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Eat less saturated fat: that has been the take-home message from the U.S. government for the past 30 years. But while Americans have dutifully reduced the percentage of daily calories from saturated fat since 1970, the obesity rate during that time has more than doubled, diabetes has tripled, and heart disease is still the country’s biggest killer. Now a spate of new research, including a meta-analysis of nearly two dozen studies, suggests a reason why: investigators may have picked the wrong culprit. Processed carbohydrates, which many Americans eat today in place of fat, may increase the risk of obesity, diabetes...

Have you seen the news stories about the obesity epidemic? Did you see Super Size Me? Then guess what? ... You've been fed a load of bologna. Comedian (and former health writer) Tom Naughton replies to the blame-McDonald's crowd by losing weight on a fat-laden fast-food diet while demonstrating that nearly everything we've been told about obesity and healthy eating is wrong. Along with some delicious parody of Super Size Me Naughton serves up plenty of no-bologna facts that will stun most viewers, such as: The obesity "epidemic" has been wildly exaggerated by the CDC. People the government classifies as...

Durham, NC - A Duke researcher says that despite the lack of a "gold-standard" clinical trial proving the benefits of a low-carb approach, he has seen enough in his own patients to know that, at least for some, a very low-carb approach can essentially reverse diabetes, without adversely affecting lipid profiles [1]. In his latest published research, Dr Eric C Westman (Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC) and colleagues report that obese patients with type 2 diabetes randomized to a low-carbohydrate diet rather than a low-glycemic, reduced-calorie diet were more likely to experience improvements in glycemic control and, in some...

'Atkins hormone' discovered 05 June 2007 They are loved and endorsed by celebrities and dismissed as an unhealthy diet craze by critics. But 'low carb', high protein and high fat diets have proven their metabolic worth: scientists in the US have discovered a fat-burning role for a specific hormone stimulated by these eating regimes. The work has also raised the intriguing question of whether the Atkins diet could make you live longer. A group of researchers led by Steven Kliewer at Southwestern University in Dallas, Texas found that a growth hormone called fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) stimulates fat metabolism in...

CHICAGO - The low-carb, high-fat Atkins diet gets high marks in one of the biggest, longest head-to-head studies of popular weight-loss plans, beating the Zone, the Ornish diet and even U.S. guidelines. Even so, critics say the results show how hard it is to lose weight and keep it off. Overweight women on the Atkins plan lost more weight over a year than those on the low-carb Zone diet. And they had slightly better blood pressure and cholesterol readings than those on the Zone; the very low-fat, high-carb Ornish diet, and a low-fat, high-carb diet similar to U.S. government guidelines....

Thailand puts panda on low-carb sex diet Sun Jan 14, 1:07 AM ET BANGKOK (AFP) - A male panda in Thailand has been put on a low-carb diet because he is too heavy to mate with his partner, his caretakers have said. Chuang Chuang weighs 150 kilos (330 pounds), while his partner Lin Hui is a lithe 115 kilos (253 pounds), said Kannika Nimtragol, a veterinarian at the Chiang Mai zoo in northern Thailand. "We think Chuang Chuang should not weigh over 140 kilogrammes. Otherwise Lin Hui will carry too much weight while mating," she told AFP. To help Chuang...

NEW YORK - Atkins Nutritionals Inc., the company that promoted low-carb eating into a national diet craze, filed for bankruptcy court protection Sunday, a company spokesman said. Atkins has been hurt by waning popularity of its namesake diet, which focuses on eliminating carbohydrates such as bread and pasta as a way to shed weight. The diet quickly became one of the most popular in U.S. history, spawning numerous derivatives and a virtual cottage industry of low-carb regimens - but also drew criticism from many experts for its focus on fatty foods and low fruit and vegetable consumption. A hearing on...

Tufts researchers recently reported that while the leading source of calories in the average American diet used to be from white bread, that may have changed. Now, according to preliminary research conducted by scientists at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, Americans are drinking these calories instead. The research was presented in abstract form at the Experimental Biology Conference in April of this year and a more comprehensive paper is being developed.Odilia Bermudez, PhD, MPH, studied the reported diets of a large nationwide sample of American adults. Among respondents to the 1999-2000 National...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Foods with a low-glycemic index, which are digested relatively slowly and cause smaller increases in blood sugar, may protect the heart and blood vessels better than low-fat fare, according to the findings of a small study. Researchers in Boston found that when obese people consumed as many carbohydrates with a low-glycemic index as they wanted, they lost just as much weight in 12 months as people who stuck with a conventional, calorie-restricted low-fat diet.Carbohydrates with a low-glycemic index include foods such as nonstarchy vegetables, fruit, legumes, nuts and diary products, according to the report in...

I wasted $3.99 last night renting "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason." Well, I hated it. First of all, it is quite annoying to me that everyone treats this girl like she is so unbelievably fat, what with all the references and snide comments about her weight. What does she weigh, like 135-140? Hello, I haven't weighed that since... 9th grade. Give me a freakin' break. I have news for you fat-phobes out there, I am well over 200 pounds and I don't have as much of a problem with my weight as this gal, who is maybe 10 lbs....

Diet-related chronic diseases represent the single largest cause of death and sickness in the United States and most Western countries. Yet while these diseases are epidemic in contemporary Westernized populations and typically afflict two-thirds of the adult population, they are rare or nonexistent in hunter-gatherers and other less Westernized cultures.Why? There is an increasing awareness that the profound environmental changes, such as diet and other lifestyle conditions that began with the introduction of agriculture and animal husbandry (the care and breeding of domestic animals), occurred too recently for the human genome to adapt to.Thus, universal characteristics of preagricultural human diets...

PRWEB) December 29, 2004 -- Bob Skilnik, author of the recently-released The Low Carb Bartender: Carb Counts of Beer, Wine, Mixed Drinks and More (ISBN 1593372531, Adams Media, $9.95), argues that the information about alcoholic beverages found in many popular low-carb diet books and websites is usually misleading or incorrect. His book dispels many of the myths associated with low-carb diets and alcohol and also contains the carbohydrate counts of over 1000 beers, 400 wines, 60 liqueurs, and more than 200 low-carb mixed drink recipes. "One popular low-carb website is particularly confusing," says Skilnik. "Although I'm happy to see that...

The low-carb craze has passed its prime, as companies report a pickup in the sales of starch-heavy food. General Mills Inc., which makes cereals such as Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Wheaties and Trix, said sales climbed almost 3 percent in the third quarter, to $2.58 billion from $2.51 billion a year ago.

Last Updated: 2004-10-12 15:41:07 -0400 (Reuters Health) NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A low-carbohydrate diet can help severely obese people improve their cholesterol levels, and it may curb markers of inflammation better than a reduced-fat diet, preliminary research suggests. In obesity, the body tends to be in a state of chronic inflammation, and this inflammation is believed to conspire with others factors -- including high cholesterol -- to promote the hardened, narrowed arteries that can lead to heart attack and stroke. Low-carb diets have been shown to cut excess pounds, but whether they reduce inflammation in the body has been...

Low-carb Leader Will Get My Vote Dave Barry/Miami Herald Sept. 12, 2004 Pretty soon you, the American voter, will enter the sacred sanctity of the voting booth and cast your ballot for the next U.S. president. Or, not. It's also possible that your ballot will go back in time and participate in the election of 1848, or wind up in a distant galaxy, helping to elect an alien being with 73 eyeballs (slogan: ``A Being of Vision''). The truth is, you don't know WHAT will happen to your ballot, because you might be using one of the new electronic voting...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Food manufacturers who have stocked store shelves with low-carbohydrate versions of everything from spaghetti sauce to ice cream may find they are eating the costs themselves, as the low-carb fad peaks, analysts and industry observers said. Yahoo! Health Have questions about your health?Find answers here.   "It's typical that one rushes into the party just when the party is breaking up," said William Leach, food industry analyst at Neuberger Berman. Sales of low-carb branded foods surged $815 million, to $1.13 billion, in the 12 months ended June 13, according to market research firm Information Resources Inc. That...

The Atkins Physicians Council introduces the Atkins Lifestyle Food Guide Pyramid to government officials. Earlier this week, I was privileged to brief federal officials and members of the Bush administration, along with Mary C. Vernon, M.D. and Stephen B. Sondike, M.D., my two fellow members of the Atkins Physicians Council (APC). Our mission in going to Washington, D.C., was to deliver a proposal for a new and innovative food guide pyramid that supports a controlled-carbohydrate lifestyle. This way of eating could serve the needs of many of the more than 100 million Americans who are losing the battle against obesity....

NEW YORK (Reuters) - So much for the low-carbohydrate lifestyle. More than half of all U.S. consumers that have tried following diets that eschew carbs such as bread and sugar have given up, a survey released on Wednesday found, and interest in the popular regimens appears to have plateaued. According to research firm InsightExpress, which conducted the survey online, fewer than 10 percent of Americans are currently on popular low-carbohydrate diets such as the Atkins, South Beach and The Zone. In contrast, a survey conducted in December of last year by Opinion Dynamics Corporation found that, at the time, 11...

From beyond the grave, a woman who died of breast cancer is suing the late diet guru Dr. Robert Atkins for giving her the advice that she says ended up costing her life. The suit, seeking unspecified damages, was filed in Manhattan Supreme Court by the estate of Carol Rubick, a woman who died of breast cancer on Jan. 18, 2003, after receiving five years of oncological treatments at the Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine. The plaintiff, Linda Lou Poag, executrix of Rubick's estate, claims that Atkins and two other doctors at the Atkins Center were negligent in treating Rubick's...

Atkins diet makes women infertile, interferes with genetic imprinting 29 Jun 2004 If you are a woman and you are on the Atkins diet, you may have a problem if you want to start a family, say scientists. A high protein diet could be make it more difficult for a women to conceive. Scientists at the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine, Englewood, USA, have come to this tentative conclusion after carrying out a study on mice. Dr. David Garner, lead researcher, said "Although our investigations were conducted in mice, our data may have implications for diet and reproduction in humans."...