Atkins' Diet Revolution evolution

Turns out that high-protein diets might not be as good
as we thought, but you already knew that

By Graham Furness

The company behind the world's most popular diet, Atkins Nutritionals, has rejected claims of an about-turn in the advice it offers customers. The Atkins Diet, often portrayed in the media as the "all-the-steak-you-can-eat diet", is based on the premise of minimizing carbohydrates rather than fat intake, and eating plenty of protein.

Over a million Canadians have tried the diet, based on Dr Robert C Atkins' 1972 bestseller Dr Atkins' Diet Revolution and three subsequent books. He recommended that foods such as butter, meat, cheese and eggs and other saturated fats could be eaten "liberally."

On January 18, the New York Times reported that the director of research and education for Atkins Nutritionals, Colette Heimowitz, is now telling health professionals in seminars around the US that only 20% of a dieter's calories should come from saturated fat. Dr Atkins always maintained that the type of fats consumed by the Atkins dieter were unimportant, but that advice irritated health professionals who said too many saturated fats could lead to heart disease even in people who successfully lose weight. Britain's Food Standards Agency recently criticized high-fat, low-carb diets as "unpalatable and dull," and said they are linked to obesity. Paul D Wolff, chief executive of Atkins Nutritionals, told the New York Times the company is trying to get its message out clearly. "The way the book was promoted was, here's the program that is counterintuitive," he said. "'You can eat a lot of bacon and steak.' It was the marketing of the book. The media saw it as a sexy story. Perhaps what was communicated in the past was unclear."

Ms Heimowitz said the advice had been changed because "we want physicians to feel comfortable with this diet." While there is still no research on its long-term health effects, the Atkins diet has gained scientific credibility over the past year, mainly because two studies in the New England Journal of Medicine found that the Atkins diet helps obese people lose weight twice as fast as low-fat diets and also improve lipid profile. Most recent research suggested, however, that Dr Atkins was wrong about why the diet works. He argued that calories from proteins are burnt off more rapidly than calories from fat. That now seems unlikely. It appears that the high-protein diet suppresses appetite.