Hello. My name is CJ Segal-Isaacson, EdD, RD. I
am a nutrition scientist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx,

New York. I am very interested in scientifically
documenting the effects of low carbohydrate weight loss diets and have

conducted two previous Internet-based surveys. In
the last one, conducted during the summer of 2001, over 6,000 people

responded. The results of this study were just
presented in October, 2002 at the annual national conference of the American

Dietetic Association.



I would like to invite you to participate in a
brand new study called The CCARB Study. We are
looking for people who have been

on a low or controlled carbohydrate diet for at
least two months in the last two years. By the way, CCARB stands for

Controlled Carbohydrate Assessment Registry Bank.



The purpose of the CCARB Study is to establish an
Internet-based cohort of people who use controlled carbohydrate diets. We

plan to follow participants for at least three
years each. We are very interested in
participants’ dietary and exercise habits

as well as their weight and health patterns.



Participants will be asked to complete a set of
questionnaires (via the Internet) soon after they enroll, three months later

and then once a year for three years. We would
also very much appreciate it if participants would have their heights and

weights measured by their health care providers
at baseline and every year. This is an optional requirement, but we hope most

participants will do it because it will greatly
add to the study’s scientific validity. As you know there are many members of

the scientific community who are very skeptical
about controlled carbohydrate diets and will take a study with objectively

measured weights much more seriously.



CCARB participants will receive, in addition to
the satisfaction of contributing significantly to scientific knowledge about

controlled carbohydrate diets, the following free services:

    Dietary analyses each time they complete questionnaires
    Access to a nutritionist to ask questions online
    Monthly newletters on controlled carbohydrate
topics and other health-related topics
    Controlled carbohdyrate recipes

If you are interested in participating or finding
out more about the study, please come visit our website at:

http://epi.aecom.yu.edu/ccarbs

Yours truly,
CJ Segal-Isaacson