Forwarded from Dr. Charles R. Attwood, MD,
family physician who has testified before the US Congress
several times, on a number of issues, including Olestra.


ENTER THE ZONE
A Giant Leap Backwards
   by
Charles R. Attwood, M.D., F.A.A.P.


Anne, an old friend of mine, walked up to Barry Sears at
the Tom Landry Sports Medicine and Research Center in Dallas.

She complained that the program outlined in his book,
Enter The Zone--more lean meat, egg whites, poultry and fish,
while limiting many grains, vegetables, and fruits--just didn't
work for her.  She didn't feel good, and her performance level
 (swimming) had declined.  Anne was now back on her vegetables,
fruits, and whole grains.  "Stay with what works best," he
said, "but you know, Anne, it's not the fat and protein that's
so important.  It's the effect of carbohydrates upon hormones
and insulin levels."  Though this was contrary to everything
I had told her about nutrition, the book's message was loud
and clear:  "All those trendy high-carbohydrate diets," he had
written, "may be increasing your risk of developing heart
disease."

Excessive complex carbohydrates, according to Sears,
also causes obesity by increasing insulin output and fat
storage.  This is the process, he insists, that creates bad
eicosanoids leading to heart disease and cancer."  To complete
a 'Zone-favorable' meal," he advises, "always add fat, the
building blocks for eicosanoids."  While it's true that
eicosanoids are hormones involved in many metabolic processes,
the relation of "bad" eicosanoids to obesity and disease is at
best a scientifically unproven gimmick.  Unfortunately, however,
it has captured the unquestioning reader's imagination.

Every few years since the early 1950's, someone has based
a book on carbohydrate bashing. First, there were the
Dr. Stillman's Diet and Dr. Atkins' Diet followed by
The Scarsdale Diet, and finally, Enter The Zone.
Now there are others:   Michael and Mary Dan Eases's
Protein Power and Rachael and Richard Heller's  Health For Life.
And once again Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution is back
on the bestseller lists.  According to Bonnie Liebman at
the Center For Science in the Public Interest, it's nothing new.
"Miracle diets come and go like hemlines, hair-dos, and
celebrity romances."  Furthermore, they don't work;
and all of them  have the potential of raising low density
lipoprotein (LDL) levels.  And finally, what do these diets
do for the authors themselves?  Both Dr. Atkins and Barry
Sears have exceeded the upper limits of weight recommended
by federal guidelines

A vegetarian diet, according to Sears, is as far as you
can get from The Zone.  He ignores the fact that individuals
who eat vegetarian diets have far less heart disease and
cancer, and tend to be leaner, not fatter.  Moreover, most
clinical studies conducted during the last half-century,
clearly show that a high-protein, high-fat, low-carbohydrate
diet leads to higher rates of heart disease, stroke,
hypertension,  adult onset diabetes, and many types of cancer.

The relationship of animal fat to cancer is stronger than ever
before. According to new studies released by the Environmental
Protection Agency, potent carcinogens from industrial wastes,
such as dioxin and other chlorinated compounds, are known to be
concentrated in the animal fat of meat, fish, and dairy
products.  On the other hand, vegetables, fruits, and grains
contain only small amounts of these compounds.

So why is the Zone diet so popular?  Its followers defend
it vehemently, largely because they find the rapid  weight loss
irresistible.  Like most low carbohydrate diets, however,
a great deal of the weight loss is dehydration.  Ordinarily,
three grams of water are stored with every gram of
carbohydrates in the form of glycogen in the liver and skeletal
muscles.  When this is sharply limited, the desperate "zonies"
think they are losing up to a pound of fat a day.  It's also
low in calories (about 1,700), causing the unhealthful depletion
of lean body mass along with the minimal fat loss.

Also, without careful monitoring, this type of diet may
 lead to "ketosis" (an unnatural form of acidosis), which often
causes some degree of anorexia and even euphoria.  Sears denies
that this happens with the amount of carbohydrates he allows.

However, Dr. Atkins, another proponent of high protein, high
fat, low carbohydrate consumption, considers ketosis to be a
useful and necessary state.  If ketosis sounds familiar, it's
also the result when insulin-dependent diabetics can't
metabolize carbohydrates without their insulin injections--a
state leading up to  diabetic coma.

The Sears diet recommends that one get 30 percent of
calories from fat, 30 percent from protein, and 40 percent from
carbohydrates.  Here, it should be obvious that these are
approximately the proportions already consumed in most Western
countries, including the United States, where heart disease and
cancer are rampant.  Furthermore, with such low intakes of
complex carbohydrates, it appears that Sears' recommended diet
would be deficient in vegetables, fruits, and whole
grains--and would contain inadequate fiber.  Adding insult to
injury, this level of protein consumption may promote calcium
loss and osteoporosis.

Sears has very little to say about cholesterol levels in
his book.  He writes, "if cholesterol is such a villain, why
does the body make so much of it?"  The real heart disease
risk, he says, is "hyperinsulinemia and bad eicosanoids."
 He is either unaware that practically all published reports
indicate just the opposite, or he hasn't thoroughly
read his own book--written with the help of professional
magazine writer, Bill Lawren.  It's riddled with such comments
as, "eating fat doesn't make you fat."  It cautions that such
foods as potatoes, brown rice, bread, corn, carrots, pasta,
bananas, dry breakfast cereals, apple juice and orange juice
may be harmful to your health.  None of the references quoted,
backing these conclusions, have ever been published, and the
book does not contain a reference section or a bibliography.

So in summary, a half century of scientific research,
first from Ansel Keyes' population studies in the 1950's to
T. Colin Campbell's ongoing Cornell-Oxford-China Nutrition
project today, has given us a wealth of data supporting the
health benefits of carbohydrates.  "The Zone" would be a
giant step backward.  A little weight loss, which is quickly
regained when the diet is no longer tolerated, isn't worth the
inevitable long-term health risk.


Charles R. Attwood, M.D., F.A.A.P
author of Dr. Attwood's Low-Fat Prescription For Kids
621 N. Ave. K
Crowley, LA. 70526
(318) 783-8215