Two studies appeared to confirm some of what the late Dr. Robert Atkins
preached for decades until his death last month: that carbohydrates, a major
energy source, cause weight gain.
In one six-month study, obese volunteers on the low-carbohydrate, high-fat
and high-protein Atkins diet lost 13 pounds versus four pounds for obese people
on a low-fat diet.
In a second year-long study, obese people on the Atkins diet lost nearly 10
pounds more after six months than volunteers on a conventional diet. But by the
end of the year, the differences between the two groups were not significant,
suggesting the Atkins diet is no better at helping fat people shed pounds than
traditional weight-loss regimens.
"The average weight loss was greater in the low-carbohydrate groups than in
the low-fat groups, but the difference was no longer significant at 12 months in
the trial in which follow-up lasted that long," said James Ware in an editorial
in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, where both studies appear.
Ware also noted that the weight lost in each study was relatively tiny
compared with the volunteers' size. The average starting weight among the
volunteers in the first study was 288 pounds. Those in the second were about 50
pounds overweight.
In the United States, about 45 percent of women and 30 percent of men are on
a diet. More than 60 percent of Americans are overweight and more than 30
percent are obese.
The Atkins diet, first published in 1972, has been criticized by doctors
because its high fat content increases the risk of heart disease, kidney
problems and cancer. The 12-month study found, however, that triglyceride levels
fell further and "good" cholesterol levels rose higher on the Atkins regimen
than on the low-fat diet.
The researchers in the first study, led by Frederick Samaha of the
Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, said because low-fat diets are
known to reduce the risk of heart disease, longer-term studies of the Atkins
diet are needed.
The authors of the second agreed, concluding: "There is not enough
information to determine whether the beneficial effects of the Atkins diet
outweigh its potential adverse effects on the risk of coronary heart disease in
obese persons."
"They have compared two diets, neither of which is very effective," said diet
book author Dean Ornish of the University of California at San Francisco. His
own eating recommendations, which include getting just 10 percent of daily
calories from fat, have been shown to reverse heart disease.
