Atkins dieters 'could risk their lives'
Atkins dieters 'could risk their lives'
MEATY: The Atkins staple.
MEATY: The Atkins staple.
PEOPLE who strictly follow the Atkins diet could be risking their lives, doctors reported.
A team in New York described how they treated a 40-year-old woman who developed a dangerous condition called ketoacidosis after cutting out carbohydrates.
The obese woman had rigorously followed the diet and taken the recommended precautions, including using vitamins and other supplements marketed by Atkins.
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After arriving in a distressed state at a hospital emergency department, she was placed in an intensive care unit.
Four days later she was well enough to be discharged.
[...]
For a month before she fell ill, the woman had lived on meat, cheese and salads, said the doctors.
She also took supplements recommended by the diet, including Atkins Basic3 multivitamins, Atkins Essential Oils, Atkins Dieters' Advantage - which contains electrolytes - and a "thermogenic" formula, Atkins Accel.
As instructed in the original Atkins diet book, she monitored her urine twice daily using dipsticks. During this month-long period, she lost around nine kilograms of weight.
Warning
Commenting on the case, Dr Lyn Steffen and Ms Jennifer Nettleton, from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in Minneapolis, USA, delivered a further warning about Atkins and other carb-cutting diets.
"Low carbohydrate diets for weight management are far from healthy, given their association with ketosis, constipation or diarrhoea, halitosis, headache, and general fatigue to name a few side effects," they wrote in The Lancet.
"These diets also increase the protein load to the kidneys and alter the acid balance in the body, which can result in loss of minerals from bone stores, thus compromising bone integrity."
They said "indisputable safety" was the most important factor when formulating prescriptions for weight loss, and added: "Low carbohydrate diets currently fall short of this benchmark."
Whoa! One lady got sorta sick doing Atkins. She possibly might have died! One death, or sickness, is one too many! Let's ban the Atkins diet! We can put people in prison for not eating noodles, rice and potatoes! It's for the "public health"! I think I'm starting to get the hang of this! I mean, the government has its own "food pyramid", so the government has already given us very clear rules on what they want us to eat! The should start the food pyramid police, and start busting down doors and shooting people with tasers for eating hamburgers!
Atkins dieters 'could risk their lives'
MEATY: The Atkins staple.
MEATY: The Atkins staple.
PEOPLE who strictly follow the Atkins diet could be risking their lives, doctors reported.
A team in New York described how they treated a 40-year-old woman who developed a dangerous condition called ketoacidosis after cutting out carbohydrates.
The obese woman had rigorously followed the diet and taken the recommended precautions, including using vitamins and other supplements marketed by Atkins.
Advertisement your story continues below
After arriving in a distressed state at a hospital emergency department, she was placed in an intensive care unit.
Four days later she was well enough to be discharged.
[...]
For a month before she fell ill, the woman had lived on meat, cheese and salads, said the doctors.
She also took supplements recommended by the diet, including Atkins Basic3 multivitamins, Atkins Essential Oils, Atkins Dieters' Advantage - which contains electrolytes - and a "thermogenic" formula, Atkins Accel.
As instructed in the original Atkins diet book, she monitored her urine twice daily using dipsticks. During this month-long period, she lost around nine kilograms of weight.
Warning
Commenting on the case, Dr Lyn Steffen and Ms Jennifer Nettleton, from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in Minneapolis, USA, delivered a further warning about Atkins and other carb-cutting diets.
"Low carbohydrate diets for weight management are far from healthy, given their association with ketosis, constipation or diarrhoea, halitosis, headache, and general fatigue to name a few side effects," they wrote in The Lancet.
"These diets also increase the protein load to the kidneys and alter the acid balance in the body, which can result in loss of minerals from bone stores, thus compromising bone integrity."
They said "indisputable safety" was the most important factor when formulating prescriptions for weight loss, and added: "Low carbohydrate diets currently fall short of this benchmark."
Whoa! One lady got sorta sick doing Atkins. She possibly might have died! One death, or sickness, is one too many! Let's ban the Atkins diet! We can put people in prison for not eating noodles, rice and potatoes! It's for the "public health"! I think I'm starting to get the hang of this! I mean, the government has its own "food pyramid", so the government has already given us very clear rules on what they want us to eat! The should start the food pyramid police, and start busting down doors and shooting people with tasers for eating hamburgers!
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