Harsh Criticism of the Atkins Diet

The Atkins diet craze of recent years was doomed to failure for a number of really good reasons.  But should we throw the baby out with the bath water?  Surely, there must have been some benefit on a scale large enough for food manufacturers to sell product lines labeled “Atkins Friendly”.  Let’s look at some facts.

Chair of Harvard's nutrition department went on record before a 1973 U.S. Senate Select Committee investigating fad diets: "The Atkins Diet is nonsense... Any book that recommends unlimited amounts of meat, butter, and eggs, as this one does, in my opinion is dangerous. The author who makes the suggestion is guilty of malpractice.

The Chair of the American Medical Association's Council on Food and Nutrition testified before the Senate Subcommittee as to why the AMA felt they had to formally publish an official condemnation of the Atkins Diet: "A careful scientific appraisal was carried out by several council and staff members, aided by outside consultants. It became apparent that the [Atkins] diet as recommended poses a serious threat to health."

Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop wrote "People need to wake up to the reality that the Atkins Diet is unhealthy and can be dangerous”.

Are those folks biased?  Oh, yeah!  So what is the other side of the argument.  The fact is that some people do better on a low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet.  Others do better on a high-carbohydrated, low-protein diet.  This is where understandingMetabolic Typing becomes very important. How do you know your type of metabolism?  Does it really matter or make a difference? You can get the answers for yourself on our web site metabolic typing  pages.