I feel a rant coming on...

*Yet another study has shown that the Atkins diet works. But even
the scientist in charge is baffled about why the low-carb regime
reduces fat more effectively than conventional low-calorie, low-fat
eating plans, Robert Matthews reports.*

Now is she really baffled, or just avoiding the truth? Anyone who's
spent 10 minutes reading about the role of insulin in fat storage
knows exactly why low-carb works. For someone doing nutritional
research to claim not to know this basic stuff means she's either
woefully unqualified for her job or going out of her way not to learn
anything that would interfere with mainstream beliefs.

Most nutritionists faced with the torrent of anecdotal evidence for
its effectiveness have simply parroted the mantra that more research
is needed, while muttering darkly about possible long-term health
effects.

"Here be dragons."

According to Brehm, those following Atkins's low-carbohydrate diet for
four months achieved twice the weight loss of those on a conventional
calorie-controlled, low-fat diet. Furthermore, the team found no
evidence of harmful effects from following the diet - at least during
the study.

Gotta get in those caveats.

They are something of an embarrassment to Brehm, whose research is
funded by the American Heart Association, which has long advocated
calorie-controlled, low-fat diets.

Why should the AHA care what diet works, if their real concern is
helping people with heart problems? How long will embarrassment over
past mistakes trump doing the right thing now?

As a scientist, Brehm puts unearthing the truth above pleasing her
paymasters - but it is this that causes most concern. She is having
problems explaining her findings - and in the increasingly
vociferous debate over the Atkins diet, that may well land her in
trouble at next week's meeting.

At least she's trying. She could always plagiarize Protein Power; it
spends a couple chapters explaining exactly why it works.

To trigger this effect, Atkins dieters are instructed to begin by
eliminating all carbohydrates from their diet,

Not true, of course, but we seem doomed to hear this daily. Even my
eggs this morning had a few carbs.

forcing their bodies to get energy by burning up fat reserves
instead.

Also not true. I've lost weight while eating way more calories than I
burned. If it were all about 'burning up fat reserves', the
low-calorie low-fat diet would work just peachy.

The result is supposed to be weight loss, plus the production of
compounds known as ketones; the higher the level of "ketosis", the
more fat is being burnt.

Inaccurate, since we all produce ketones; induction-level low-carbers
just produce enough to detect easily.

That's the theory. Yet studies of the patients in Brehm's trial failed
to reveal a connection between ketosis and fat loss. "We didn't see
any correlation - all of our expectations were confounded," she
says. "I'm hoping someone in the audience might have some answers."

"It can't possibly be that the idea I was trying to disprove -- that
will get me laughed at at the next convention -- could be the truth!
I'd rather blame it on magical fairies. Could someone prove magical
fairies exist, please?"

Brehm is confident that there is a reasonable, if not simple,
explanation for her findings: "In the end, the energy in has got to
match the energy out."

Assuming the human body is a perfectly efficient machine, that burns
food the way an engine burns gasoline. Mine isn't.

Even more baffling is why there are still such enormous gaps in
knowledge about how humans respond to diet. The past 20 years have
seen obesity reach record levels in the developed world. This has led
scientists to concede that the standard advice on nutrition and
healthy eating has been an abject failure - yet the Atkins diet is
still dismissed as a "fad" by the British Dietetic Association, with
leading nutritionists insisting that there is insufficient scientific
evidence to give it more credence. This lack of evidence has not
deterred many in the medical profession from condemning the diet out
of hand. Last week a poll of British doctors revealed that one in four
would advise their patients to stay fat rather than try the Atkins
diet - despite the proven life-threatening effects of obesity.

It's become a vicious circle. Atkins came across the common sense
(and hardly new or secret) idea that cutting back on carbs would help
people lose weight, and developed that into an overall diet plan.
Instead of spending the next 20 years researching it in a lab
somewhere and restricting his results to tired medical journals, he
had the tackiness to make money on it by putting it in a book where it
was accessible by the common people. Associations of all stripes hate
that kind of individuality.

Now there's no need to research low-carb, because millions of people
are already running their own tests at home. Mainstream types don't
want to do the research, because they don't want to admit they were
wrong for all those years, and they already can see that's where this
is headed. Basically, we all beat them to it. The best they can do
is treat it as a non-scientific fad, and hope it goes away or at least
doesn't grow in popularity.

Despite this, Westman cautions anyone with a medical condition
against rushing onto a low-carb diet. "The problem is that it works
too well," he explains. "The diet can cause insulin levels to drop
by 50 per cent in one day, so diabetics could find themselves
over-medicated. It's the same for those with high blood pressure."

Standard good advice. I'm sure diabetics shouldn't make any
significant changes in diet without being careful.

"We had a tough time getting our results published - it took 18
months altogether," she says. "The big journals really couldn't
handle it. But we're not endorsing the diet: it's just our results."

That's really, really sad. Any journal that refuses to publish
research simply because it doesn't like the results should cease to
exist. They aren't supposed to be in the business of suppressing
knowledge.

Those already embarked on such research suspect that it will take a
great deal to overcome the visceral response the mere mention of
Atkins provokes among academics. Says Brehm: "A lot of people just
want to hold on to what they learned in college."

Ain't it the truth.


--
Aaron

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