Atkins diet combats diabetes says NZ study

1.00pm

It's increasingly dismissed as a fad - but a New Zealand and world-first study into the effect of the Atkins diet on diabetes indicates people not only lose weight, their life-threatening illness improves as well.

Ten overweight diabetic New Zealanders have for the past four months been eating rich fatty food as part of a Wellington Hospital study into the controversial diet.

Until now, nothing scientific has been known about the effect of the popular protein and fat-rich diet on type-2 diabetes, a deadly disease that strikes particularly at Maori, who have the second highest diabetes rate in the world.

One in three adult Maori are diagnosed with the disease, which can lead to blindness, limb amputations and death.

Usually diabetics are recommended the traditional low-fat diet to control their illness but the Wellington study may change all that - and it is set to gain international scientific attention.

Four months ago, endocrinologist Jeremy Krebs chose subjects with an average weight of 120 kilograms.


Since then:

Grace, 38, has stopped taking insulin, halved her daily diabetes medication and the weight is falling off. All the while she enjoys rich meals, including fat sirloin steaks dribbled in blue cheese sauce.

Louise, 54, whose grandmother went blind and had both legs amputated because of diabetes, has lost 15kg and now has a blood sugar level of about six - a normal level for non-diabetics. Before the study her level was 17.

Fred, 44, is training for a 160km bike race in two weeks' time. After being "hungry for 40 years", he says he hasn't experienced a hunger pang in four months.

The group say their blood pressure has been reduced, their good cholesterol raised and the bad lowered, their energy has skyrocketed, and their lives have been dramatically changed. The diet they follow is strictly Atkins: Carbohydrates are almost eliminated and protein and fat are allowed. Though, because it is hospital-controlled, the group is encouraged to replace as much saturated fat with the safer mono and polyunsaturated fats, and to include lots of nutrient-rich green vegetables.

Three times during the study, each person spends a day at the hospital subjected to five-hours of scientific tests including glucose tolerance, blood pressure and kidney function, as well as measurements of their weight and body composition.

Dr Krebs says provisional results - the study is not due to finish for another four weeks - show the effects of the diet on the 10 were beneficial for their diabetes.

But he was sceptical that the type of food they were eating was making the difference.

"I think what we're going to conclude is that it's weight loss that counts and how you achieve it doesn't really matter that much."

Popular opinion holds that the Atkins diet works by forcing the body to consume stored fats because there is no available carbohydrate to burn.

But Dr Krebs believes the diet, like all others, works only by reducing the overall energy intake.

Eventually, he hopes to find the funding necessary to extend the study beyond a year to provide another world-first - the only scientific research into the long-term effects of the Atkins diet.

- THE HERALD ON SUNDAY