Report Details Dr. Atkins's Health Problems

The Wall Street Journal ^ | February 10, 2004 12:25 a.m. EST | KATY MCLAUGHLIN and RON WINSLOW

[optik_b]

A medical examiner's report on the death of diet guru Dr. Robert Atkins suggests that he had a history of heart attack, congestive heart failure and hypertension.

The document, a report of external examination from the chief medical examiner's office in New York, also says that at his death Dr. Atkins weighed 258 pounds. Dr. Atkins died in April last year at age 72 of a head injury from a fall on ice while walking to work. The report attributes the death to a "blunt impact injury of head." The report was sent to The Wall Street Journal by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a group that advocates a vegetarian diet and has long been critical of the Atkins approach.

[optik_b]

#1 killer in America is heart disease, Atkins is making it worse! Turns out the man himself had horrible heart problems and was very overweight. Dr. Dean Edell always talks about why the diet is so bad.

[GeronL]

A medical examiner's report on the death of diet guru Dr. Robert Atkins suggests that he had a history of heart attack, congestive heart failure and hypertension. The document, a report of external examination from the chief medical examiner's office in New York, also says that at his death Dr. Atkins weighed 258 pounds

Something every dieter needs to see!

Post it on all bakeries windows. Alert the media!

[Terry Mross]

Did you not read the article you posted? His heart condition had nothing to with diet. Geez, why are people such busy bodies. Why do people care

[Keith in Iowa]

Go back and read this again: Stuart Trager, chairman of the Atkins Physicians Council in New York, says Dr. Atkins's medical records show that the diet guru's heart problems were related to a condition called cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle that probably resulted from a virus. His heart problems for the most part weren't from the kind of cardiovascular disease that could be related to his eating habits, he said.

Now, what do you have to say?

[ampat]

Read the report. His heart problems were not tied to clogged arteries. His excess weight was due to fluid retention due to congestive heart failure. You numbscull.

[OldFriend]

Looks like someone has an agenda!

[dts32041]

Yeah I wouldn't cross the street to listen to edell, anything he says is suspect because of his belief in communistic type medicine.

[sharktrager]

Did you note that the autopsy said the heart problems were viral and the weight was water weight from the illness and not due to eating patterns?

[america-rules]

If I could eat that diet and live to 72 I would be happy !

[Sally'sConcerns]

You people are retards, no wonder so many people die of heart attacks and Americans are the fattest people on the planet.

Just because people disagree doesn't make them retards.

[onyx]

Got to hand it to you. By posting in h2, you guaranteed that everyone who actually read the article, can see that you didn't.

[I got the rope]

I can feel the flames from here...LOL.

[NYCVirago]

So he was six feet tall and 258 pounds when he died? That's some effective diet!

[GeronL]

Hey... I'm just trying to stay awake. He shouldn't have weighed so much, but he was 72!

[Hawkeye's Girl]

You're wrong.

Read the article next time before you post it.

[Moonmad27]

Dean Edell talks about it all right, closing his eyes to the positive proof about low carb diets from day one. Go to the atkinsfriends website and see all the people on the bulletin board who are losing weight on it and improving their health. Ask me, who's been low-carbing two years, kept off 30 pounds and reduced high blood pressure to well within normal range. My doctor told me the only diets she'd ever seen that worked in the long term were Weight Watchers and Sugarbusters (basically Atkins lite).

[metesky]

The report was sent to The Wall Street Journal by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a group that advocates a vegetarian diet and has long been critical of the Atkins approach.

PCRM = PETA

[Physicist]

no wonder so many people die of heart attacks and Americans are the fattest people on the planet.

Your agenda has blinded you. The fact is that, no matter how low-carb diets affect one's heart, it is a stone cold fact that people on the diets LOSE a great deal of weight. By insisting otherwise, you lose all credibility.

I say this as somebody with no dog in this hunt. I myself eat mostly carbohydrates.

[q_an_a]

did you read the story? he has a congenital heart problem that includes bloating. his diet was not part of nor a cause of the weight.

What people should really be upset about in this story is that the medical examiner sent the report to someone that was not his doctor and they passed it around so that people could make rash judgments using half the facts.