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As you may have guessed, I’m not a fan of Atkins. There’s a lot of misinformation about this diet that a recent study helped clarify… and frankly validates my own beliefs about this controversial diet. First let me first say you will lose weight on Atkins and your cholesterol levels will go down. Sounds good right? Well don’t be fooled.

Consider this. Cholesterol levels will go down as a result of any weight loss period. You could be drinking motor oil to lose weight and your cholesterol will go down so don’t think for a second Atkins is healthy.

A recent study presented at the American Heart Association, corrected for this cholesterol “weight loss” lowering effect. This study involved 18 people, each of whom were put on three different diets for month, and they were carefully monitored so they had no weight loss. The three diets were: Atkins with 50% of calories as fat, South Beach with 30% calories as fat and the Ornish diet with 10% fat.

Atkins was decidedly the worst diet. LDL or bad cholesterol went up by 7% on Atkins, while it decreased by 7% on the Ornish diet and by 10% on the South Beach diet. Not only that, but markers for inflammation went up by 30-45% on the Atkins diet whereas on the South Beach and Ornish diets they were either unchanged or decrease by 15-20%. Inflammation is a marker for accelerated aging and high levels of inflammation are associated with an increased risk of cancer, stroke, heart disease, dementia to name just a few chronic diseases that plague Western society.

Atkins has so many devotees because it’s easy to follow in our overly processed food world. It will result in weight loss because by cutting out refined carbs such as white flour products (cakes, cookies, breads etc) you’re essentially cutting calories. However by consuming a diet high in animal protein that’s low in fruits and veggies you’re putting your health at risk. The cholesterol lowering effect of Atkins is an illusion. It’s due to weight loss, not the diet. When you factor the weight loss out, Atkins causes your cholesterol and inflammatory markers to go up.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009 at 8:14 am and is filed under Weight Loss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.