I refer to the article (May 21) regarding the warning on dangers of the Atkins diet. Personally I tend to agree that increasing the fat and protein intake and drastically reducing carbohydrates is not good for health.

However, there are some studies which have shown that the Atkins diet, besides helping in weight loss, also decreases some cardiovascular risk factors. A particular study by Linda Stern (Annals of Internal Medicine vol 140 p778) conducted on 132 obese patients for a year showed that Atkins dieters reduced weight in a higher rate when compared to "orthodox" dieters and the former also had a decreased triglyceride blood level and an increase in high density lipoproteins.

Obviously these data are not conclusive in favour of the Atkins diet because one should enter into the technical details of the study and also larger studies are needed to back the findings. As already stated I am not in favour of the Atkins diet but when mentioning the Atkins diet one should be objective enough as to mention both the pros and cons.

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