Disease Proof

From the December 2002 edition of Dr. Fuhrman's Healthy Times:

As much as I hate to keep talking about the high-saturated-fat, low-antioxidant-nutrient Atkins diet, I am forced to because his diet continues to make front-page news and stays on the tips of everybody’s tongues.

A study reported at [a previous] American Heart Association (AHA) annual scientific session compared the Atkins diet to an AHA diet. The study found that the Atkins diet was not quite as bad as the AHA diet, when considering weight loss and lipid levels. The study was funded by the Atkins Foundation.

But instead of using the results of this study to warn consumers about the documented problems associated with these unhealthful diets, the press simply reported that the Atkins diet “beat” the AHA diet, which suggested that this high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet has favorable qualities.

Had I written the news report on this study, the story would have been very different. My headline would have read: Recent Study Showed Atkins Diet Almost as Bad as AHA Diet. The subtitle would have read: Neither diet showed significant lowering of cholesterol levels.

Two Terrible Diets
Imagine the ignorance of the researchers actually comparing two low-nutrient, low-fiber diets. It is like staging a prize fight between two over-the-hill, washed-up, has-beens. In this corner, we have the Atkins diet featuring 65-85 percent of calories from fat and loaded with dangerous levels of artery-clogging, cancer-causing, saturated fat and cholesterol. In the opposing corner, we have the junk-food-filled AHA diet, a diet that has already failed the scrutiny of multiple studies and is documented to be a proven failure. Can we change the channel, please?

More than a dozen studies have shown that the majority of patients following the AHA’s typical diet find that their conditions worsen with time.1 Comparing the Atkins diet to the ineffective AHA diet proves nothing. It’s like evaluating the purchase of a new car by comparing it to a junkyard wreck.

It is true that both groups lost weight—thirty-one pounds on the Atkins diet and twenty pounds on the AHA diet. But LDL (the bad cholesterol) did not change significantly on either diet. Triglycerides went down considerably more on the Atkins diet as expected from eliminating refined carbohydrates and grains.

The Healthful Alternative
When we look at the research done on the cholesterol-lowering effects of the type of diet that I recommend, we see an average drop of 33 percent in the cholesterol level and triglyceride level. These drops in both cholesterol and triglycerides compare favorably with the most powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs.2

By contrast, researchers have noted for 50 years, with data collected from thousands of studies, that diets low in fresh fruit increase cancer risk. This recent Atkins study—an attempt to evaluate the weight loss-and other short-term effects of a low-fruit (and, therefore, cancer-causing) diet—illustrates the nutritional naiveté of its researchers. If it had not been for the funding from the Atkins Foundation, it is hard to imagine why anyone would choose to evaluate effects of such a diet.

Weight Loss Not Enough
This study is almost as absurd as studying the weight-loss and cholesterol-lowering effects from snorting cocaine three times a day. That practice also would show some cholesterol lowering, but who would be willing to conduct such a study and proclaim the results to the press?

Imagine the headlines—“Snorting Cocaine Causes Weight Loss and Lowers Cholesterol Better than the AHA Diet.” Fortunately, we already know that even dangerous weight loss schemes like the Atkins Diet lower cholesterol a bit because lowering weight lowers cholesterol.

The real question to ask about a diet is this—What are the long-term effects to your health?

Hurrying the Undertaker
Any diet high in animal products and low in fiber, fruit, beans, and yellow vegetables is going to shorten life span significantly. If Robert Atkins follows his own dietary advice, he is a perfect example of what you would expect from such unhealthful dietary recommendations. He is overweight and has developed heart disease. Do you think he needs to eat more cheese and pork rinds to thin up a bit, as he recommends; or do you think he just might be better off on a diet rich in raw plant foods, beans, steamed greens, carrots, and fresh fruit such as berries and peaches?

Unfortunately, when you eat healthful food, calories and exercise do count. When you attempt to trick nature with gimmicks, like appetite suppressants, metabolic boosters, radical surgical procedures, and risky diets like Atkins to gain some metabolic advantage, you always will pay a price. You don’t get something for nothing, and you can’t escape the laws of cause and effect forever. Atkins and his followers desperately need to read my book, Eat To Live.

Never forget my recurrent admonition: do not be satisfied with mediocrity. Nutritional mediocrity just might cause your death. Marginal cholesterol lowering—from a high level down to a moderately high level—is inadequate. Only a cholesterol level below 150 and an LDL level below 100 are satisfactory. Atkins devotees never reach these ideal levels, while those following my recommendation routinely do. Don’t gamble with your health. Go for superior health.
1. Ramsey LE, Yeo WW, Jackson RP Dietary reduction of serum cholesterol concentration: time to think again BMJ 1991:303; 953-57.

2. Jenkins DJ, Kendall CW, Popovich, et al. Effects of a very-high-fiber vegetable, fruit and nut diet on serum lipids and colonic function.