From DROVERS

[Anonymous]

Atkins diet criticized by activists The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, an anti-industry group closely aligned with animal-rights activists, is sponsoring television commercials critical of the high-protein Atkins Diet. Neal D. Barnard, a physician and president of the group, told The New York Times the committee decided to launch the campaign because it was surprised by the resurgence of the high-protein diet. However, a recent study published in The American Journal of Medicine found that people lost weight and reduced cholesterol levels by following the meat-heavy Atkins program.

Thirty years after Dr. Atkins first proposed his diet, the concept remains highly controversial. But, it seems logical that Americans should eliminate some of the carbohydrates from our rich diet. The other logical ingredient to a healthy lifestyle would be to get more exercise, something most Americans seem to avoid. For more about the Atkins diet, visit <A HREF="http://www.atkinscenter.com" TARGET="_blank">www.atkinscenter.com</A> -- Greg Henderson, Drovers Editor.

 

[Anonymous]

The Adkins Diet is getting a lot of interest lately. If you go to the <A HREF="http://www.msnbc.com" TARGET="_blank">www.msnbc.com</A> site and search for Adkins Diet, you can access some recent studies and stories. He was on the Donohue show recently and claims there has never been a study showing adverse effects from his diet. But that the established nutrition/diet communities either wouldn't publish or mis-interpreted the results. I think it's the National Institute of Health?? that is funding a two-year study of the diet now. A doctor at Duke University did a short study on Adkins and found it to be very beneficial. I'm not a conspiracy person, but I did find it strange that the Duke Diet Center web site doesn't have that study online. It's going to be tough to get many of these experts to admit they've been wrong for 30 years if it turns out low-fat/high-carbs is not the way to go. The US and Canada are both rebuilding their food pyramid. Stay tuned....

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[Anonymous]

My teenaged daughter couldn't wait to tell me about the "new" diet she was going to try.... No carbohydrates. It's coming back in vogue.

 

[Anonymous]

Agree that that the PCRM is a highly contagious activist group along with PETA. Now a few of my 2 cents worth biases regarding "fat Americans"--this has nothing to do with the message I'm replying to here.

First, psychological studies in the past have indicated that early in life humans establish a "set point" in their weight structure--that is, start out overweight and you'll probably continue to be overweight (current valid studies may refute this notion).

Second, excluding individuals who have a "genetic" inheritance (or) a bonafide "physical condition" that keeps them overweight, the following notions are more fact than myth:

[1] Most diets are fads and trends which primarily benefit their developers and then a "few" people that they actually work on. [2] If you eat more than you burn up (through work and other activities) you will probably gain weight--the more you gain, the harder it is to lose it. [3] If people only ate what they needed to maintain an "ideal" weight, actually worked at something physical 8 hours a day, led an active life, kept the "boob tube" time to a minimum, avoided high calorie, fat, and carbohydrate "junk food", and laid off the candy, sodas, and other type snacks, our nation would pobably not be grossly overweight. [4] If people "ate to live" rather than "lived to eat" there would probably be fewer fat people. [5] And, finally there is always the possibility that seriously overweight people might have a hypothyroidism problem thereby not allowing their metabolism to burn off excess fat.

P.S.: No medical advice intended here...just some of my personal candid observations of people in general.

 

[Anonymous]

> My teenaged daughter couldn't wait
> to tell me about the
> "new" diet she was going
> to try.... No carbohydrates. It's
> coming back in vogue.

I used the Atkins diet and it worked great. I kept the weight off, etc. The funniest reaction was from my doctor. He almost past out when I told him how I lost over 50 lbs and lowered my cholesterol levels. I say power to Dr. Atkins.

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[Anonymous]

Jena, no Carbs doesn't sound too healthy either to me. I've always been a balanced diet person, some green stuff, some bread, meat, occasional fruit (way too much sugar) and I'm pretty old, but healthy. I've been reading some vegetarian internet sites lately and it's amazing how ignorant some people about diet, especially the benefits of meat. They would like to think eating meat is sure death by heart attack. But more studies are showing half the people who have heart attacks had normal cholestrol levels. And a recent study showed women who eat meat are no more likely to get breast cancer than those who don't eat meat. How old is your daughter? The beef industry has a new website geared toward girls 8-12 years old. The vegans think that's awful, too.

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