[Dean's World] Dean: The NIH, Atkins, and More

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Posted by Dean:
The NIH, Atkins, and More
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1141305210.shtml


   Back in the mid-1990s I did a huge amount of research on the subject
   of low-fat and low-carbhohydrate diets, for a book I never finished. I
   had taken a strong interest in low-carbohydrate diets because I kept
   encountering people who had terrific success on them. And by "success"
   I do not mean "ooh, I lost ten pounds!" I mean people who lost 40, 50,
   60 pounds, even one lady who lost 165 pounds. The results for some of
   these people were dramatic: major improvements in serum lipids,
   amelioration or outright reversal of diabetes, and more.

   An interesting thing is that the granddaddy of all of these diets was
   Robert Atkins, a New York cardiologist. And there are two things about
   Atkins that are funny to me: he was regularly accused of selling a
   "fad diet," but unlike the vast majority of diet and exercise gurus,
   he never claimed that his diet was perfect for everyone. Indeed, both
   in interviews and in his books, he always said that some people didn't
   do well on his diet and should try something else. He recommended
   other approaches, some low-carb (he had positive things to say about
   the Heller approach, for example) and some not. He even said that some
   people ought to try vegetarian or other low-fat diets because that
   might work better for them.

   And here's the other thing about Atkins: he was absolutely savaged
   almost any time he and his diet were brought up. Not just as selling a
   "fad diet" mind you, but for being outright dangerous: his diet would
   kill you. Kill you dead. The benign dietary ketosis it put you in
   would land you in the hospital. It would destroy your kidneys, your
   liver, raise your cholesterol, your risk of stroke and heart attack,
   and more.

   Over the last ten years a spate of studies have come out disproving
   all of that. It does not harm the kidneys. Many who use it do in fact
   show improved blood sugar control, improved blood pressure, improved
   serum lipids, and substantial real weight loss. Some endurance
   athletes also show improved performance from it. Although no one puts
   it forward as a sovereign remedy for everything, increasingly the
   medical community is acknowledging that this is a viable alternative
   that works well for some patients.

   To date I have yet to see a single apology from the establishment for
   the savaging that Atkins got, or for the absolute ridicule his
   defenders were faced with.

   What's just as telling to me is that those who did the savaging have
   also yet to be called onto the carpet for the horrific fad they
   started and have never apologized for: the low-fat diet craze, the
   biggest bit of dietary misdvice and failed diet fad of the last 20
   years.

   Back in 1997, two British researchers broke the ice on the dam with
   this paper: [1]The Low-Fat, Low-Cholesterol Diet Is Ineffective. It
   was a signal turning point in the low-fat diet craze. (You might also
   read this old paper of mine: [2]The World's Biggest Fad Diet.)

   In the nine years since the publication of the British study of
   low-fat diets, the medical establishment has very slowly, very
   carefully, changed its tune. First, they cautiously announced that
   "some fats" are good for you and some not: basically, the unsaturated
   and monosaturates were good, the saturates were bad. Then in recent
   years they've slowly started acknowledging that, well, all right, in
   fact some saturated fats are good for you, even vital to health, and
   some are even heart-healthy. Increasingly they're telling us that it's
   hydrogenated fats ("trans-fats") that are the real danger. And
   admitting that low-fat diets aren't any more effective for weight loss
   than any other form of calorie-restricted diet.

   In other words, they are slowly admitting that they were wrong about
   virtually everything they said. Yet no admissions, no apologies, no
   reaching out to the people they once savaged as being practically
   murderers for dissenting. It's like none of it ever happened, and they
   are innocent, blameless.

   Scott Ott recently had a brilliant sendup of all this: [3]Low-Fat
   Debunked, Scientists Back Low-Vitamin Diet. My favorite part:

     A spokesman for the National Institutes of Health said scientists
     were not surprised by the findings of the study, that refuted a
     decade of nutritional wisdom.

     =E2Science works by first making definitive recommendations, and then
     doing several years of research to discover if we were right,=E2 said
     an unnamed NIH spokesman. =E2During the research phase, our job is to
     vigorously promote our assumptions until the facts disprove them.=E2

   But the whole thing's a scream. It's also a damned on-target
   indictment of how our government-paid research facilities work these
   days, and not just on dietary recommendations either.

References

   1. http://www.deanesmay.com/corr.html
   2. http://www.deanesmay.com/lowfat.html
   3. http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=3D2173