By RFD Editor, Nicholas Regush

“I’m on the Atkins Diet.”

This is a common declaration these days and it comes winging at you during all sorts of conversations. Yes, the “Atkins” (let’s call it that) has become a fad. Even the low-fat diet researchers are on the “Atkins,” secretly, of course. It’s rumored that you can’t even find a baguette in Paris. And apparently most restaurants near the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda are no longer serving tortellini.

What disturbs me about fads is that many people do not take them seriously. What I mean is that the fad diet is simply that, a fad, and there is often a lack of serious interest in following it, as it was meant to be followed. (“Who needs to read all that stuff?”)

Doctors, naturally, are terrific at following diets because they have learned to “follow” their patients so well.

Look, we have a major problem here, all kidding aside about lost baguettes and tortellin. In fact, I consider it a major red flag: many people (I hesitate to say “most” because that might be upsetting to some) do not show diets the proper respect.

That’s one reason why headlines such as “Is The Atkins Diet Dangerous?” never make sense to me. What diet are they talking about? The one that Atkins wanted people (and doctors) to follow, or some makeshift version of the “Atkins” that Helen and Tom are following.

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“Hell, Helen,” says Tom, “there’s a lot of good fat in that ice cream I’m eating fifteen times a day.” Helen replies: “But Tom, isn’t there a lot of sugar in that ice cream?” Tom stares at Helen and wags his finger: “I’m doing the best I can, Honey.” That makes Helen think: “Well, why is he moaning and groaning all day about the way he feels?” Note: Two weeks later, after Tom arrives semi-comatose at the emergency room, after having eaten 76 gallons of ice cream, he shouts: “It’s that damn Atkins that did it to me. All those eggs and pounds of bacon.” In the dark light of the emergency room, Dr. Cholesterol writes up the event in his notebook, planning to mention the ghastly “Atkins” incident during his talk at the annual meeting of the High Carbs Are Great Society.

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An astute Redflagsdaily member, a health professional, sent this comment to me this week:

“The amazing thing about all this (“Atkins is dangerous”) is that everybody seems to think that his diet was only about eating meat and cheese and eggs. Having read the entire book I am convinced that most people stopped at the eat steak every day and you’ll be okay part. He [Atkins] spends a lot of time writing about the need for supplements and what blood tests are important…I happen to have a poor intake of B vitamins and when I checked my homocysteine level, it was markedly elevated. For those who are eating lots of protein (especially beef) and not supplementing B12, Folic acid and B6, they are running a risk of having their arteries damaged by this chemical. My level was 25…and within a month of starting my supplements it was down to 7. There is a problem with some of these diets and unfortunately one needs to know all the parameters that can be affected.”

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Note: Most people I’ve met who are on the “Atkins,” or so they claimed, decided very early in the diet to get creative. Because they couldn’t go entirely without their favorite high carb treats, what diet were they actually on? The Freelance Diet?  That may well catch on, if someone wrote a book with that title.

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One problem, of course, is that the “Atkins” comes to us with relatively little direct scientific backup. Yes, there are some studies that indicate it appears to do the job and there are levels of scientific evidence that can be pulled out of the literature to suggest that Atkins was on a reasonable path. But what can we expect? With little science, a ton of food politics and a huge number of people apparently on one form of the diet or another (I’m betting on that, although here again, there is little data), we end up with a giant mishmash of information. We are left to make some personal sense of it, given our levels of medical experience.

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The major red flag here is that there are likely armies of people on diets, Atkins and otherwise, who are clueless about how their diet actually works and what they must do to make it work for them – if that is possible.

Diets are typically super-hustle crapshoots with the masses being yanked around on a chain without the proper knowledge to understand what they are doing. Mass media feeds them all sorts of inane information, half-clipped and sliced up for easy digestion.

I’ll bet that only a very tiny fraction of those on the “Atkins” have a real clue about what the Atkins diet is all about.

So, if you’re on the Atkins or a low-carb diet, ask yourself this: Do you have any idea of what your diet is really all about or are you merely a headline reader who thinks that breathing in a line or two of type will make you healthy?

Apologies to all those super-experts on the Atkins. I’m sure most of this does not apply to you, but just in case you haven’t read Atkins (or perhaps have only skimmed his work, as they say), you might consider putting down the ice cream barrel and picking up one of his books.

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P.S. I’m not an Atkins fan at all.  I did the diet with the pound-a-day of salted peanuts and only felt worse for it.