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Re: What JAMA thinks about low-carb diets....From: tera (anonymous@obgyn.net)Wed, 16 Apr 2003 11:51:22 -0500 (CDT)
Hi! Yes, until recently the medical community has refused to even look at low carb diets since they have put their seal of approval on high carb, low fat diets for so long. There has been a studies (albeit small studies) that have been all over the news that found that the people who followed the Atkins diet lost more weight and increased their good cholesterol significantly and the diet did not raise the bad cholesterol as some have been claiming that it might. My Reproductive endo said that the low fat, high carb diet has worked for many over the years but it is not the best diet for those who have PCOS because we do not process carbs like the rest of the population. She also said that low carb diets have gotten a bad rap and that the Diabetes Center associated with her hospital recommmends a low carb diet to their patients who are diabetic or who are IR. I look at it this way: either follow the Heart Association's diet and probably not lose much weight (if you have PCOS and are resistant to weightloss) and stay fat and unhealthy. Or, go on a low carb diet to lose weight and become healthy and then stay on a moderately low carb diet to maintain your weight for the rest of your life so that you will remain healthy. I don't remember where I found this but almost the same story word for word was featured on CNN and on ABC - God bless, Tera: "At least three formal studies of the Atkins diet have been presented at medical conferences during the past year, and the results have been similar. The latest, conducted by Dr. Eric Westman of Duke University, was presented Monday at the annual scientific meeting of the American Heart Association, long a stronghold of support for the traditional low-fat approach. Westman, an internist at Duke's diet and fitness center, said he studied the Atkins approach because of concern over so many patients and friends taking it up. The research was financed by the Dr. Robert C. Atkins Foundation in New York City, which was founded by the doctor who developed the diet but the study was not conducted by the Atkins Foundation. Westman studied 120 overweight volunteers, who were randomly assigned to the Atkins diet or the heart association's Step 1 diet, a widely used low-fat approach. On the Atkins diet, people limited their carbs to less than 20 grams a day, and 60 percent of their calories came from fat. "It was high fat, off the scale," he said. After six months, the people on the Atkins diet had lost an average of 31 pounds, compared with 20 pounds on the AHA diet, and more people stuck with the Atkins regimen. Cholesterol fell slightly in both groups. However, those on the Atkins diet had an 11 percent increase in HDL, the good cholesterol, and a 49 percent drop in triglycerides. On the AHA diet, HDL was unchanged, and triglycerides dropped 22 percent. High triglycerides might raise the risk of heart disease. While the volunteers' amounts of LDL, the bad cholesterol, did not change much on either diet, there was evidence that it had shifted to a form that might be less likely to clog the arteries. "More study is necessary before such a diet can be recommended," Westman said. "However, a concern about serum lipid (cholesterol) elevations should not impede such research." No single study is likely to change minds on the issue, especially since an initial weight loss is hard to maintain on any diet. Some answers could come from a yearlong study being sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. That experiment, being directed by Dr. Gary Foster of the University of Pennsylvania, will test the Atkins diet on 360 patients."
At Wed, 16 Apr 2003, anonymous wrote:
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-- Tera
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