Editorial
Desk
| May 25, 2003, Sunday
Pass the
Butter, Please
(NYT) 440 words
Late Edition - Final , Section 4 ,
Page 8 , Column 1
LEAD PARAGRAPH
- Dr. Robert Atkins, the diet guru who died
last month from head injuries suffered in a
fall, would have enjoyed reading last week's
issue of The New England Journal of
Medicine. It carried two independent studies
that enhanced the credibility of his
controversial low carbohydrate, high fat,
high protein approach to weight loss. Though
the Atkins diet has been reviled by the
medical establishment for decades as a bit
wacky and even potentially dangerous, the
two new studies and a third published last
month suggest that the diet actually works
better than standard low-fat diets in the
short term, without any detectable signs of
harm. It was a startling reminder of how
little the experts know, in this
obesity-plagued nation, about the best way
to lose weight and keep it off.
For the past several decades, the
prevailing dietary dogma has been that a
fat-laden diet is bad for you, driving up
weight and clogging the arteries with
substances that can endanger the heart.
Going against the grain, Dr. Atkins said the
real culprit was carbohydrates. It was just
fine to eat all the steak, eggs and butter
that we yearned for as long as we cut down
on the carbs. Unfortunately, there was scant
scientific evidence to support his claims.
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