February 12, 2004
The Vegans Strike Back
Tom McMahon links to a Snopes entry about the late Dr. Atkins, his weight, and his death. Tom rightly notes that their pleasure in his death is despicable. But the Snopes article got me to thinking.
I'm not a doctor, but both my father and daughter have heart disease. My father, who is overweight and over seventy, has the kind most people think of, but my daughter's (she just turned 13 - anybody have a good recommendation on an inexpensive yet effective shotgun?) is congenital. My daughter is as skinny as a rail and would be the last person you'd ever think has any issues with her heart. They're all behind her, we hope. I mention it only because it is instructive when people think "Yeah, right" about claims Dr. Atkins' heart disease had nothing to do with his diet.
The Snopes article says Atkins went from 195 lb when he was admitted to the hospital to 258 lb at his death a week later - all the while in a coma. The hospital shoved over 65 lb of saline solution into his body. My father has had a number of operations -- and every time they put a constant saline drip into him just after they get him the gown. This has caused him to go into congestive heart failure on several occasions. After the first time, he always asks them to go easy on the saline, but they never do -- something about standard proceedure. At least now they give him a quick shot of lacix and cut back on the saline, but they always wait until he has a problem. If Atkins did have a weak ticker, and it came out before the accident that caused his death that he did, I can easily believe that 65 lb of extra saline would have caused heart failure and worse. In fact, I have to wonder about a medical establishment that would pump 65 lb of saline into a patient with heart disease.
As to the Atkins diet itself, well, I still take my vitamin pills even though Adele Davis died of cancer; I still think excercise is good for you even though Jim Fixx died of a heart attack while jogging. Controlled studies are the answer, not the anecdote of what happens to a single person.
Posted by Kevin Murphy at February 12, 2004 12:39 PM | ScienceI entered a comment on the www.snopes.com site
I have lost weight on the Atkins program.
I do not find it permissive if you actually follow the program: it's as difficult to follow as Weight Watchers, which I have also lost weight on. Any diet is difficult to following if you are trying to lose weight, you have countless generations of genetic programming working against you once your body figures out that you are losing weight (and in most times and places that's been a good thing).
I do not understand your remarks in the opening paragraph of your commentary:
"It is thus pleasing to envision the doctor who led so many to a permissive diet regimen as having been felled by the very health advice he touted to millions (and which made him millions in return)."
You can argue the merits of the Atkins diet, you can speculate as to whether he followed it and it caused his death (there is evidence on both sides), but it seems odd to me that you have essentially characterized him as a con man undone by his own scheme.
This article is not up to your normal standards: is there some aspect of the diet that you find personally offensive? Or is it something that Atkins said?
It would seem to me, given your opening paragraph, that you should be able to debunk the Atkins diet as unworkable and/or dangerous. If not, then you should revisit your characterization of him and consider the implications of your apparent delight at his death; we don't have a word for it in English but the Germans do: schadenfreude.
Posted by: Sean Murphy at February 16, 2004 03:09 PM
