Why the Atkins diet is healthy

By RFD Columnist Malcolm Kendrick MbChB, MRCGP
(email - malcolm@llp.org.uk )

I was idly watching a programme on the Atkins diet last night which, to my surprise, was reasonably balanced. Yes folks, the Atkins diet has crossed the pond to reach the United Kingdom. Although, in reality, all it is doing is returning. After all we invented it nearly one hundred and fifty years ago.

A man called Banting promoted a diet pretty much indistinguishable from that of Atkins in 1863. In fact, the verb to ‘bant’ is used in Sweden as a term for going on a diet

To find out more about the Banting diet (now known as the Atkins diet) go here.

Anyway, reasonably balanced or not, on this programme there was still an unquestioned view that, even if the Atkins diet did help with weight loss, it was still damaging to health. It would cause kidney disease, and osteoporosis and heart disease. Various professors of nutrition were wheeled out to condemn the Atkins diet as dangerous nonsense.

Ignoring the kidney disease and the osteoporosis for now, the nutritional professors made the usual statements. For example, ‘It is known that saturated fat increases the level of blood cholesterol and causes CHD.’ They didn’t quote any evidence for this. As far as they were concerned it is just a known fact.

Read full article:redflagsdaily.com

ATKINS MUST BE DESTROYED!

"I wanted to make it clear that the attacks on Atkins are not scientific, not rational. Atkins, may he rest in peace, is being attacked because his diet threatens the mainstream. He and his supporters are being subjected to the secular equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition…."
By RFD Columnist, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick

Read full article: redflagsweekly.com

So, what causes heart disease?

By Malcolm Kendrick MbChB, MRCGP (email - malcolm@llp.org.uk )

When you have spent twenty years of your life studying something, you can become somewhat of a bore on the subject. But please bear with me, because I am going to reveal to you the true cause of Coronary Heart Disease (CHD). A bold claim indeed, but I think I can sustain it.

Full article: redflagsweekly

The new hypertension guidelines: Now we are all to be officially ill

By Malcolm Kendrick MbChB, MRCGP (email - malcolm@llp.org.uk )

I write this before I have read all the details on the new Heart Lung and Blood Institute guidelines on raised blood pressure. But there has been enough information flying around to know what they are saying. Frankly, I knew what these guidelines were going to say before the committee met for the first time. Before, in fact, the members of the committee even knew they were going to be on the committee.

Full article: Red Flags Weekly

Why the cholesterol-heart disease theory is wrong (Kendrick)

"Cholesterol is a much maligned substance, the ‘cause’ of heart disease. If it is, it must have killed billions of people. Far more than the plague, every war ever fought, and all plane, train and car crashes ever - all added together, then multiplied by three.

But if it does cause heart disease, how does it do it? The simple ‘answer’ is that, if you eat too much cholesterol, the level in your blood rises, the cholesterol then travels through the artery wall causing cholesterol-laden plaques to develop which then rupture and kill you. That’s the initial cholesterol hypothesis. Dead simple, couldn’t be more simple.

First little problem - dietary intake of cholesterol has no impact on the level of cholesterol in your blood. If we look at two major long-term studies, Framingham and Tecumseh, it is clear that those who ate the most cholesterol had exactly the same level of cholesterol in their blood as those who ate the least cholesterol."

Full article: redflagsweekly.com