ATKINS AND AFTER                                         Richard J B Willis

BUC Health Ministries Director

With nearly 2 million Britons undernourished, and whose problems cost the NHS £226 million per year, we may well wonder why all the fuss about the Atkins weight-loss diet.  Going into hospital does not improve the situation either, as more than half of hospital patients eat so poorly that they leave hospital clinically malnourished!

However, it has been known for several years that high-protein diets overload and damage the kidneys.  In a survey of 1,624 US women (aged between 42 and 68, and covering 11 years) 489 had some degree of kidney problem.  Women with normal kidney function were found to have a reasonably well-balanced diet, whilst those using the high-protein diet showed deterioration in kidney function.

Where kidney problems were already present the high-protein diet compounded the problem.  Leading researcher Eric Knight (at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts), said, ‘The potential effects of dietary protein consumption on renal function on persons with mild renal insufficiency have important public health implications given the prevalence of high-protein diets’.  There was also a tendency for people using these diets to feel tired and lethargic.

Another study at Harvard involving 47,000 male health professionals shows an increased risk of developing gout by people using high-protein diets.  Gout is the commonest form of inflammatory arthritis in men, and affects the big toe and can lead to permanent joint damage.  Related to kidney function, gout occurs when purine from the diet is broken down and deposits uric acid in the blood and tissues.

It is said that actions speak louder than words.  The Atkins marketing people say there was no connection between the Atkins diet and the heart disease and 18 stone frame of the founder of the programme!  What should we conclude about Atkins’ colleague, Dr Fred Pescatore, who is now marketing – at £25 per bottle – a macadamia nut-oil mixture, claimed to be as or more effective than the Atkins diet?!

The overweight are desperate to lose, and help is on the way.  An Austrian company are marketing caffeine-laced tights – yes, you did read correctly!  The idea behind their production is that body heat will release and the body will absorb the caffeine, which will then break down the ‘cellulite’.  There is no evidence that caffeine has this effect, but if the tights are used often enough people might be too high to care about their weight!