Newsweek's cover story this week is on diets. It's worth a read .. though there are fewer popups in the paper version. (It's amazing to me that a mainstream magazine like Newsweek has popus on their website. I apologize for the infected link … I feel like I'm breaking an unwritten weblog rule …)
I'm warming up to the low-carb diets. I wrote about this last summer .. and it's in the news again. Many of my patients are trying low carb diets in some form. While Atkins is most popular, some folks are trying the Sugar Busters (reviewed at the Chase Freedom website — an interesting website with reviews of many 'fad' diets). While I've haad a few who found the Schwarzbein principle.
Some anecdotes:
Total Cholesterols are not changing much
HDLs are going up
People report more energy and fewer mood swings
Weight loss does occur
I've been experimenting a bit too. I do notice that when I avoid carbohydrates, I am less hungry. This makes some sense to me. The hypoglycemia that occurs as one comes "down" from a large glucose load (and the pancreatic response) causes craving for food (carbohydrates) and the roller-coaster continues.
