Interview about Atkins

[Guest guest]

 Article about Atkins at <A HREF= " http://www.naturalhealthline.com " >

www.naturalhealthline.com</A>

Clears up some of the misinformation about Atkins for those who have actually

read his works and learned about his views from the medical establishment.

Tuesday, July. 16, 2002

The New York Times and

Dr. Robert Atkins:

Validation at Last?

© By Peter Chowka

All rights reserved

 

(July 15, 2002) Few physicians have been bigger and more consistent targets

of orthodox medicine than Robert Atkins, MD. Thirty years ago, in his first

book, Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution, the New York City cardiologist, a graduate

of the University of Michigan and Cornell University Medical College,

proposed an alternative hypothesis for preventing and treating cardiovascular

disease and controlling weight, centered around a high fat, low carbohydrate

diet. This approach ran completely counter to the emerging medical party line

that was rapidly morphing into an official evangelization – preaching that a

high carbohydrate, low fat diet is the universal and the only path to optimal

health.

While Atkins' diet and health recommendations were not entirely original, he

succeeded more than anyone else past or present in bringing them to public

attention. A tireless proponent for his point of view, Atkins has continued

to treat large numbers of patients (a total of 45,000 at last count), publish

books (which have sold in the millions), and speak out widely (including on

his own high profile radio shows). He also became a vocal advocate for

medical innovation and complementary alternative medicine (CAM) and

championed the work of a wide range of CAM clinicians, many of whom, like

him, were virulently attacked by the medical Establishment.

Despite many thousands of positive clinical case histories and uncountable

anecdotal reports by people who bought his books and tried his methods,

Atkins' work has been largely ignored by mainstream medicine, except when it

was viciously denigrated and cited as an example of purported quackery by the

medical powers that be. (He has also been criticized by some CAM proponents

of a high carbohydrate, low fat diet like Dean Ornish, MD.) Typical was a

report by CNN ( " Heart Association to warn against low-carb diets " ) on March

20, 2001. The report quoted Judith Stern, professor of nutrition and internal

medicine at the University of California at Davis: " You want my response to

Atkins' saying that [his diet] can lower your cholesterol and do all sorts of

good things for your heart? You know what my response is? Bull----. "

Simply amazing, then, was an 8,000-word cover story about Atkins that

appeared in The New York Times Magazine on Sunday, July 7, 2002, titled " What

if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie? " Not only was the story positive, it was

written by Gary Taubes, a respected author and a correspondent for the

mainstream journal Science.

After reviewing the controversy about Atkins going back three decades, Taubes

writes, " Over the past five years, however, there has been a subtle shift in

the scientific consensus. It used to be that even considering the possibility

of the alternative hypothesis, let alone researching it, was tantamount to

quackery by association. Now a small but growing minority of establishment

researchers have come to take seriously what the low-carb-diet doctors have

been saying all along. "

Taubes' article did not go unnoticed. It was reprinted in a number of

newspapers around the country, including in the Atlanta Journal Constitution,

which ran a separate feature article about the debate. Shortly after the Times

article was published, CNN gave it prominent coverage: author Taubes was

interviewed live on CNN on the morning after the article appeared, Atkins

himself was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on the afternoon of July 9, and

Blitzer wrote approvingly in his online column the same day, " This debate has

been going on for years, but I sense it is now taking on a new life. We will

continue to follow it. "

 

Joan A. Friedrich, PhD

Is it possible that the appearance of the Taubes article signals a notable

change or even a paradigm shift in the field of diet and health? For some

insight, I turned to Joan Friedrich, PhD, MA, CCN. Friedrich is a nationally

recognized expert in the area of complementary alternative medicine with a

private practice in clinical nutrition and wellness counseling. She is an

award winning and prolific author, a teacher, and a corporate consultant.

Particularly relevant to the discussion at hand, Friedrich worked for the

Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine in New York from the late 1980s to

the late 1990s. During that period, she developed and directed the nutrition

and wellness counseling program at the center and had extensive contact with

many of Atkins' patients. 

Peter Chowka: What did you think of the New York Times Magazine article about

Dr. Atkins?

Joan Friedrich, PhD: Overall, I thought it was a good historical overview of

the whole concept of fat and carbohydrate in the American diet and how it has

been looked at by the medical Establishment.

PC: I find it unlikely that the New York Times would devote this amount of

space to a largely positive article about someone so controversial if it was

not indicative or reflective of a significant change going on inside of

medical orthodoxy. Do you think the article is a result of evidence coming

forward, or published studies (I know that you keep up with the literature),

or what?

JF: In other words, why would they do it?

PC: Yes, why would they do it. I don't think a publication like the Times

would go out on a limb and be cutting edge on something like this. Why would

they do it at this time?

JF: I think there's been a tremendous number of new consumer books,

especially, coming out over the past several years about the negative aspects

of excessive carbohydrate.

PC: Barry Sears (The Zone Diet), et al.

JF: The Protein Power Diet, the Eades' diet, Sugar Busters. So you have not

only Atkins and Sears, but you have those books around, too. As well as

nutritionists that are more cutting edge, starting to move away from

exclusive [food] pyramid-style diets because people just don't lose the

weight at the level that it was previously thought they would. It's really

the alternative practitioners over the past, I'd say, more than twenty-five

years who have known that you have to take a closer look at the diet and the

individual. Personally, when I counsel somebody, I look at the whole person -

what is their diet history, what are the other factors that are important to

their health.

PC: Part of the debate about Atkins' approach revolves around the quality of

fats - supposed good fats vs. bad fats. Atkins seems to be saying that, on a

low carbohydrate diet, there is no such thing as bad fat or bad cholesterol.

For example, on CNN (July 9), Atkins said: " In point of fact, when one is on

a low carbohydrate diet, then, fat takes a different pathway. When you

restrict carbohydrate, fat doesn't go into storage. Fat goes, instead, into

energy. It provides energy. It's called ketones and because of it, all of the

research, which shows that saturated fats are bad for cholesterol and other

things, doesn't apply when the carbohydrates are as restricted as we do on

the low carbohydrate diet. "

In contrast, the position of the American Heart Association, as represented

by a spokesman on CNN on July 9, is " the evidence is overwhelming to suggest

that diets high in saturated fat, in particular, and cholesterol increase bad

cholesterol and relate to heart disease risk. . .The American Heart

Association has great concerns about the long-term efficacy or effectiveness

or safety of these diets. "

Do you think Atkins is correct in this part of the debate?

JF: I think that people have a misconception about what the Atkins diet is.

They think that all you're eating all day is bacon and eggs and steak. When I

worked at the Atkins Center, we had people eating different types of foods

including vegetables and fish and foods that have a good quantity of omega 3

fatty acids including from vegetarian sources like flaxseed oil.

PC: Did Atkins and the physicians working with him advise people to eat that

way?

JF: Yes, and supplements including essential fatty acids were also used

clinically. The whole fatty acid debate that goes on now - Atkins did

consider that. He looked at both composition and levels of essential fatty

acids in shifting lipid levels. And he supplemented as need be. So it was not

a totally-saturated-fat, that's all you're eating, diet. We used fish, and

some people also could eat soy products. Some people also received additional

fiber supplementation to complement their particular level of the diet, if

needed.

I've learned that a lot of people have this misconception, " Oh, Atkins - beef

and eggs and butter and fat. " But that's not really it. When I worked there,

we had several levels of diet. We had not only the restricted carbohydrate

diet, we had a more whole foods diet. As people enhanced their health, we

would expand the diet and move up the carbohydrates when they achieved their

goal and find out what their carbohydrate tolerance level is. And then

emphasize whole foods. As need be, add grains, lighter grains such as millet,

to the diet. So it was more therapeutic than most people are really aware of.

Beyond the lipid and the weight issues, the diets were altered according to

food allergies, problems with gluten, GI tract problems like irritable bowel,

and all kinds of health concerns.

PC: It seems to me that you have an interesting and unique perspective about

the Atkins program. You have an impressive, independent background, including

extensive education, credentials, and experience in the field of clinical

nutrition. And you worked at the Atkins Center for almost a decade. Bottom

line, what do you think the value of his program is?

JF: I saw a lot of terrific things happen for patients. I saw patients who

had been taking a tremendous amount of medications who were successfully able

to reduce medications, and in many cases with a physician's guidance able to

substitute natural products. I saw people who had many kinds of medical

problems move towards greater levels of wellness where they were not totally

dependent on medications.

I saw such a variety of cases there. They were not limited to lipids and

obesity, although many of the patients had these concerns as a compounding or

underlying problem for their other health issues.

I saw people with severe arthritis who, through dietary changes, were able to

get off many very, very strong medications. People with all kinds of

gastrointestinal problems, which cleared up. Diabetics. Across the board. We

saw so many different types of patients.  

PC: Do you think the Times article about Atkins signals a demystification of

- or even a paradigm shift away from - the party line that

high-carbohydrate-is-good? Do you think other articles of faith in the field

of diet and health are ready to fall? 

JF: I think so. I think there's beginning to be an open-minded look, at least

to some degree, into other methods of dealing with peoples' health in the

nutritional realm apart from the conventional ways of the four food groups,

or the food pyramid. The introduction to

alternative-complementary-integrative medicine and health care and what these

areas have to contribute is being looked at, for no other reason than the

fact that a high percentage of people are turning away from strictly

mainstream health care methods. In the nutritional areas, there are many

forms of assistance that the consumer can get and different levels of

expertise from practitioners. Much of the change that we see is

consumer-driven because people are very hungry for other methods of improving

their health and wellness. I think that looking at these types of diets and

approaches is a very positive move towards open-mindedness. A lot of the

judgmental attitudes against alternative practitioners that the conventional

health care society has had have been without understanding how alternatives

actually apply to clinical practice and what actually happens to the

individual.

PC: The mainstream view has been based more in the ivory tower than in the

real world.

JF: Yes. But they're saying now, " Hey, people are getting results from these

methods - there must be something to them. "

PC: A critical mass has been achieved in terms of numbers of people pursuing

alternative methods.

JF: In that respect it's very positive. Complementary and alternative

practitioners or people who are a little into something other than mainstream

medicine still have a bit of a struggle in many areas but at least it's

starting to change. They're receiving a greater amount of respect because of

the results they're achieving.

PC: It's also remarkable to step back and consider that at this stage there

is the widespread recognition that diet and nutrition are in fact so critical

to health. Medical professionals are now engaged in debating the finer points

clinically, but the assumption is that this is a field of substance. It

wasn't always that way. In the past, it was denied that nutrition had a key

role to play. For example, 25 years ago, when the US Senate Nutrition

Subcommittee's Dietary Goals report associated the American diet with ill

health, it was considered controversial, unproven, and political.

JF: Right. Getting back to the Times article, overall I think it is very

positive. It's about time that Dr. Atkins had some amount of credibility

attributed to his work because of all that he has gone through over the

years. He's very serious about this. When I was there, he would read his

journals and he was up to date on all of the literature. As more research

came out - on fatty acids, glycemic index, and so on - as all of this

information was published, that's what he assessed and tried to utilize. He

knows what state of the art in research is and what's going on in the medical

field. On his radio show, he's had some of the top experts on to discuss, you

know, lipid metabolism, fatty acids, diabetes, and so forth. He respected

other people's opinions, he listened, and he looked at the research.

This was a very serious - it's not simply an endeavor, it's his life. It's a

life long dedication. That's why I'm very happy that finally an article like

this has been published and that Dr. Atkins is getting greater recognition.

 

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Namaste, Liz

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