Carbohydrates and your health

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,  May, 2004  by Irene Alleger

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The ugly smear campaign against the recently deceased Dr. Robert Atkins, should raise the consciousness of anyone interested in health. As the news got out that research was confirming Dr. Atkins' revolutionary diet--high protein, low carbohydrate, and fat (gasp!), reports began appearing on TV news that the doctor was overweight and had heart disease. Some of this information was obtained from the Coroner's report. The Coroner's office stated that the medical information on Dr. Atkins had been "released by mistake." So much for the new Medical Privacy Act! The whole thing stinks to high heaven.

A clarification by Dr. Atkins' family, outraged by the smear campaign, differed in significant ways. Dr. Atkins' weight was normal when he entered the hospital after falling and sustaining a concussion. After some time spent in the ICU, he gained a substantial amount of weight before his death. As to the heart disease, his family said Dr. Atkins suffered from cardiomyopathy, a heart condition caused by an infection, not from clogged arteries, as the perpetrators of these news items had implied.

Why such a desperate measure as "acquiring" medical info and then skewing the facts? To what end? The obvious intention is to discredit Atkins' dietary principles--especially low carbohydrate. And who sells billions of dollars worth of high carbohydrate foods every day? Why, the multinational food conglomerates, that's who. The fast food and processed food business is bigger than General Motors; the profits lost to low carbohydrate food could be enormous.

True to the entreprenurial nature of our society, there immediately sprang up, like mushrooms, all kinds of processed and fast foods newly labeled "low carbohydrate." The same old hamburgers, fries, pizzas, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and those endless rows of chips and snacks at the grocery store. No real change in the American diet, no change in the epidemic obesity and rising incidence of juvenile diabetes. No real change in the alarming number of people who are sick and undiagnosed. Most a result of a high-calorie, nonnutritious diet. The medical establishment continues to treat nutritional illnesses with their endless supply of drugs, out of ignorance, but they are compounding the problems. Without an understanding of the role of nutrition in today's degenerative diseases, conventional medicine will continue to be an obstruction to healing.

We need to renew interest in Dr. Francis Pottenger's research on cats in the 1940's, which proved that denatured, or processed foods produced deficient generations of cats over 10 years. When fed the equivalent of our refined, nutrient-poor diet, they showed not only physical degenerative changes, but behavioral changes as well, including aggression, and abnormal sexual activity.

The work of Dr. Weston Price also showed how modern deficient diets were the cause of malformed dental arches, crowded and crooked teeth, as well as much more decay. Moreover, in the many years he spent studying changes in native cultures eating refined foods, he also saw, as did Pottenger, changes in character and behavior. The scientific findings of these two men could provide the basis of Nutrition 101 in medical schools. In the meantime, we are on our own.

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The recent Mad Cow scare may provide a starting place for consumers to demand safer, and more wholesome food. This will not come from agribusiness, but from small, organic farms and co-ops, where food is produced the old-fashioned way. Farmers have always known how to produce good food, but they were seduced by technology (and the government) and thus became today, the "managers" of agribusiness, looking to make the most profit, not produce the best food.

Dr. Atkins' dietary principles may not be the last word in good nutrition, but he was obviously right about carbohydrates--it is not a coincidence that the high carbohydrate diet is the fast food, processed food, diet. They are one and the same.

Irene Alleger, Editor

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