I’m… surprised.

Or perhaps “stunned” is more apt.

I can’t quite believe that they are so many people out there who are still keen to try the infamous Atkins Diet.

You would expect the numbers to be drastically reduced after the release of so many negative reports about how this diet has caused a number of ill-effects to people’s health, right?

Recently, there was new research done by some doctors from New York University. In their case study reported in The Lancet, there was a 40-year-old woman who developed a dangerous condition called ketoacidosis, a dangerous buildup of acids called ketones in the blood which can lead to patients falling into a coma.

The patient, a 40-year-old obese woman, reported a weight loss of nine kilos (20 pounds) a month after she began the diet.

She ate meat, cheese and salads, supplemented by minerals and vitamins sold by Atkins Nutritionals Inc., the company founded by diet pioneer Robert Atkins in 1989.

She was admitted for emergency treatment, complaining of a shortness of breath, nausea and repeated vomiting that had lasted several days, as well as mild gastric pains.

Urine and blood analysis showed she had severe ketoacidosis — a condition in which dangerously high levels of ketone acids build up in the liver as a result of a depletion of the hormone insulin. Ketoacidosis, which is more usually seen among diabetics and victims of starvation, can lead to a coma.

Yes, this can lead to a coma!

I don’t know about you, but I think that is too high a price to pay in order to lose the 20 pounds.

Dr. Klaus-Dieter Lessnau, a clinical assistant professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine and co-author of the case study report says, “The Atkins diet is not a safe diet in everybody. It can cause potentially life-threatening problems.”

Well said.

So, please… Be safe, and stay away from all these low-carb diets!

Tracy Lee
Weight Loss for Women Over 40

This entry was posted on Monday, March 27th, 2006 at 4:51 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.