The War On Fat: Researchers Chew The Fat On Merits Of The Atkins Diet

USA Today ^ | August 7, 2002 | Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY staff writer

[Grit]

Ok, O. Woman. Hand over that cheesecake recipe. :o)

Seriously, I just made a great cheesecake from the recipe on the Knox gelatine box. Substituted Splenda for sugar. What could be easier?

[Mercat]

My law partners and I are all on this diet. It's great. We meet almost every morning anyway and we compare notes on weight loss etc. We usually eat lunch together and so we have that support too. My heavier partner has lost close to 30 pounds. The smaller one has lost 12. I've lost 8 pounds (and that's while still drinking the occasionally microbrew ale). We love the food. It's hard to get tired of prime rib and I always preferred fatty stuff over deserts and pasta.

Humans are omnivores but bread was not around when the human digestive system evolved. (opps, sorry, that's for another thread, hehe)

I've heard talk about constipation etc and although it's none of your bizwax, I feel great after two months. 8 pounds in two months might now sound like a lot but I'm happy on this diet and enjoy my food whereas other diets that i've been on, i hate. My law partner's wife is also on it and she's a nurse and keeps a close eye on her lab work.

[wardaddy]

Me too. I was 180 or so till around 30.....14 years ago. Now anything less than 215 is ok with me. Anything where size 36-38 britches fit easily is the aim on this waistline...LOL.

[larryjohnson]

Lift weights

[Oregon W.oman]

I love that recipe from the Knox gelatin box made with Splenda instead of sugar! I make it all the time. Since you can cook and bake with Splenda, I modify lots of regular recipes to fit this diet. And there are so many low carb cheesecake - and other low carb recipes - available on the internet. The help available at many of the low carb sites makes the transition to eating less carbohydrates so much easier than when I first started.

[SamAdams76]

Refined sugar and flour are bad for you. White death!

Then how is it that my grandmother managed to live to 90 (and is still going) despite making biscuits and gravy every morning for 70 years now? Not to mention all the pies and cakes and loaves of bread she made over the years. As well, she breads just about every meat she cooks (fried). And all her kids are alive and well and well into their 60s.

Obviously there are extremes. I would never add sugar to things like chicken broth as that person you were talking about does. Nor do I add salt to my food. I haven't had a salt shaker in my house since I was a kid.

[Aquinasfan]

I'm glad that the author of this article presented a fair assessment of the Atkins diet. I haven't tried it myself, but the idea that a diet high in protein reduces hunger corresponds to my experience.

And this article didn' t point out the downside of "grains." Many people can benefit from a wheat-free (gluten-free) diet, whether or not they are intolerant or allergic to it. Many auto-immune diseases (MS, lupus, arthritis, colitis) are correlated with gluten intolerance.

I have a form of arthritis that was probably triggered by celiac disease (gluten intolerance). How? The theory goes like this. In some people, certain proteins in gluten "leak" through the intestinal wall and into the bloodstream. These proteins are identified by the body's immune system as invading organisms thus triggering an abnormal immune response. The mechanism is thought to work similarly in MS, lupus and colitis.

As many as 1 in 250 people suffer from celiac disease, most of them undiagnosed. Moreover, many people seem to benefit from a gluten-free diet, noting increased energy and stamina.

If you ever feel especially tired after a meal of pasta or pizza, you might want to try a gluten free diet. It's not as difficult to follow as you might imagine.

[Aquinasfan]

As for the connection between autoimmunity and cereal grains, it is clear and compelling. The theoretical perspective of molecular mimicry suggests that gliadin-derived peptides, may activate the immune system against collagenous tissues, and since intestinal permeability (not celiac disease) is all that is required to allow the passage of these peptides into the bloodstream, a significant number of many types of autoimmune diseases seem likely to benefit from a gluten-free diet (11 ).

Gluten is a Dubious Luxury of Non-Celiacs
by Ron Hoggan

[tracer]

bariatric bump.....

[Guillermo]

Whatever happened to counting calories?

[Hamza01]

Thanks for the heads-up on the bread. By the way--- what do you mean FR isn't the entire internet?

[Hamza01]

Mmmm... chocolate. My girlfriend just came back from a trip to Switzerland (lots of Tobler came my way). Small portions are tough, though.

Now if only there were Atkins beer...

[Mamzelle]

I have won the battle with the stubborn 15, and am down to the last five. The first few weeks without taters and french bread was tough, but oddly enough, it turns out that I can live quite contentedly without what I considered to be my favorite foods--bread and taters.

Helps that I can have a generous handfyk of pistachios or roasted pecans any time I please!

The major advantage of lo-carb diets is satiety. If you're hungry, you can force yourself to go without, but it is hard to face a lifetime of being hungry. You don't have to on the Atkins.

And you don't have to take off both halves of the hamburger bun--just one. It is awkward to deal without bread sometimes, but I've discovered that Triscuits are relatively low in carbs compared to other crackers and bread.

It's not a cheap diet, either.

The Atkins diet does seem to attract some hysterical opposition...

[Mamzelle]

A low-fat 1500/day diet will make you *ravenous*.

[alarmguy]

Another good book on this subject is "Protein Power" by Michael R. Eades, M.D. and Mary Dan Eades, M. D. To paraphrase, their program reduces cholesterol rapidly, reverses or significantly improves adult onset(type II) diabetes, and drops elevated blood pressure like a rock.

They document low carbohydrate diets as early as 1825.

The key to fighting obesity, hypertension, heart disease, and diabetes is controlling insulin.

[Pining_4_TX]

My sister used to love Moosebreath Burgers, until the tragic incident...

Bitten by a moose, was she?

[Senator Pardek]

I wouldn't consider such a diet for myself. I like eating lots of rice, vegetables, breads, fruits and yes, beer and wine. If I'm a few pounds overweight, what the hell. At least I will be eating well, eating the foods I like to eat and I don't have to live like a freak for the rest of my life, removing burgers from buns in restaurants and other such nonsense.

Bless you, sir.

[Guillermo]

I'm gunning for 2,000 to make me (more) ravenous.

I'm not a bird, you know.

[redhead]

"Whatever happened to counting calories?"

Count them all you want. But don't expect them to tell you very much. The calorie theory is really not very realistic. When scientists take a dab of food and burn it in their calorimeter, they get the absolute fuel/heat content of that particular dab of food. The problem with this is that many times, this isn't what happens to that same dab of food in our bodies. Some of the calories will be sent as fatty acids to hair, skin, hormones, and eyes. Some others will go as amino acids to muscles, others will go to the gut to provide energy. Anything more than the body can use when it is hungry will be stored as fat, and some might even be excreted. So keeping close tabs on calories doesn't really make much difference.

There IS, however, metabolic evidence that points to the fact that anything over 72 grams of carbohydrate foods in the diet is simply stored. + - 72 grams is the amount that the body can use efficiently. Anything over that is sent to the liver as the raw material for glycogen. If all the storage areas in the liver and muscles are already occupied by glycogen, there is only one thing left to do with those surplus carbs: back to the liver for transformation into triglycerides, then to the fat cells. So, you could say that all those triglycerides in your blood didn't come from bacon and eggs you sneaked for breakfast yesterday, they came from that 1-pound cinnamon roll you washed down with 8 ounces of orange juice you had this morning. And they are all on their way to your fat cells.