The Atkins Diet

As I was surfing around the internet last week, I came across something called "Atkins diet". You can see its homepage here: http://www.atkins.com/Homepage.aspx. Atkins diet claims to be the best (no surprise there) for reducing weight. Atkins diet is quite simple, you just have to cut down on your carbohydrate intake (about 10% of your daily total energetic intake). The fact is - that's completely wrong. In some of my next posts I will go deeper in human physiology and biochemistry and tell you why (It isn't just wrong, there are a lot of reasons for that). At the beginning of the Atkins diet, I imagine that you would indeed to start to loose weight. You see human body needs (in order to function normally and that's what you want) to keep your blood sugar (a carbohydrate) in a narrow range, about 3.5-5.5 mmol/L. There are two main hormones that control blood sugar levels, those are insulin and clangor. When blood sugar is too high, your body secretes insulin, when your blood sugar is too low, your body secretes clangor. Carbohydrates (mainly glucose=blood sugar) are important for many reasons. Firstly glucose is the only fuel that brain can use for it's functioning. Secondly the synthesis of many molecules that are important for your immune system need carbohydrates (NADPH, glutathione). Thirdly for human body, it is most efficient to burn carbohydrates to get energy. Normally (except professional athletes or people with a certain disease) carbohydrates should cover 50-60% of your daily energetic intake (I will provide sources and more detailed diet plan in one of my further posts). When you start to exceed that level, your body starts to store this extra energy. YOur body can do it in two main ways: it synthesizes glycogen (a carbohydrate, maximum of 120g) or it stores the extra carbohydrates as fat. Those processes are induced by the hormone insulin. This is where the Atkins diet steps in. The authors of this diet claim that by simply reducing your daily carbohydrate intake, your body synthesizes less fat and starts to burn it instead. This is indeed true, because as your carbohydrate intake is now near minimum (but your body wants to remain blood sugar levels) your body starts to hydrolyze glycogen and start to synthesize glucose by itself (process known as gluconeogenesis). Also glucose is preserved now mainly for the brain (by a mechanism I will explain later). But in order to satisfy other tissues also, your body starts to burn fat to generate energy. This diet sound pretty awesome? Actually no! There's a reason your body need about 50-60% of carbohydrates for energy. The excess burning of fats and strongly induced gluconeogenesis (see above) creates a situation which leads to production of ketone bodies. Ketone bodies are synthesized in liver and they can also be used for energetic purposes in various tissues. But ketone bodies release protons (a hydrogen atom) to your blood stream. This brings your blood pH down (=your blood becomes acidic). This is dangerous as low pH disrupts the normal functioning of many important enzymes and low pH acts as an neurotransmission inhibitor. Which means that for nerve cells it is more difficult to transmit signals. This situation called ketoacidosis can lead to coma. Another thing is, as your body now uses less glucose, it disrupts the work of pentose phosphate cycle. This cycle is important for detoxifying different toxins and to synthesize molecules needed by the immune system (NADPH). Lastly, your body desperately trying to keep your blood glucose levels normal (in order to keep a normal supply for the brain), fighting against your own stupidity (yes, your body is quite powerful) starts to use your body proteins as a substrate for gluconeogenesis (= to synthesize glucose). This means that you start to loose muscle weight and the synthesis of many important peptide hormones and enzymes is now disrupted. To sum up, without any medical knowledge, this diet is dangerous for your body (in a long term). The faster you loose weight, the faster you will gain it again. Remember that side effect will not show them until a few months (in some cases a few years) after you start your dangerous diet. In some of my next posts, I will eventually describe all the aspects of healthy eating and all the number you need to know (what to eat, when to eat) in order to loose weight. Actually it is not hard. You just have to eat right things on right times in right amounts. My next post will be dedicated to another stupid diet, called the pH diet.