Some Bright Spots In The Atkins Diet Study Coverage

Filed under: In The News — @ March 9, 2007

The media coverage and spin of the stunning new research out of Stanford University published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) confirming the Atkins diet is best that came out earlier this week has continued at a feverish pace in these past few days.

All of this attention reminds me of exactly what happened about a year ago when another JAMA study looked at low-fat diets over an 8-year period and concluded they were completely ineffective for maintaining weight loss and improved health over the long-term. Now these same people are in panic mode and attempting damage control…AGAIN! How much longer will this song and dance charade about the low-fat diet continue? As an intrigued observer of diet and health, I’M LOVIN’ THIS!

There have been a few bright spots in the coverage of the Stanford study:

- “Weight of the Evidence” blog author Regina Wilshire’s brilliant compilation of quotable quotes from all the so-called “experts” which will have you rolling out of your chair in laughter! Regina, you are GOOD! I wish I’d written that!

- New York Times science blogger John Tierney and his outstanding and quite balanced column entitled “The Low-Fat Diet Flunks Another Test.” Take a look at the nearly 200 comments that post alone has generated so far. They will be well worth your time to review.

- Mark Sisson’s “Daily Apple” blog explains “Why The Atkins Diet Works” and makes a very valid point that if the Ornish low-fat diet had been the one that produced the most weight loss and best improvements in health in that study, then don’t you know they’d be falling all over themselves to say, “See, we were right!” But since it didn’t happen, they’re having to spin it as irrelevant. Thought-provoking piece!

- In case you missed the fireworks that ensued during the RevolutionHealth.com teleconference call debate featuring Dr. Michael Dansinger (who I will be interviewing here VERY soon!) and Dr. James Hill along with a whole buncha low-carb supporters on Tuesday night, then be sure to listen to the one-hour audio of it by clicking here. You’ll hear yours truly and others in the low-carb community articulate our message that the low-fat monopoly has got to stop. There’s no doubt in my mind that we need more open forums like this one if we are ever going to progress forward with ways to help people take on their obesity.

Okay, so there’s been some good coverage along with the bad. That’s certainly a change from what is generally an overwhelmingly biased anti-Atkins, anti-fat, anti-meat agenda from the mainstream media. And when I was interviewed for twenty minutes by The Baltimore Sun reporter Chris Emery on Monday about my success on the Atkins diet, I was encouraged that quite possibly he would feature a positive story about a real life major low-carb weight loss success story in his coverage of the JAMA study.

It didn’t happen.