Eat To Live: Atkins diet back on top
By JULIA WATSON
UPI Food Writer
WASHINGTON, March 5 (UPI) -- A friend getting ready for beach season has just gone back onto the Atkins Diet. How so last century. Hasn't she heard of the Zone? The GI diet? A mutual acquaintance swears by the Ornish regime.
Haven't we been there, done Atkins? And wasn't it unhealthy for us, anyway?
If we think along either of these lines, we shouldn't. A new Stanford University study finds the Atkins diet is most effective for reducing weight in women.
Study leader Christopher Gardner, a professor of medicine at Stanford University's Disease Prevention Research Center in California, told Britain's Sunday Times, "So many people have been asking questions about diets for years. We think it's time to give them some answers."
When his study is published this week, it will show of the four regimes under review, the Atkins diet resulted in the greatest weight loss -- with no indication of undesirable side-effects.
Launched in 1972 by the late Dr. Robert Atkins with his best-selling book "Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution," the Atkins diet cuts carbohydrates like bread and sugar and boosts consumption of proteins like meat and cheese.
The Ornish Diet was devised by a doctor treating heart disease. It advocates eliminating blockages to the heart through a high-fiber, low-fat vegetarian diet that was also found to reduce a patient's weight.
The Zone controls the balance of insulin and eicosanoids, neither too much nor too little, by balancing protein and carbohydrates. In this good "zone," fat loss is increased while the risk of cardiovascular disease is decreased.
The GI diet is based on specific foods that release glucose in a slow and manageable fashion into the bloodstream.
These diets have come into prominence as the Atkins diet lost popularity, mainly due to concerns from nutritionists. Cutting out carbohydrates by eliminating fruit, vegetables, nuts, grains and cereal, might, some studies claimed, deprive the body of protective nutrients and lead to a risk of osteoporosis, some cancers and heart disease.
Gardner's study took 311 premenopausal women and divided them into four groups. Each was put onto a different diet for one year: the Atkins, the Zone, the Ornish and LEARN, which is the U.S. government's recommendation of a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet.
The 77 women in the Atkins group lost an average of 10 pounds -- around twice as much as those on the Ornish and LEARN diets -- while those on the Zone lost an average of 3.5 pounds.
The reduction of body mass index, triglycerides and blood pressure in the Atkins group was also higher than among the women of the other groups. These are all indicators of improved health.
The head of nutrition and health research at Britain's Medical Research Council, Susan Jebb, told the Sunday Times she believes Atkins is successful because the diet allows high intakes of meat and fat, and thus was easier to follow than more austere regimes.
Mothers looking for some way to tackle their children's overweight may be glad to hear of the approval for Atkins.
A recent study in the journal Pediatrics suggests childhood obesity that begins as young as 3 years old can result in the early onset of puberty, sometimes as early as 9 years old.
Not only are girls who reach puberty earlier than the standard age of 10 or more at greater risk of certain cancers including breast cancer, they are more likely to start drinking alcohol and have sexual intercourse earlier, too.
The Atkins diet would allow young girls to eat the kind of food that won't separate them from their peers -- cheeseburgers, for instance, but without the bun.
Stanford School of Medicine
http://mednews.stanford.edu/releases/2007/march/diet.html