From FOXNews.com

Dr. Robert Atkins Dead at 72
Thursday, April 17, 2003
NEW YORK - Dr. Robert C. Atkins, whose best-selling
low-carbohydrate,  high-protein diet was dismissed as nutritional
folly for years but was recently
validated in some research, died Thursday, his spokesman said.
He was 72.
Atkins died at New York Weill-Cornell Medical Center and was
surrounded by his wife and close friends, said Richard Rothstein,
his spokesman.
Atkins suffered a severe head injury on April 8 after falling on an icy
sidewalk while walking to work. Last April, Atkins was hospitalized
for cardiac arrest, which he said was related to an infection of the
heart and was not related to the diet.
Atkins first advocated his unorthodox weight-loss plan - which
emphasizes meat, eggs and cheese and discourages bread,
rice and fruit - in his 1972 book, Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution.
Its publication came at a time when the medical establishment
was encouraging a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. The following
year, the American Medical Association dismissed Atkins' diet
as nutritional folly and Congress summoned him to Capitol Hill to
defend the plan.
Labeling it "potentially dangerous," the AMA said the diet's scientific
underpinning was "naive" and "biochemically incorrect." It scolded
the book's publishers for promoting "bizarre concepts of nutrition and
dieting."
Despite this, his books sold 15 million copies, and millions of people
tried the diet. Atkins' philosophy enjoyed a resurgence in the 1990s
with Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution, which sold more than 10 million
copies worldwide and spent five years on The New York Times
best-seller list.
But criticism of the diet lingered, with many arguing that it could affect
kidney function, raise cholesterol levels and deprive the dieter of
important nutrients.
Atkins said no study showed that people with normal kidney function
developed problems because of a high-protein diet, and he never gave
in to his detractors.
Defending his plan at the American Dietetic Association's convention
in 2000, Atkins quipped, "I'm very happy to be here. Not as happy as
Daniel in the lion's den."
This year, his approach was vindicated in part by the very medical
community that scorned him. In February, some half-dozen studies
showed that people on the Atkins diet lost weight without
compromising their health. The studies showed that Atkins dieters'
cardiovascular risk factors and overall cholesterol profiles changed
for the better.
Still, many of the researchers were reluctant to recommend the
Atkins diet, saying a large new study now under way could settle
lingering questions of its long-term effects.
On the Atkins diet, up to two-thirds of calories may come from
fat - more than double the usual recommendation, and violating
what medical professionals have long believed about healthy eating.
Carbohydrates are the foundation of a good diet, most say. Eating
calorie-dense fat is what makes people fat, they say, and eating
saturated fat is dangerous.
To Atkins, the key dietary villain in obesity was carbohydrates. He
argued they make susceptible people pump out too much insulin,
which in turn encourages them to put on fat.
Fat in foods can be a dieter's friend, Atkins said, in part because
it quenches appetite and stops carbohydrate craving.
Atkins, a graduate of Cornell University's medical school, first tried
a low-carbohydrate diet in 1963 after reading about one in the
Journal of the American Medical Association. He said he lost weight
so easily that he converted his fledgling Manhattan cardiology practice
into an obesity clinic.
Besides his work on nutrition, Atkins also argued that ozone gas can
kill cancer cells and HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and he claimed
to have treated more than 1,000 patients with ozone therapy.
The ozone treatment is a common alternative therapy in Germany and
some other nations but has not gained acceptance in the United States.
In 1999, Atkins established the Robert C. Atkins Foundation to finance
diet research. It has sponsored research at Duke University, the
University of Connecticut and Harvard.
Atkins did not have any children and is survived by his wife, Veronica,
and his mother, Norma, of Palm Beach, Fla.