I used to be the associate medical director of the Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine. Yes, that is the same Dr. Atkins whose very popular diet plan has swept the nation. In the five years I worked there, I was able to learn, first-hand, the health benefits of low-carbohydrate eating, but I was also able to learn which aspects were healthy and which ones were just hype.
When I first started working there, I had just finished residency training and knew nothing about nutrition. After all, they didn’t teach nutrition in medical school, nor was it emphasized when you were working in a hospital trying to handle life and death emergencies. Nutrition was something that was always left up to the dieticians. The doctor had to order the diet, but none of us really knew what the diets we ordered ever consisted of. Looking back, I now know what a terrible mistake this was.
Low-Carbohydrate Dieting
In a nutshell, low-carbohydrate dieting consists of eliminating most forms of carbohydrates. Carbohydrates come in many forms. They can be sugars, breads, pastas, pretzels, crackers, fruit, vegetables, and soda and fruit juices. Many people can’t believe that fruit and fruit juices are carbohydrates because they are really mostly sugar. Several recent studies even go so far as to suggest that the rise in obesity in our population is directly attributable to the rise in the consumption of fruit juices.
