutual respect. In the end, he says, their ideas on nutrition really weren't all that different.

"He had a very passionate belief in trying to improve people's health through diets," says Sears. "We both had a common vision that the obesity epidemic in our country was caused by over-consumption of carbohydrates. We just had different approaches on how to reduce that over-consumption."

Sears says he will remember most how Atkins never backed down on his theories, which were often ridiculed and condemned by people in the medical profession. By sticking to his guns, Sears believes Atkins ultimately paved the way for others to come forward with their own theories on nutrition.

"Most impressive to me is that he stood by his convictions through 30 years of continuing controversy," says Sears. "A lesser man may have said, 'I don't need this.' He had his very passionate beliefs and he stood by them. I think that's a very important lesson for all of us regardless of what we do. If you feel passionate about something, you should basically defend it to the end.

"I really think the world really lost a pioneer who questioned conventional wisdom," he adds. "I know personally, I'll miss him to a great extent."

Source: townonline.com

Incredible shrinking journalist

Don Braid
For The Calgary Herald

Friday, April 18, 2003

Because of Dr. Robert C. Atkins, the diet revolutionary who died Thursday after a fall, there's a lot less of me than there used to be.

To be precise, 35 pounds less. I owe my radical shrinkage to Atkins, and will be forever grateful to this remarkable man who had the courage to stand up to North America's medical establishment for more than 30 years.

He was called a charlatan, a quack and even a criminal. But Atkins has proved to be mostly right about food and diet, while his accusers were mostly wrong.

Full article: canada.com

Diet guru who grew fat on the proceeds of the carbohydrate revolution

William Leith
Saturday April 19, 2003
The Guardian

Robert Atkins, who has died aged 72 after sustaining head injuries in a fall outside his New York clinic, was arguably the most influential diet guru in the world. He sold more than 10m copies of his book Dr Atkins' New Diet Revolution, which might have been read by as many as 30m people. In the last decade, he was cited as one of the 10 most influential people in the world.

Just over a year ago, Atkins suffered a heart attack, but, as he pointed out, this was caused by an infection and had nothing to do with the Atkins diet, which he had followed for 39 years.

Full article: The Guardian

Robert C. Atkins, M.D., Dies at 72

NEW YORK, NY—April 17, 2003—Dr. Robert C. Atkins, one of the pioneers of complementary medicine in the United States and one of the most famous, successful and enduring nutrition experts of the last 40 years, died on April 17, 2003 in New York City at the age of 72. Dr. Atkins was the founder of The Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine and Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. He also authored more than a dozen health and nutrition books, including Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution, one of the 50 best-selling books of all time, and Atkins for Life. Released earlier this year, Atkins for Life quickly joined Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution on The New York Times bestseller list. The cause of death was related to head trauma from an accident that occurred while Dr. Atkins was on his way to work.

The serious snowstorm that hit New York City the day before the incident, along with unseasonably cold temperatures, left streets and sidewalks slippery. As was his daily habit, Dr. Atkins walked from his home to his office, a distance of about one mile. At approximately 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, April 8, 2003, he fell and hit his head, suffering severe head trauma. Keith Berkowitz, M.D., a colleague at The Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine, was arriving at work at the same time, and was able to rush Dr. Atkins to the hospital within minutes. The doctors at the hospital emergency room determined that Dr. Atkins had suffered a subdural hematoma and that surgery was required to remove the blood clot from his brain. He survived for several days but eventually succumbed to complications.

Full article: atkinscenter.com

Arguing over Atkins

Traditional diet and exercise or the no-carb system? Doctors and dieters debate

By BARBARA KORNBLUH
Special to The Daily Journal
Atkins dieters don't have it easy.

They can't pig out on bread, pastas, rice and most fruit.
They're forced to improvise (read: take the hot dog out, and throw away the bun) when they get hungry on the road.
And then there are all the questions from friends and family: Isn't that unhealthy? Don't you miss eating bread and fruits? Aren't you worried the diet will raise your cholesterol?
But not all medical professionals sniff at the famous dietary plan created decades ago by Dr. Robert Atkins.

Local Atkins dieters have a friend in Dr. Charles Mintz, a Millville physician. In spite of his small frame, he has been on the diet for years.
"The Atkins diet is really a way of life for me and my family," said Mintz, 64. "I was reluctant to try it, but have been on it for the past 25 years."

Full Article: thedailyjournal.com

Atkins diet has a point, despite scientific backlash

Calories vs. carbs

The battle heated up last week when the Journal of the American Medical Association weighed in, concluding there's nothing special about the low-carbohydrate diet promoted by best-selling diet guru Robert Atkins.

Dr. Atkins has long claimed that severely restricting carbohydrates results in metabolic changes that help dieters lose weight faster than a traditional low-calorie diet. The Jama authors, however, reviewed nearly 40 years of medical studies and concluded the low-carb diet is simply another way to cut high-calorie foods.

But the calorie-vs.-carb debate may be missing a crucial point. While the science shows all calories are created equal, it's increasingly clear that all carbohydrates are not. Not only are many high-carb foods very fattening, but certain types of carbs also can make it tougher to stick to a diet.

Full article: sfgate.com

Update on Dr. Robert C. Atkins' Condition

Dr. Robert C. Atkins Remains Hospitalized After Accident

New York, NY, April 14, 2003—Family and friends continue their vigil at the bedside of Dr. Robert C. Atkins. As of today, Dr. Atkins remains in a coma and on life support. Although his physicians continue to report that Dr. Atkins’ chances of a meaningful recovery are slim, the family continues to hope for a miracle and every measure possible is being considered to save his life. “I want to thank the thousands of people who have sent emails, cards, flowers and have called saying that they are praying for my husband, “ says Veronica Atkins. “It makes me proud that my husband has touched so many lives and having this reaffirmed at this time is very much helping me through this terrible ordeal. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

As many of you already know, early Tuesday morning April 8th, on his daily walk to work, Dr. Atkins fell on the sidewalk outside his office and suffered injuries to his head. The dramatic snowstorm that hit New York City the day before along with the unusually cold temperatures left streets and sidewalks slippery. Dr. Keith Berkowitz, his colleague at The Atkins Center, was arriving at work at the same time and was able to rush Dr. Atkins to Cornell University Medical Center. Dr. Atkins suffered severe head trauma and required surgery.

Source: atkinscenter.com

Diet Doctor Atkins in Coma in Hospital

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Diet doctor Robert Atkins remained in a coma and on life support almost a week after slipping on an icy sidewalk in New York and hitting his head, his spokesman said on Monday.

Atkins, 72, promoter of a popular but controversial high-protein, low carbohydrate diet, was taken to the hospital last Tuesday morning after falling near the Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine in Manhattan.

Spokesman Richard Rothstein said Atkins was "in a coma and on life support" at the Weill Cornell Medical Center. Atkins underwent surgery after his fall on the sidewalk, which was still icy after an unusual spring snowstorm that hit the New York region last Monday.

Full article: Yahoo! News

Report on Energy Bar Study Erred in Grouping Results

A recent report on research from Ohio State University on the effect on insulin and glucose levels produced by eating energy bars erroneously generalized the findings to all bars in the study when in fact, one bar -- the Atkins Advantage Bar -- showed minimal impact on blood sugar.

The study confirmed that Atkins Advantage Bars produced a significant reduction (71 percent) in plasma glucose levels compared to white bread with similar calorie levels (which served as a control for the study), and a reduction of 26 percent in serum insulin compared with controls. This study demonstrated that substitution of other macronutrients for carbohydrates is effective for reducing post prandial glycemia.

When the study evaluated other moderate and high carbohydrate bars, the insulin response was actually elevated compared with the white bread control. This was not the case with the Atkins Bar. The three bars in the study produced very different results.

The results of the study showed that the Atkins Advantage Bar significantly reduced both blood glucose levels and serum insulin compared to the control and the other bars. The original report of this research inaccurately characterized all bars in the study as a group.

Source: The Ohio State University Division of Medical Dietetics

Dr. Robert C. Atkins In Very Critical Condition After Accident

New York, NY, April 11, 2003—

As of today, we are saddened to report that Dr. Robert C. Atkins remains gravely ill. He is in a coma and on life support. His physician reports that Dr. Atkins' chances of a meaningful recovery are slim. Nonetheless, we are hoping for a miracle and every measure possible is being considered to save his life.

As many of you already know, early Tuesday morning April 8th, on his daily walk to work, Dr. Atkins fell on the sidewalk outside his office and suffered injuries to his head. The dramatic snowstorm that hit New York City the day before along with the unusually cold temperatures left streets and sidewalks slippery. Dr. Keith Berkowitz, his colleague at The Atkins Center, was arriving at work at the same time and was able to rush Dr. Atkins to Cornell University Medical Center. Dr. Atkins suffered severe head trauma and required surgery.

Source: Atkinscenter.com

Diet Promoter Robert Atkins Hospitalized

Wednesday April 9, 2003 9:50 PM

NEW YORK (AP) - Low-carbohydrate diet promoter Dr. Robert Atkins was
hospitalized Wednesday with severe head injuries after falling on an icy sidewalk, his spokesman said.
Atkins, 72, slipped and fell during Tuesday's snowstorm outside the Atkins
Center for Complementary Medicine, spokesman Richard Rothstein said. ``He was negotiating the snow and ice and failed in that negotiation,'' Rothstein said.
A colleague rushed Atkins to New York Weill Cornell Medical Center, where he
underwent surgery for severe head trauma, Rothstein said.
The extent of Atkins' impairment was unknown, he said.
``He's in recovery now, and the doctors are telling us that it will be a day or two days or three days before we have the answers to these questions,'' Rothstein said.
Atkins is the author of the best-selling ``Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution.''

Source: The Guardian

Dr. Atkins to Receive Journal of Women's Health Criterion Award

Event Type: Awards Ceremony

Location: 11th Annual Congress on Women's Health

Date: Monday, June 2, 2003
Time: 12:15 PM - 1:30 PM EST

Featuring: Robert C. Atkins, M.D.

Description:

Dr. Atkins will receive the Journal of Women's Health Criterion Award at the 11th Annual Congress on Women's Health on Monday, June 2. The conference will take place from Saturday, May 31, to Tuesday, June 3, at the Hilton Head Marriott Beach & Golf Resort in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

This annual award from the Journal of Women's Health is given to an individual who has influenced women's health in an extraordinary way. Past award winners have ranged from Bernadine Healey, the first woman to head up the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a pioneer in the women's health movement, to Jane Fonda, who is a women's health activist and benefactor.

Dr. Atkins has been chosen to receive this award to honor his important and longstanding contribution to understanding the role of carbohydrates and their adverse effect of their over consumption on obesity, diabetes, cholesterol and heart disease; for his perseverance and determination to stay the course in the face of resistance and doubt from the medical and scientific community; and for his commitment to fight the growing and deleterious effects of the obesity epidemic.

Source: Atkinscenter

Thin Memories - Dr. Atkins

Author of controversial diet has Dayton roots, but his heart's in NYC

By D.L. Stewart
e-mail address: DL_Stewart~coxohio.com
Dayton Daily News

For five cents, readers of the Dayton Herald on April 8, 1947, got an eyeful of good news about the Dayton school system. In the annual statewide general scholarship test for high school seniors, Dayton schools “took the lion’s share of top winnings.”

More than 8,500 seniors from 1,300 Ohio high schools took the test, the lead story on the front page reported, and Wilbur Wright, Fairmont and Oakwood all finished in the top 25. But it was the Fairview Bulldogs who led the way; five of the school’s seniors were among the top 25 boys in the state.

Among them was Robert C. Atkins, of 1929 Elsmere Ave., who finished second in the state.

“He plans to study medicine at Ohio State University,” noted the story, which was accompanied by a photo of the slender 16-year-old senior wearing a sport coat and, inexplicably, holding a basketball.

Nearly 56 years later, Atkins still remembers his score: 269 points out of a possible 300. But he isn’t quite sure about the basketball.

“I guess it’s because basketball was my favorite sport,” he muses. “But I was too small to play it. I had skipped a grade, so I was a year and a half younger than everyone else. And, when I graduated, I only weighed 135 pounds.”

Atkins never went to Ohio State, opting, instead, for the University of Michigan. And he never played basketball. But weight has remained an important issue for the man who created The Atkins Diet.

To his disciples, Dr. Robert Atkins is the flavor savior who put meat and cheese back on their plates. To much of the medical establishment, he is a health-harming heretic who is clogging the arteries of America with animal fat. The argument has raged around the kid with the basketball in his hands for more than 30 years.

A biographer would say Atkins got his start in Columbus, which is where he was born. Most of his life, though, has been spent in New York City and he refers to himself as a New Yorker.

“The first time I came to New York I realized I didn’t like small towns as much as I like gigantic towns,” he says during a recent phone interview that followed his cheese omelette breakfast. His office is in midtown Manhattan, where he is “busier than I’ve ever been.” He lives on the 20th floor of a building overlooking the East River with his octo-lingual, Russian-born wife Veronica, whom he married when he was 57.

But Atkins is, undeniably, a product of the Dayton school system.

He was in seventh grade when his family moved to Dayton, where his mother settled in as a housewife, and his father “owned a few little restaurants and places where people could stay overnight.”

‘Partial to Dayton’
“I’m partial to Dayton, because I was more mature when I lived there than when I lived in Columbus,” he notes. “Most of what I learned before college I learned in Dayton.”

Whatever he may have learned here, his recollections of the small town in which he spent the majority of his teenagehood seem more perfunctory than warm. He is no Roger Clemens, the major league baseball star who sniped that the best thing about Dayton was seeing it in the rearview mirror.

But the memories Atkins cites evoke little enthusiasm. He recalls no favorite restaurants or stores, no best buddies or unrequited loves, no malt shoppes where the gang hung out after school. He doesn’t mention the name of his junior high or the names of any teachers.

After 56 years, the memory gaps certainly can be understood. Or, if he remembers these things, it could be that he chooses not to mention them. Perhaps the closest he comes to a memory that is up close and personal is an observation about his classmates that “they only really enjoyed people who were athletes rather than brains.”

“I guess I remember Fairview High School,” he concedes when pressed. “It’s still my best memory. In those days there’s no question that the people in my high school were extremely bright. And I remember during the war I had a job selling shoes in a shoe store on the weekends. I was 14 years old and here I was selling shoes to grown-ups.”

He remembers, too, appearing on a local (WHIO) radio show with some of the other kids from school when he was 16 and had thoughts of becoming a comedian.

Those thoughts lingered until after he graduated from Michigan and spent a summer as a waiter and entertainer at hotels in the Adirondacks. But then he headed off to Cornell University Medical School, and comedy gave way to cardiology, with a residency at St. Luke's Hospital in New York, a suite of offices on Park Avenue and occasional mentions in his hometown newspapers. In 1962 he earned a small headline in the Dayton Journal Herald for assisting in a transatlantic electrocardiogram for actor Edward G. Robinson.

Gains 90 pounds
As Atkins’ practice grew, so did he, until the 135-pound high school graduate eventually weighed 225. He tried traditional low-fat diets, which left him hungrier, but no thinner.

“It’s beyond my comprehension how anyone can put up with the kind of hunger I put up with,” he said in a 1973 interview in The Journal Herald.

So he turned the food pyramid upside down, developing a diet based on a study he read in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1963.

“It said there was an alternative to a low-calorie diet, which is a low-carbohydrate diet. So I went on it about a month after it printed, and I felt so much better as a result,” recalled Atkins. “One important thing is that I needed three hours less sleep a night. I still wake up after 5 1/2 or 6 hours of sleep.” He lost 27 pounds in six weeks, he said.

But the medical world gained a debate that has lasted for more than 30 years.

Long before Taco Bell used the slogan, Atkins began urging his patients to think outside the bun. The danger wasn’t in the high-fat, double-deck, cheese-covered contents available at the fast-food places popping up on every street corner, he insisted. It was in the carbohydrate-loaded, white-flour bread that surrounded them.

‘Revolution’ begins
In 1970 his “eat all you want” advice became known as the Vogue diet when it was published in that magazine. The article generated, he says, 1 million requests for copies of the plan he had conceived. And it gave birth in 1972 to Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution, reputedly one of the top 50 best-selling books of all time.

One major boost for the book came from comedian Buddy Hackett, who drew attention to it with shtick on The Tonight Show.

“He said some funny things on the show,” Atkins relates, lapsing into a passable imitation of the pudgy comedian answering a question from Johnny Carson:

“You know how I lost this weight? Dr. Atkins used to call me every hour and say, ‘Are you eating?’ ”

The medical establishment was not amused. The American Medical Association termed his work “unscientific and potentially dangerous.”

Atkins countered that the criticism was “politically motivated” and that the AMA would change its views toward him when there were new individuals in office.

“The AMA faces its largest credibility gap in history,” he declared. “The true scientific community doesn’t believe them.”

In 1972, Atkins returned to Dayton for an appearance on the Phil Donahue Show. He took the occasion to declare that “calories are just a colossal hoax perpetrated on the victimized public,” “sugar is poison” and “low-cal diets, portion control and balanced diets are not the answer.” He also bashed Weight Watchers, the Stillman water diet and fruit.

A year later, an AMA spokesman testified before a Senate committee headed by George McGovern that the diet was “risky and very dangerous.” Atkins countered that the AMA “should be cooperating on the development of fresh approaches for combating obesity instead of quarreling over every new suggestion that departs from the traditionally standard but unsuccessful recommendations of the medical establishment.” The same year a lawsuit was filed in Cleveland demanding that the sale of the book be banned in Ohio.

Diet rivals clash
In 1981, diet plan rival Nathan Pritikin declared that Atkins’ diet could cause everything from heart problems to bad breath. Atkins’ reply was a summons connected to a $5 million libel and slander suit.

The weighty war of words eventually settled into a publicity truce. But, last year, the cease fire ended.

In April, Atkins’ critics appeared to have fresh ammunition for their artery-clogging claims when it was reported that he had suffered a heart attack at his Manhattan home during breakfast. A statement quickly appeared on his company’s Web site insisting, “This was not a heart attack but a cardiac arrest related to an infection of the heart he has been suffering from for a few years.”

Later that year Atkins fired back with an assault of his own: a Duke University diet and fitness center study by Dr. Eric Westman that seemed to endorse his diet. The mainstream press began to speculate that maybe Atkins had been right all along.

But mainstream medicine is still not about to wave a white flag. The study was publicly dissed by quotable health professionals as “such a scam” and “something that makes money for Dr. Atkins and not much more than that.”

“Hepatitis C is effective at helping people lose weight, too,” another scoffed.

Even those willing to admit that the low-fat diet might be wrong were not willing to admit that the high-fat diet is right.

“The low-fat, high-carb diet that’s been trendy for 15 years is the pendulum swinging too far in one direction,” says Dr. Stanley Rockson, chief of consultative cardiology at Stanford University. “Atkins is too far a swing in the other direction.”

Still at odds with AMA
And there is little doubt, as Atkins concedes, that any possibility of dietary peace talks in our time has been tabled by the recent publication of his latest book, Atkins for Life (St. Martin’s Press, $24.95), currently at No. 2 on the bestseller list at Books & Co. in Kettering.

“I would say we’re still not the best of friends,” he declares of his three-decade spat with the AMA. “Obviously I was overconfident about how long it would take them to change their views.”

The continuing disagreements, he says, are more than honest people with an honest difference of opinion. They are caused by “people who don’t want to admit they are wrong. It’s very hard to say ‘I know I told everybody to go on a low-fat diet, and I was wrong.’ ”

In Atkins’s eyes, there is no question who is wrong.

“After hundreds of millions of dollars of marketing to support the low-fat approach and years of information dissemination, including the Food Guide Pyramid, it is clear that low-fat programs have not proved to help most Americans enjoy an optimal weight and improved health,” he writes in the new book’s introduction.

“It really comes down to this: How would you prefer to spend the rest of your life:

A. Munching celery sticks, weighing your portions and never feeling really satisfied with your food?

B. Eating a wide variety of delicious foods in satisfying amounts — and enjoying every bite?”

Atkins clearly is not a celery stick muncher. He is 6 feet tall and lists his weight at 189 pounds, down from that high of 225. At the age of 72, he still seems to have a hearty appetite for delicious foods and a good scrap between meals. If he has trouble recalling names and places of his years in Dayton, he has no trouble at all reciting statistics that support his theories.

“There were 3,000 deaths from heart disease in 1930,” he declares. “By 1970 they went up to a million. Between 1960 and 1980 there was not a 1 percent increase in the percentage of people who had obesity. Then it doubled or tripled. The percentage of fat (consumed) dropped from 40 percent to 32 percent, but at the same time there was a 30-pound a year increase in the intake of sugar and a 64-pound increase in flour.”

All these statistics, he insists, are proof that his method is preferable to the scores of other diet plans that come and go with confusing regularity and yo-yo results. And, as he talks about metabolic pathways, the changes in the nature of carbohydrates and the evils of sugar and flour, his voice grows stronger and more impassioned. Skeptics may claim that it is all about money or ego. Atkins insists it is all about health.

“I’m trying to put an end to the epidemic proportions of obesity and diabetes,” he declares.

Although he says “quite a few” of the patients he sees in his New York office are from the Miami Valley, Atkins has no immediate plans for a house call to check up on the health of Dayton.

“It’s been a good 10 years or more since I’ve been in Dayton,” he says. “The last time I just drove around to see how much has changed. When I went there, Fairview was at the northwest end of the city and there was hardly anything beyond it.

“If I ever do come back, I would probably just look for the people I had as friends when I went to school. Hopefully, they might have a party for me.”

Or, at the very least, a steak fry.

Contact D.L. Stewart at 225-2439 or by e-mail at DL_Stewart~coxohio.com.

[From the Dayton Daily News: 02.20.2003]

Source: http://www.activedayton.com/ddn/life/daily/0220atkins.html

Was Atkins Right After All?

Is it just possible that Dr. Robert C. Atkins was right? That his high-fat, low-carb plan, ridiculed for 30 years as dangerous nonsense, actually is a good, safe way to lose weight?

The dietary elite are not ready to change their collective mind, but a half-dozen or so new studies have taken an objective look at the presumed evils of Atkins, and the results have been little short of astonishing:

During a few months on the Atkins diet, people lose about twice as much as on the standard low-fat, high-carbohydrate approach recommended by most health organizations.

They do so without seeming to drive up their risk of heart disease. Rather than going kaflooey, their cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure and ominous bloodstream inflammation generally improve, perhaps even more than on the standard diet.

They appear to lose more weight even while actually consuming more calories than people on a so-called healthy diet.

All of the experiments were short and small. None by itself would make a big stir. But taken together, they undermine much of what mainstream medicine has long assumed about the Atkins diet.

"Some scientists are dismayed by the data and a little incredulous about it," says Gary Foster, who runs the weight-loss program at the University of Pennsylvania. "But the consistency of the results across studies is compelling in a way that makes us think we should investigate this further."

Until now, the opinion of the medical world on this subject has been essentially unanimous: Any diet that emphasizes meat, eggs and cheese and discourages bread, rice and fruit is nutritional folly.

The American Medical Association set that tone a year after the book, "Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution," came out in 1972. Its sarcastically worded critique dismissed the diet as "potentially dangerous." It called its scientific underpinning "naive" and "biochemically incorrect." And it scolded book publishers for promoting "bizarre concepts of nutrition and dieting."

On the Atkins diet, up to two-thirds of calories may come from fat — more than double the usual recommendation — and that violates everything medical professionals believe about healthy eating. Carbohydrates are the foundation of a good diet, most say. Eating calorie-dense fat is what makes people fat, and eating saturated fat is what kills them.

Despite this, Atkins' books have sold 15 million copies, uncounted millions have tried the diet, and practically everybody has heard of someone who dropped a ton of weight on the Atkins plan.

Finally, several research teams around the country have put Atkins to the test, driven largely by weariness at having nothing solid to tell patients and, in some cases, a desire to prove Atkins wrong. One study was even sponsored by the American Heart Association, long an Atkins skeptic.

None has been published yet, but summaries have been given at medical conferences. "They all show pretty convincingly that people will lose more weight on an Atkins diet, and their cardiovascular risk factors, if anything, get better," says Dr. Kevin O'Brien, a University of Washington cardiologist involved with one of the studies.

This is not the end of the story. The studies say nothing about how much people lose when they stay on Atkins more than a few months, whether they keep the weight off for good and whether their cholesterol rebounds when they stop losing weight.

Nevertheless, three decades of dietary gospel are in doubt, and those questioning it include some of the most prominent names in obesity research. For instance, one of the new studies was conducted by Foster with Drs. Samuel Klein and James Hill, the current and past presidents of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity, the premier professional group.

"I'm part of the obesity establishment," says Foster, who has published more than 50 scientific papers on the subject. "I've spent my life researching ways to treat obesity, and 100 percent of them have been low-fat and high-carb. Now I'm beginning to think, it isn't as it has appeared."

His Atkins study was intended to "show it doesn't work," yet after three months, the overweight men and women had lost an average of 19 pounds, 10 more than people on the standard high-carb approach.

The big surprise was cholesterol. The Atkins dieters' overall profile changed for the better. Although their bad cholesterol went up seven points, their good cholesterol rose almost 12. (Changes in the high-carb dieters were less dramatic. Their bad cholesterol went down slightly while their good cholesterol remained unchanged.)

The largest difference was in triglycerides. The Atkins dieters' dropped 22 points. The low-carb dieters' didn't budge.

"It was unexpected, to put it mildly," Foster said. "It made us think maybe there is something to this."

Despite these data, the Atkins diet still gives many health professionals the willies. It encourages people to eat bacon, butter, prime rib and lots of other things loaded with saturated fat. And it lectures against such mainstay carbohydrates as grains, pasta and starchy vegetables, especially in the diet's first cold-turkey stage; plenty of other healthy things, including many low-carb green vegetables and olive oil are allowed.

"There are many principles in the Atkins diet that go against what we know," says Dr. Robert Eckel of the University of Colorado, senior author of the heart association's policy on high-protein diets. "It keeps people away from staples of the diet that we know are associated with less heart disease."

Volumes of research suggest that people have the best chance of avoiding heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer if they eat a varied diet with plenty of fruits, vegetables and grains.

"It's scary if people leave out these very important food groups and just depend on high-fat, high-protein foods," says Wahida Karmally, nutrition director at Columbia University's clinical research center.

Furthermore, people on the Atkins plan may get a quarter of their daily calories from saturated fat, more than double the heart association's recommendation. Animal experiments and studies of large groups of people long ago convinced many experts that too much saturated fat clogs the arteries and leads to heart attacks.

Mainstream scientists wave off the Atkins camp's answer to this that saturated fat is bad only if eaten with large amounts of carbohydrates. Otherwise, it's harmlessly burned off.

"When carbs are the primary fuel source, there are certain risks in excessive fat consumption," says Colette Heimowitz, the Atkins organization's research director. "But in a controlled-carb setting, when fat is the primary fuel source, the rules change. Those risk factors do not show up."

So how do the traditionalists explain the cholesterol improvement seen in the Atkins dieters? Weight loss. Slimming down reliably improves cholesterol levels, and they say its benefits probably overshadowed any damage done by all the unhealthy fat that people ate.

Why people lose more weight on the diet is also not clear, although some researchers say they buy one of Atkins' arguments: People stick with it because they are not constantly hungry. Fat and protein satisfy the appetite, the theory goes. But eating lots of carbohydrates raises insulin levels, lowers blood sugar, and eventually makes people ravenous.

But another of Atkins' ideas on the subject is far more contentious. He argues that people lose more weight on his plan even if they actually eat more calories. That's a violation of the laws of thermodynamics, skeptics say.

"A calorie is a calorie as far as weight reduction is concerned," says Dr. Michael Davidson, director of preventive cardiology at the Rush Heart Institute in Chicago.

Or is it? Some of the new studies suggest otherwise.

Dr. Stephen Sondike of Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City put overweight teenagers on comparison diets for two months. The ones on Atkins lost twice as much as those on the low-fat diet. Yet they appeared to eat about 700 more calories a day than the others.

Less dramatic but still startling results came from another study at the University of Cincinnati. Women on Atkins lost twice as much while eating the same number of calories as the lowfat dieters.

"Surprised? Definitely," says Bonnie Brehm, a registered dietitian. "We really don't know what the answer is."

And the Atkins weight loss was not simply dehydration, as Atkins critics often contend, since the Cincinnati dieters also lost twice as much body fat.

But even if the diet is reasonable for a few months of slimming down, what happens when people level off during the maintenance phase of the program? Does their cholesterol soar if they eat all that fat without losing weight?

None of the research so far answers that. However, Atkins-sponsored studies by Jeff Volek, an exercise and nutrition specialist at the University of Connecticut, offers some hints.

He put fit men on an Atkins regimen for six weeks with orders not to lose weight, and nothing bad seemed to happen. Their good and bad cholesterol went up proportionately, and their triglycerides fell. "I'd like to see more data," Volek said, "but ours provides evidence it doesn't have a negative effect on your heart."

But for now, even many of the researchers who did these studies are reluctant to recommend the Atkins diet. They know too little about its long-term effects. A large new study just under way could settle these doubts.

This federally sponsored project will randomly put 360 overweight men and women on the Atkins plan or the U.S. Department of Agriculture's standard high-carb, low-fat diet, then watch them in painstaking detail for at least two years.

The study will try to answer three questions about Atkins, says Hill, who directs the University of Colorado's Center for Human Nutrition. "Does it produce weight loss? Is it a safe weight loss? And is it any better in the long run than anything else that has come along?"

Scientists will analyze the volunteers' blood and cholesterol in every way they can think of, as well as check their bone density, kidney function, body composition, exercise tolerance and more. <