Atkins dieters ‘risking health’
Dr Susan Jebb, from the Medical Research Council’s Human Nutrition Research Centre in Cambridge, said it would be “negligent” to recommend the diet to anyone overweight.
She said the claims made for the Atkins diet were based on “pseudo science”.
She argued that despite a number of small studies, no one knew what the long-term effects of the Atkins diet might be. But data gained from large diet investigations involving thousands of participants had set alarm bells ringing.
The Atkins diet cuts out carbohydrates and boosts consumption of protein without having to avoid fatty foods.
It is a favourite of celebrities such as Geri Halliwell, Catherine Zeta Jones, Renee Zellweger and Minnie Driver.
Dr Robert Atkins, who developed the diet, believed that carbohydrates such as bread, pasta, rice and starchy vegetables over-stimulated the production of insulin, resulting in hunger and weight gain.
But Dr Jebb said the diet was a leap in the dark because it meant such a dramatic change in eating habits.
For most people, protein accounts for a mere 15% of the calorie intake. But much higher levels are consumed by people following the Atkins diet.
Dr Jebb said: “We simply do not know the long-term health implications.
I certainly think we should be adopting a precautionary principle in terms of public health.”
Dr Jebb’s warning comes two months after two teams of American scientists declared that the Atkins diet was effective and safe.
The two studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found the diet resulted in more weight loss than conventional low-fat diets.
However, Dr Jebb said that these studies and others focusing on the Atkins diet were too small, short and limited to provide any meaningful evidence.
On the other hand, large-scale studies looking at the general effects of eating different kinds of food had yielded a wealth of data.
They showed that people who ate the most carbohydrates had the lowest rates of heart disease.
Fibre, found in carbohydrate food, helped the body eliminate toxins and was associated with reduced levels of cholesterol.
Carbohydrates were also the source of essential vitamins and plant nutrients, which anyone on the Atkins diet would have to consume as supplements.
Dr Jebb said that high protein, low carbohydrate diets were “nutritionally incomplete”.
There was also good evidence that eating excess protein can cause kidney damage, and may lead the body to lose calcium.
Dr Jebb added: “How much calcium we need is very much a subject of debate, but clearly we are concerned about people having adequate calcium.
“There’s a little flag gone up to say this is something we need more data on.”
A study published in the Lancet last month also shows that eating too much fat can double a woman’s risk of breast cancer.
Medical Research Council scientists in Cambridge found that women who ate 90 grams of fat a day were twice as likely to develop the disease as women who ate 40 grams.
Ninety grams of fat is roughly equivalent to two beefburgers, one small packet of crisps, a large bar of milk chocolate and one and a half digestive biscuits.
