Low-carb dieting can peel off the pounds initially—while making your body systems dysfunctional
and compromising your health. As a result, this weight loss is almost always temporary (mostly
water weight and valuable muscle, because muscle is being converted to carbohydrate that you
could have eaten to spare your muscle!), and it’s extremely psychologically and physically draining.
Low-carb diets will turn you into a slow-moving target for the variety of health problems that any
high-animal protein diet causes. This is especially true during the most radical phase where you eat
very few, if any, carbohydrates at all.
“Carcinogenesis, the development of cancer, is turned on by animal
protein and turned off by plant protein, even if cancer has already
been initiated. It appears that once the body has all the protein it
needs—which it gets at only about eight to 10 percent of the entire
diet—then the excess protein begins to feed precancerous lesions
and tumors.”- T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., and Christine Cox, The China Study
A low-carb, high animal-protein diet is a cancer-promoting diet, not to mention a kidney-damaging,
heart-disease-furthering, depression-inducing diet. The skewed facts, figures and quasi-scientific
claims of low-carb diet promoters lead you to believe it’s a healthy lifestyle choice, but this doesn’t
change the fact that vast, methodological research shows it is not. The American Medical
Association (AMA), the American Diabetes Association (ADA), the American Heart Association
(AHA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), just to name a few, support the research on how
dangerous and unhealthy low-carb diets really are.^44
The Atkins Diet, The South Beach Diet, The Zone, Protein Power, Sugar Busters and the Stillman
Diet all came under attack by the Nutrition Committee of the American Heart Association in a
report published in October 2001.^45 The abstract of this article clearly condemns these diets.
High-protein diets typically offer wide latitude in protein food choices, are restrictive in
other food choices (mainly carbohydrates), and provide structured eating plans. They also
often promote misconceptions about carbohydrates, insulin resistance, ketosis and fat
burning as mechanisms of action for weight loss. These diets are generally associated with
higher intakes of total fat, saturated fat and cholesterol because the protein is provided
mainly by animal sources. In high-protein diets, weight loss is initially high due to fluid loss
related to reduced carbohydrate intake, overall caloric restriction and ketosis-induced
appetite suppression. Beneficial effects on blood lipids and insulin resistance are due to the
weight loss, not to the change in caloric composition. High-protein diets are not
recommended because they restrict healthful foods that provide essential nutrients and do(^44) Morris R. Is the Atkins' Diet Dangerous? The Truth Behind the Diet Lies. April 9, 2007.
(^45) St Jeor ST, Howard BV, Prewitt TE, Bovee V, Bazzarre T, Eckel RH. Dietary protein and weight reduction: a statement for
health care professionals from the Nutrition Committee of the Council on Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Metabolism of
the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2001;104:1869-74.