Mayo Clinic has just published a study showing that patients with heart disease lose weight on a high-fat, no-grain Atkins-style diet followed for six weeks.
The study took 23 obese patients with documented coronary artery disease. All of the patients were being treated with cholesterol-lowering "statin" drugs, but no changes were made to their drugs or the dosing during the study. The people on the test diet dropped a significant 5.2 percent of their total body weight and reduced their body fat percentage by a similar amount. No changes in LDL ("bad") or HDL ("good") cholesterol levels were observed with the diet, and it was tied to a significant reduction in total triglyceride levels.
As we have been promoting for some time now, saturated fats are not the evil they are purported to be. The fact that the triglyceride levels dropped is also no surprise and is exactly what one would expect, which I detailed in my letter to the Canadian Medical Journal earlier this year. Now if they would only just wake up and recognize that Atkins only had part of the answer and that it is not necessary to globally reduce carbs for overweight, only the grains and sugars.
Mayo Clinic Proceedings, November 2003