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Summary: Persuasive Facts not Hype
Review: I've been eating "health foods" and taking nutritional supplements for 40 years due to the advice of my grandmother who had a long and vigorous life and was years ahead of her time. Many well-known scientists, among them Linus Pauling, have written of the devastating health affects caused by diets high in refined flours and sugars.I had never had to watch my weight until about 5 years ago. I started using a low-fat diet and was exercising (I've always been active) like a fiend. I had a horrible time keeping my trim figure, and even though I eventually did lose weight, my body fat was higher than it had ever been. A friend suggested I try the "Sugar Busters" diet, which I did with great results. Then I found this book and was ecstatic to discover a thoughtful and convincing guide that addressed both my interest in nutritional supplements with my desire to eat a healthy diet, and keep off the fat! I recommend this book highly, and will continue to use it as my dietary "bible". As a side-note: take a look at the difference in sugar content between the regular and low-fat versions of many pre-packaged foods. You may be as amazed, and angered as I was to discover that the food processors are making up for the bland taste of low-fat products by cramming them full of sugar.
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Summary: Good General book on Nutrition
Review: I've had tremendous personal success with the Atkins diet and now live in maintenance mode. I eat fruits, vegetables, whole wheat bread, and low carb snack foods. My weight has been Rock Solid -- I am sold on doing Atkins. This book is a good addition to your Atkins collection, but you should NOT read it as an introduction to the diet. Read "Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution" for that. This book focuses on vitamins and minerals and how they affect the aging process. As a result of this book I know what anti-oxidents are and why they are important, I understand the ingredients on vitamin bottles, and I am even MORE against eating sugar than I was before. This is a good book an I recommend it to anyone interested in general nutrition.
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Summary: The TRUTH about Dr. Atkins death
Review: It is astonishing to read the slam pieces here about Dr. Atkins so-called obesity and overweight condition at the time of his death. Here are the facts:
* He previously had a heart condition called cardiomyopathy -- a serious disease of the heart muscle which is unrelated to diet.
* He died of a head injury because of an accident falling on slippery ice and not of being overweight.
* His actual weight was 200 pounds when he was admitted to the hospital at the time of his accident. The erroneous reports of him weight 258 lbs was based on his weight at the time of his death. The extra weight was not fat, but an accumulation of body fluids linked to organ failure during his coma.
* His previous reported heart attack was due to a viral infection and not diet related. He spoke openly of his condition on various national news programs.
* The report that was released about him being overweight was leaked to the press by a group named "Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine", which is an ardent opponent of the Atkins diet. In short, they distorted his weight by reporting the weight at the time of death - 258 lbs, and not at the time of his admittance - 200 lbs...an obvious attempt to discredit and distort the facts surrounding Dr. Atkins death.
* A formal complaint has been filed by the Medical Examiner of New York regarding the suspicious leak of this information to the public by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine."
* The disinformation surrounding Dr.Atkins untimely death is politically driven by the AMA and other detractors of the diet. Dr. Atkins book, New Diet Revolution has turned the AMA and other nutritional views upside down and has created a furor over the standard edicts of the medical profession. What is not said among the detractors of the Diet is that it is safe and it works. The information contained in this book will not only help you lose weight, it could save your life. The food industry, especially the bread and pasta industry have lost hundreds of millions of dollars because of the low carb revolution. Is it any wonder that this diet is under so much fire? Keep an open mind and read the book. As a side note, ignor the mumbo-jumbo rantings and ravings of the "Elixir Diet" system. The hatred and mis-information spread by the reviewer is evidence enough that the Elixir system is phony as a three cent penny. Nuff said. The guy hasn't even read the Atkins book! Sheesh.
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Summary: Dr. Atkins has done it again!
Review: Its about time Dr. Atkins wrote a book about his Age Defying diet with even more detail. Bravo! This book is excellent! I predict his next book will integrate more complete details regarding fitness and aerobics with the Atkins diet. (Hint)
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Summary: Dr. Atkins' - next steps
Review: Last fall I successfully lost 20 lbs on the Atkins diet - and changed my eating and nutrition habits entirely. Six months into low carb life I have lots of energy and feel good in general. As an added bonus, my husband tried the diet with me to help me with the menus - he dropped 43 lbs and lowered his cholesterol and blood pressure. My goodness. This book came just at the right time when the long term nutrition questions about how to go forward and feel healthy needed answering. Just finished reading this book, and much of the advice has appeal. I find it extremely useful as a guideline for the nutritional supplements that should be part of the daily regimen. I suppose I'll have to make an effort to include kale and spinach in our eating more regularly. We have recommended the diet book to many friends - and everyone who followed the rules lost weight and felt good. Am now sending this book to those good friends and family.
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Summary: This Book Should Be Called Dr. Atkins Life Saving Diet!
Review: Once again Dr. Atkins has forged ahead and set the standard for lifestyle enhancement. Those of you who suffer from unstable blood sugar, and ailments that stem from it must read this book. As a life long suffer of hypoglycemia this program has literally saved my life, plus letting me drop pounds easily and keep them off for years. This new book only adds to his plan, by describing how, through supplementation, to improve your life. His approach is intelligent and well researched, and you come away from reading his books like you read a fun to read medical text rather than some breezy, pie-in-the-sky (no pun intended) diet plan.
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Summary: Not what it appears to be...
Review: The description on the back cover says "An abridgement of Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution", which would leave one to believe that it is a condensed version of the book.. but it is not! If you are looking for a taped version of the "Low Carb Diet" that is covered in the book.. forget it! My husband is not a reader, and I felt that he would benefit from understanding the diet that he is on by listening to the tapes. I wanted him not only to follow the diet, which DOES work, but also to understand WHY it works. This mainly talks about vitamins, hormones, heart problems, etc. Sorry, no stars from me! BUT the book is excellent, and the diet does work!
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Summary: Diet: Where we are
Review: The Diet Debate: Where We Are Recent studies indicate that Dr. Atkins may well be right that the protein diet is better than the carbohydrate diet for a long, disease free life. If this turns out to be true we will all owe him a tremendous debt, and he will legitimately come to be regarded as a heroic pioneer who took on the system and won.
But, this book sadly does little to support his potential greatness in human medical history. His findings seem to arise chiefly from observing patients in his own medical practice. He asks you take his word, from decades of experience, that proteins are better than carbohydrates. This though would be a lot easier if he would present his observations in a scientific way; he does not do this at all. Instead, he merely asks us to accept the results he has observed, even as we know they are not the results observed by most doctors. Sensing the weakness of his pedagogic approach he often ventures beyond his medical practice to interpret, often in a very self serving way, scientific studies done by others. And, then to make matters worse he uses general observation from outside his practice and from outside scientific research to make conclusions that are certainly not always rational.
For example, perhaps the main argument in the book is that in the year 1900, lard, tallow, and butter were the main fats consumed, and there were virtually no heart attacks in America then. Now that the health police have virtually banned these foods from our diet, heart disease in the number one killer; therefore, he would have us believe, lard, tallow and butter prevent heart disease. Of course this sadly ignores that in 1900 virtually all Americans worked long days doing physical labor and only lived to 52 years of age as opposed to 76 years today, and perhaps 1000 other variables that have changed in 100 years. It is truly an apples and oranges comparison of the very worst sort.
Then, to add science to his conclusion about the heart benefits of butter, lard, and fat he sites the famed Framingham Heart Study by quoting the study director, Dr. Castelli, as saying that people with the lowest cholesterol (good for the heart in everyone's book) took in the most fat, cholesterol, and calories. A quick look on Dr.Castelli's web site reveals that a strictly vegetarian diet is literally his prescription for heart disease. He wants no meat at all while Atkins famously implores you to have "unlimited"(page 290) amounts? Dr. Castelli not only compiled the results from the Framingham study but also works closely with heart attack victims who he says benefit dramatically and immediately from a no meat vegetarian diet.
Sometimes Dr. Atkins seems to be pure snake oil salesman even when he's not selling the snake oil himself at his clinics. For example, he wants us to believe that merely taking Vitamin C will sharply reduce our risk of cancer. One would have to be a huge conspiracy theorist to believe such a simple preventative had been kept from us save for Dr. Atkin's sage counsel. At another point he says Vitamin E is as effective as selegiline against Alzheimer's disease. This may be true but it is saying next to nothing since selegiline and even its successor drug, Aricept, have only a barely noticeable effect on 5% of patients for 6 months and no effect at all on the overall course of the disease for anybody.
Anyway, no lay person is going to figure out the truth even if the study data were presented directly, but still we can thank Dr. Atkins. for fighting hard enough and long enough and succeeding enough to, prayerfully, provoke a lot more research that may eventually lead to some definitive answers.
In the mean time I'm going to occasionally enjoy meat and eggs(high in protein), and take advantage of what Atkins and most others seem agree on: a multi-vitamin/herb/mineral supplement and a few key vegetables and fruits, i.e., garlic, blueberries, blackberries, kale, and spinach. Fish oil seems extreme but you keep reading about it over and over again.
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Summary: Revolutionary !!!
Review: The informative content of this book is unlike any other I have read. For more than 20 years I have read books and magazines about diet and nutrition, looking for ways to improve my health and keet off excess weight. Dr. Atkins writes about the body's metabolic, chemical, hormonal and aging processes in laymen's terms without insulting my intelligence. The information revolutionized my way of thinking about what I eat and the nutritional supplements I take. This book is truly a gift to share with others. Just like my new beverage of choice that replaced my morning brew. Its called s oyfee and taste so wonderful with no caffeine or acids. Organic and made from soya! Bye bye acid stomach and hello healthy tummy! Google it under "acid free coffee"
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Summary: This is nonsense
Review: There is a section in the Bible (I think it's Proverbs) about being wary on the false woman who serves the unclean feast, and this is exactly what they were talking about. The secrets to longevity have been proven by half a century of medical studies, then one Robert C. Atkins decides everyone else must be wrong. To live longer, you need a diet rich in polyunsaturated fats, high in fiber, and low in saturated fat. This means whole grain wheats (and prunes :) ), fish and beans, and a mostly vegetarian diet. My great-uncle who was into health food about 20 or 30 years before it was even popular, and refused to own a television set because he believed the energy was harmful, actually may have been right, as he had lived with cancer for at least 40 years from scraping asbestos off navy ships (I think he was sentenced to this because he refused to fight) was quite well even to the last visit in the hospital, he recognized us, and was quite talkative, and generally we had trouble understanding him rather than the other way around, he was that fluent. Atkins on the other hand probably has a kidney stone removed every two or three years. In fact, my uncle's diet was a common link between all of the people over a hundred years of age. How long has he [Atkins] lived? ALthough I should say that this works for some people who are chronically overweight, I won't say it. The problem is with the Atkins diet is that if you are a normal person who might stand to lose 20 or 30 pounds, this tends to make you very sick, as my mom tried it when she was about 10 pounds overweight. If you are overweight by more than that, it is still very dangerous, so I would recommend becoming a strict vegetarian, and if that doesn't work, as a last resort, I still wouldn't recommend it.
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