Holding Off on the Victory Dance

March 6, 2007 — -- I've never been a big fan of extravagant post-touchdown, end-zone celebrations in football games. And in reading these results it's easy to imagine thin and healthy Atkins followers doing the touchdown dance in front of hungry, low calorie, low-fat fanatics and mainstream nutritionists.

Unfortunately, as a physician living in a country where two-thirds of the population is overweight and hundreds of thousands of lives are lost due to obesity each year, there seems more work to be done before joining the celebration.

While this study shows that Atkins produces "more weight loss and more favorable outcomes for metabolic effects" than either very low-fat programs, or those supporting current national recommendations, the greatest obstacle to impacting the epidemic of obesity remains improving adherence.

It isn't that we don't know how to prevent and treat this problem; it's that to date, our solutions, including Atkins, have been too hard for many people to follow.

As Atkins provides a way to make it easier for people to lose weight without portion control or fat restriction by minimizing swings in blood sugar and insulin levels, future efforts will need to find even more ways to use innovation, rather than deprivation, to help people achieve lifelong weight management success.

Choosing between low-carb, low-fat and low-calorie options may become irrelevant as people are finally able to combine the best of all of these approaches, putting an end to deprivation dieting.

Who knows, I may get to do that touchdown dance after all.

Dr. Stuart Trager is chairman of the Atkins Physicians Council.