News article claims low-carb diets 'cut heart energy;

[Alienore]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4435046.stm

Long-term implications?

What do people think, especially our long-term members who've been on Atkins for a while?



Deborah

[matawguro]

Re: News article claims low-carb diets 'cut heart energy;

Quoted from the article...

"Of course, this is a small and short-term piece of work. The body is remarkably adaptive and what we don't know is whether our hearts would have gradually returned to normal had we stuck to the diet long-term."

Anybody who has been on induction knows that there's the tendency to feel like cr*p during the first two weeks. In fact it happens on any radical change of diet.

As for long-term effects, Eskimos seem to have no problems with an extreme low-carb diet. read the following link...

http://www.mercola.com/2002/oct/19/banting.htm

Real-life tests

In 1906, Dr. Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a young Harvard anthropology teacher who later became a world-famous explorer and anthropologist, revolutionized polar exploration by crossing the Arctic alone and living off the land with the Eskimos... He was left to spend an Arctic winter with the Eskimos eating a diet composed only of meat and fish. Unlike the diet he had been brought up on, it contained no plant material whatsoever.

It was a golden opportunity for the young scientist to conduct an experiment into the effects of an Eskimo diet on a European unaccustomed to it. The usual Eskimo meal consisted of briefly stewed fish washed down with water. It was so different from what he was used to that at first Stefansson was repelled by it... Eventually he became so accustomed to the primitive diet that, by the time he left the Eskimos, Stefansson managed as well as them. On this regime, Stefansson remained in perfect health and did not get fat.


The First Clinical Dietary Trial

In 1928, Stefansson and Anderson entered Bellevue Hospital, New York for a controlled experiment into the effects of an all-meat diet on the body... The study was designed to find the answers to five questions about which there was some debate:

1. Does the withholding of vegetable foods cause scurvy?

2. Will an all-meat diet cause other deficiency diseases?

3. Will it cause mineral deficiencies, of calcium in particular?

4. Will it have a harmful effect on the heart, blood vessels or kidneys?

5. Will it promote the growth of harmful bacteria in the gut?

The results of the year-long trial were published in 1930 in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and showed that the answer to all of the questions was: no. There were no deficiency problems; the two men remained perfectly healthy;... The absence of starchy and sugary carbohydrates from their diet appeared to have only good effects.

[dreamof145]

Re: News article claims low-carb diets 'cut heart energy;

My own personal opinion is that if you are seeing your doctor regularly and having your yearly check-ups, then you will be okay.

I personally believe that the people who are developing heart problems and/or any other problems and blaming it solely on the weight loss program don't see their doctors and had problems before doing Atkins. My doctor thinks I am in great health and I have my heart, bp, and bloodwork done regularly.

[2big4mysize]

Re: News article claims low-carb diets 'cut heart energy;

"Of course, this is a small and short-term piece of work. The body is remarkably adaptive and what we don't know is whether our hearts would have gradually returned to normal had we stuck to the diet long-term."

i thinkthat says it all.

And from a science point of view their sample size is way to small at 19 to be anything other then a blib. it is interesting with all the monitoring going on on the Duke study none of this was detected with all the med tests they ran on them, nor any of the other studies.

the stiffening was interesting as those with the most common form of heart failure have flabby hearts so they might have stumbled onto a treatment for them.

[slimndown]

Re: News article claims low-carb diets 'cut heart energy;

You know what I say? They ought to stuff a carb in it. They did a 2 week trial....and they didn't even define LC. Probably just trying to increase sales of potatoes....

[ttdriver]

Re: News article claims low-carb diets 'cut heart energy;

What a hoot. 2 weeks doesn't prove anything. As for the runner .. I wonder if my 16.2 mile run this past weekend would have been easier had I been on a BALANCED diet ..

I'm still waiting for Atkins to kill me. Its been nearly 4 years and all I can do is run 35 miles a week!

Betty

[slimndown]

Re: News article claims low-carb diets 'cut heart energy;

You know, I think the subjects the experiment on are people who have half heartedly done Atkins. After all, have any of us ever been asked to be part of a study???? Where do they get these people?