Dr. Atkins' Age-Defying Diet Revolution
by Dr. Robert C. Atkins M.D.

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Book Reviews of Dr. Atkins' Age-Defying Diet Revolution

Book Review: Offers valuable information on how to eat properly
Summary: 5 Stars

Atkins himself is a medical doctor who practices alternative and complementary medicine. He is an enterprise himself with his many best-selling books and his Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine. When I first heard about him and his all protein and vegetable diet some years ago, I figured he was the charlatan author of yet another fad diet, and I ignored his books. This one is the first I've actually read, and I must say immediately that he is certainly not a charlatan. He is obviously a man who knows as much about diet as anyone could hope to know. Whether he is entirely correct in his ideas is not something I am incapable of assessing; but I am willing to bet he is mostly right. He has had an enormous experience treating patients, and it is encouraging to note that as a medical doctor he tends to write relatively few prescriptions. He even warns of the harm that can come from the use of commonly prescribed medicines and their side effects.

The most important claim he makes about ageing is that it is primarily caused by free radicals and that a diet high in antioxidants can reduce the number of free radicals in our bodies.

His central idea about diet is that it is not fats that are the enemy of health for people in the industrialized world (as we have so long been taught) but carbohydrates, especially highly processed ones. This is indeed a revolutionary idea, or at least it was when it was first expressed some years ago. Fat people are not fat because they eat too much fat. They are fat because they eat too many carbohydrates. When you think about it, especially from the point of view of evolutionary biology it suddenly makes enormous sense. What was it in the prehistory that we humans never had enough of to overindulge on? Not meat, and for many cultures, not fat, but carbohydrates. There were no fields of amber grain waiting to be harvested and made into flour and bread. There were no rice patties or acres of potatoes. Humans could fell a mammoth or an elephant seal once in a while and load up on meat and fat until they were sick of it, but there is no way they could have eaten enough wild wheat or barley to get sick of it. The sheer caloric expense of harvesting low-yield natural grains by hand prohibited any overdosing. It wasn't until the rise of agriculture about ten thousand years ago that we ever had enough of a carbohydrate to call it a staple of diet. Consequently, we are to some extent carbohydrate intolerant. This is an idea absent from popular books on nutrition twenty years ago, but a staple of the wisdom today.

I like the way Atkins explains how we came to this delusive state of dietary affairs in the first place, and how that delusion is maintained. The culprits are the mainstream medical establishment and the U.S. government working hand in hand to further the interests of vast agribusiness corporations who want to maintain a high public consumption of trans fats and highly refined carbohydrates. When you think about this, it also makes sense.

I also like how specific Atkins is. He names the foods and the vitanutrients and gives the amounts. He tells you how to work with your doctor (who, alas, may not be up on all the latest information) to put together a program for your specific needs. If nothing else, by reading this book you'll know how to ask some tough questions about diet and health that your doctor will have to respond to.

Agreeable too is the sardonic tone he takes with the medical establishment. For example on page 194 we find, "...Vitamin E enhances immunity. This has been a well-known fact among complementary practitioners for years, but perhaps now the information will trickle down to mainstream medicine, where this sort of knowledge is badly needed."

However, although the text is as readable as one would expect a popular book to be, especially with all the unavoidable abbreviations and acronym-filled detail, there is more than a little repetition. Additionally, Atkins and his assisting writer, Sheila Buff, have an annoying (to me) habit of beginning a chapter by telling the reader what they're going to say, saying it, and then telling the reader what they've said. On the other hand, that might be good; and anyway, who am I to second guess someone who has reached as many people with his books as has Dr. Atkins?

Summary of Dr. Atkins' Age-Defying Diet Revolution

World-renowned medical expert Dr. Robert C. Atkins has shown millions how to lose weight and keep it off, eating the foods they like without being hungry. Now he presents a revolutionary program to give you a longer, better, healthier life.

This new plan is not just a diet, it's an easy-to-stay-with regimen that combines nutrition and vitanutrient supplements into a unique, age-defying program.

You'll learn the safest, surest ways to help:
--Add many more years to your life
--Boost your immune defenses
--Enhance brain function and memory
--Reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease
--Lose weight without restricting calories
--Combat adult-onset diabetes

Through his bestselling books and his Atkins Center for Complementary Medicine, Americans have trusted Dr. Robert C. Atkins with their health and diet concerns for over twenty-five years. Now he shows us a clear, effective way to feel younger, stronger, healthier, and more energized!

Diets Books

• Subjects > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Diets & Weight Loss > Diets