Loading ...PCRM goes from dirty tricks to potential crime in trying to paint Atkins Diet as unhealthy
By now, those who follow these things have assuredly heard about the current imbroglio surrounding the release of the corornor’s reports of Dr. Robert Atkins, the famous doctor who popularized the modern low-carb movement which is now steamrolling over most other diet plans in many countries.
The diet wars have gotten increasingly dirty in recent years, but Dr. Atkins had been under attack from the time he published his
Atkins New Diet Revolution back in 1972. Even then, medical authorities had started leaning toward lower fat, in particular saturated fat, and increasing amounts of grains and other carbs to compensate. Atkins’ somewhat humorless defensiveness and disregard initially for trying to prove his claims via scientific studies undoubtedly hurt his cause. Although regarding studies, his explanations do seem plausible. Basically, studies are funded by sources that would potentially benefit them, like food groups, drug companies, etc. These entities give monies to universities that carry out the research. But who would fund a study that might prove the efficacy of a diet that shows it’s better NOT to eat a large number of foods that are being produced, and one that would potentially mean people would have to take FEWER drugs rather than more? Atkins, his critics cried, could have funded such studies himself with the profits from his best-selling books. He eventually did do this. Why did it take so long? His defense was that he was afraid people would question the objectivity of a study funded by someone who hoped for a specific result! With the double-standards that exist today, I don’t doubt this was a real concern. When looking at studies, one should always look at who funded them, but often when one sees a study that simply confirms the “common wisdom” people don’t look deeper because the study gives an expected result. However, any study that does refute something that was previously accepted as fact gets incredible scrutiny. What’s more, many studies that come to the opposite conclusion of what their designers expected are either given the categorization of “anomaly” and the word “paradox” is added to them, or the authors choose to concentrate on an ancillary issue that doesn’t highlight the glaring main point their study has somehow gotten “wrong.”
Low carb diets are producing incredible economic repercussions right now for those companies or industries (new and old) which are trying to cater to this lifestyle, but also for food groups that refuse to accept the handwriting on the wall and wish to fight against it tooth and nail with pro-carb campaigns and even lawsuits, instead of trying to adapt. Or they are industries that simply can’t adapt due to the nature of their product. The bread, potato, pasta, and orange juice industries so far have been the first to try to take on the current trend.
Add to this the mainstream nutritionist and dietician who continue to malign anything called “low carb” as terribly unhealthy despite the many studies that are starting to unravel all this criticism. Instead of trying to work with the low-carb movement and creating varieties of low-carb plans that emphasize fruits and veggies rather than chemical-laden processed low-carb imitation foods, these “old guard” feel threatened as their previous dogma of “anything is good as long as it’s low in fat” is discredited. They are on the defensive now that their advise is being ignored despite their outcries and misinformation about low-carb being just about eating meat, and the non-arguments that going of such a plan means gaining the weight back (as if somehow being on any diet for a limited period gives one permanent imperviousness to ever gaining weight back). Like a cornered animal they can only lash out when what they should be doing is building bridges so that people who are not very educated in nutrition can eat a low carb diet that is also a nutritious and healthy one. Simply being “low-carb” does not make something healthy, but because of the polarization in this debate, the finer points of what should be in a healthy low carb diet are often lost. Nutritionists yell that anything “low carb” is bad, and some Atkins followers who don’t so much read the books as get little snippets of misinformation in the press that it’s an “all-meat” and “NO-carb” diet counter by doing an extreme version that then in a somewhat circular manner gives the diet a bad name. Of course those that take the time to read the books learn that it’s more than simply limiting ones carbs, but again, a finer point like this is too subtle for a 30-second spot on the local news.
Then we finally have those motivated by political/spiritual/moral thinking. These groups don’t base their criticisms on science, but rather the fact that low-carb is portrayed as all-meat-all-the-time. They are generally politically liberal, pro-environment, and pro-animal rights. I don’t think any of these are bad, and in fact I would categorize myself in these ways, although activists espousing animal rights would undoubtedly scoff because I eat meat. I do think there are some points about meat production that need to be addressed. The factory farm practices and how they affect the health of the animals and environment is a very important issue of concern, but instead of vilifying all meat because of the practice of the bad apples, I would much rather promote the smaller organic farms that raise animals humainly, not in small pens, not being injected by hormones, antibiotics, etc. In other words, the way it was done for thousands of years until the industrial age. For these groups, though, it’s a black and white issue, all or nothing. There are no gray areas for them. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is an example of such a group. They began as an organization trying to prevent cruelty to animals, using them for testing of cosmetics, etc., but they have widened their philosophy to exclude animals for testing of anything including drugs, and for using animals for food. It doesn’t matter whether an animal is treated humanely on a farm in their eyes, the mere fact that we are eating them, or even a product of theirs like eggs or cheese is “exploitation” and thus wrong. To push their views on others, they resort to highly provocative and offensive add campaigns that are also just plain deceptive. Since simply making their extremist case has not met with any success amongst the vast majority of meat eaters in the
PCRM has been promoting a vegan (that means no dairy or eggs in addition to no meat) diet for some time now. It makes grandiose health claims, but when one examines the studies that ostensibly prove their points, they don’t actually hold water. Of course, since low carb is seen as the antithesis to vegan diets (I will just mention here that I happen to know some people who successfully combine a vegetarian diet and low carb), they have relentlessly attacked Atkins not just with the old unproven theories and misconceptions but also with actual disinformation. They have a very obvious agenda, and there is no way that anyone can see them as objective scientists, despite the word “Physicians” in their title.
One of PCRM board members is one of the most vocal critics of low carb, Dr. Dean Ornish, who is a diet doctor himself. Ornish’s own prescribed extremely low-fat vegetarian diet was recently called into question in a head-to-head trial of four different diets by the American Heart Association, including Atkins. The results indicated that although Ornish’s diet decreased LDL, it did not increase HDL whereas all the others did, and it was also ranked low in terms of weight-loss. Ornish countered this by rewriting the standard consensus that HDL is actually good for you and higher levels of it protect against heart disease risk! Ornish credits his start in vegetarianism to a swami from
Their latest ploy has been to illicitly obtain the coronor’s report of their nemesis, Dr. Robert C. Atkins, and to make it public. Not only is this irresponsible, for the “Committee on Responsible Medicine,” but it is in horrible taste morally and ethically, and possibly illegal. It is at the very least a probable breach of the medical privacy statutes under the department of Health and Human Services Civil Rights department. For those who feel strongly about this issue, you can file a complaint about this matter on HHS’s site.
According to the autopsy report, and the headlines in the press, Atkins was “obese” and had heart disease. In his defense, his wife (who recently had to defend her husband against tasteless remarks by New York City Mayor Bloomberg) and the chairman of the Atkins Center, Stuart Trager, have issued statements (and here (no longer availabel)) which explain that the increased weight was due to the fluids pumped into a comatose Atkins after he fell and hit his head on an icy sidewalk last year. More recently admission records were provided by Atkins’ widow that actually prove this was the case and that Atkins was not “obese” as initial reporst suggested. The heart disease, they contend, was not due to diet, but rather an infection. This had actually caused a cardiac arrest a couple of years back, but when Atkins was revived and his arteries were examined they were apparently relatively clean.
Even if Atkins had heart disease, how would this disprove the efficacy of low-carb? Undoubtedly PCRM and other critics of low-carb hope that casting aspersions on the founder of a diet would implicate the diet as unhealthy, in the same way that Dr. Pritikin’s developing leukemia and his subsequent suicide implicated very low-fat diets among some in being ultimately of questionable healthfulness. But in both these cases, one man does not a study make. Even if it were 20 men, this would not prove or disprove anything. There are so many variables that go into such things, that without very strict clinical guidelines, it’s really impossible to “prove” anything. But one can cast aspersions, and for many non-scientists this is all the “evidence” needed. We simply don’t know everything about how Atkins ate. Did he follow his diet on the initial phase, or did he, as he should have, follow a “maintenance level” that allowed for many more carbs? He certainly exercised, but did he eat a diet that other than being low-carb was healthy? Did he opt for organic fruits and veggies, wild, grass-fed, free-range meats, raw dairy products, etc., or did he opt for a diet that had lots of chemical-filled processed low carb products? Did his genes predispose him towards heart disease? Did the diet he ate during the first 35 years of his life build up enough plaque to account for what his critics claim is due to the diet of his last 35? These are all valid questions but because PCRM has shown they are in a religious war against low-carb rather than a battle to seek scientific truth, they parade this report around as if it is proof that low carb itself is unhealthy. Not only is this sensationalistic and unprofessional, but it shows very simply their prejudice, lack of ethics, and overall bad taste.
My prediction is that, unfortunately, this is by far the last attack we have seen against Atkins or low-carb. The interests that are threatened by its newfound popularity and grudging acceptance in parts of the medical and scientific community are feeling the heat. Their longstanding cries of criticism are starting to be invalidated or their financial future is starting to look down, and this means the gloves have to come off and we will see increasingly dirty smear campaigns like this which don’t appeal to science at all, or only as a thin front for the true motives which have nothing to do with science.
