On Tue, 19 Oct 1999, Mary wrote:

> I read in the paper a day or so ago that the American Dietary (or
> Dieticians?) Association has a meeting coming up where they are going to
> discuss the "dangers" of high protein diets. Then they gave an example of a
> man who ate bacon and eggs for breakfast, and then could have "all the
> steak, pork rinds, meat and other low carb foods he wanted" and still went
> from 320 to 200 something pounds and never was hungry. at their meeting they
> are going to discuss why this is "dangerous." Is it dangerous, or why do
> they think it is dangerous?

Mary, the following was recently posted on the lowcarb list, and
it may give you an idea what the ADA is thinking...

Todd Moody
[log in to unmask]

Authors
  Forster H.
Title
  [Is the Atkins diet safe
  in respect to health?]. [German]
Source
  Fortschritte der Medizin.  96(34):1697-702, 1978 Sep 14.
Abstract
  The "Atkins dietary
  revolution" is a ketogenic diet consisting almost
  exclusively of food from animal origin. A similar diet was
  introduced as the "Banting diet" more than
  a century ago by the English physician Harvey. This
  carbohydrate-free diet is high in fat, cholesterol and
  purines. The measurable ketosis is a precondition for
  the effect of this kind of diet. However,
  the predictable hyperlipacidemia and ketosis are recognized
  health risks. Additionally, hypercholesterolemia is to be expected in a
  greater part of the adherents to such a
  diet. Even children under ketogenic diet
  develop hypercholesterolemia within a short time. A similar high-fat
  diet, known as the Sippy
  diet for ulcer therapy, was found earlier
  to cause an increased incidence in coronary heart disease. On
  the basis of the known facts
  the Atkins diet seems to
  be potentially hazardous to health, unless a controlled study is performed.
  However, considering the risks it seems very problematic to
  perform such a study.