Research & Science

It wasn't vitamin C. Although it was known for centuries that a lack of fresh food would cause scurvy, and that certain foods, especially citrus fruits, cabbage, and sauerkraut, could prevent it, the factor responsible wasn't identified until a few years after our front-runner.

Let's talk a little about vitamin A. Vitamin A is important stuff, but it's a bit complex. Vitamin A is essential for your health, but because it's a fat soluble vitamin and can be stored in your body, it's possible to get too much. It also comes in a couple of forms, both with their virtues and their drawbacks.

Right now, half of you are saying, "Well, of course, duh." My guess is you know the rest of what I'm going to say, so you could go look at LOLCats instead. (Oh, hai!) The rest of you are saying "Ancel Keys? Who the heck is Ancel Keys?" You're the ones who need to read on, because Ancel Keys has profoundly influenced your life, and the lives of everyone you love - or hate, or are indifferent to - and not for the better. Ancel Keys was the teller of one of the most damaging lies in the history of human kind. Ancel Keys is the man who convinced the world that saturated fat is dangerous.

Some of the harshest criticism about low-carbohydrate diets such as Atkins has been the supposed negative heart health implications due to elevations that take place in the cholesterol levels of dieters who restrict their carbs in favor of more fat and protein. Additionally, it is presumed that any weight loss that occurs on a high-fat, low-carb diet is quickly gained back making it a uniquely ineffective means for managing weight. Finally, bone health is supposed to suffer for people following a carbohydrate-restricted diet because the higher protein content allegedly promotes bone loss. However, all of these theories about low-carb diets have been summarily shot down by a brand new study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and published in the August 3, 2010 edition of the medical journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

I recently got an email from reader Karen Kosel asking exactly that; she followed up by posting me a website that said some really unpleasant things about Splenda - to be specific, that it may cause shrinkage of the thymus gland, which is part of the immune system, and may also cause enlarged liver and kidneys. For balance, they also concluded that sucralose (the chemical that makes Splenda sweet) was probably "not as toxic as aspartame".

"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail". - Benjamin Franklin Here we are at the beginning of a new year once again. Hordes of people are evaluating their lives and resolving to make changes. For many this will include health related resolutions. Some will try to stop smoking. Some will try to drink less. Others will resolve to remove unwanted stress from their lives. There will be those that promise to actually use that treadmill or elliptical that currently has about 6 shirts, two pairs of jeans and a carelessly flung sock or two hanging from it.

Oh, boy. This obesity research stuff just gets more and more interesting. Did you know there's research suggesting that there may actually be an obesity virus?

For quite some time now I have made a name and a some-time living as a nutritional heretic. I don't believe in a "balanced diet," I think animal fat and cholesterol are among the most healthful foods, I consider fruit juice to be little better than soda pop, I'm all for cutting whole categories of food out of my diet. Here's my latest heresy: I am unconvinced of the value of fiber.

I have, over the years, resolutely kept my political views out of my writing about carb-controlled nutrition. Not that I don't have such views, you understand. I'm just as opinionated in that part of my life as I am about food. I just had this mental image of someone with severe metabolic syndrome reading my work, finding some political view he or she disagreed with, and saying, "I'm not going to listen to anything that nutcase says!" After which, of course, they'd get their feet amputated and go blind from diabetic complications, and it would all be my fault. Or at least partly my fault.

Heck, he's on a freakin' rotisserie! Will the slanders and misuses of my hero's name ever stop? First it was all those people claiming to be "doing Atkins" when they hadn't read word one of the book and were just making it up as they went along. At the same time we had all the "journalists" who criticized the diet without bothering to read it either. (You could tell because they'd always claim that "The Atkins diet only allows 20 grams of carbohydrate a day!" as if Induction were the whole diet. Either that, or they'd call it a "no-carb" diet, or an "all-meat" diet.)

Sometimes the articles just write themselves. I was futzing around on line when I found this webpage: A Low Carbs (sic) Diet is Hazardous to Your Health For Ten Reasons. It was so off the mark, I had to write a response. Then, as I finished it, I realized I'd just written my article for this week!

The Effect of a Plant-Based Low-Carbohydrate ("Eco-Atkins") Diet on Body Weight and Blood Lipid Concentrations in Hyperlipidemic Subjects