You've probably read many things about dieting and disease, but there is some evidence that a low carbohydrate may be good for your heart... here's Dr Atkins personal view from his book: New Diet Revolution!

One of the reasons this book is being written is that I have interviewed hundreds of my old, previously successful patients, and, although most are prospering healthwise, a certain percentage of them are now overweight, not in the best condition, and, although still aware of the need to diet, are no ionger using the low-carbohydrate diet they did so well on.

Since recidivism is not a problem one often has to deal with once a person has made a low-carbohydrate lifetime commitment, I went into great detail to find out why they weren't using the Metabolic Advantage techniques I'd taught them.

I asked, "Was the Atkins diet experience a bad one?" Not in the least," they would answer, "best diet I've ever been on."
"Did you like the food?"
"Can't recall a diet where I ate so luxuriously."
"Well, how did you feel on the diet?"
"You know, now that you ask, that was the best I've felt in my adult life."

I then proceeded to review the old medical records and noted that their lab. values improved considerably on the regimen, as they usually do. Whereupon, I inquired: "OK, then explain to me why you don't eat that way today?"

Then the inevitable answer: "I heard (or read) that the diet isn't good for you."

Think of it! A large group of individuals absolutely turning their backs on common sense, defeating themselves by rejecting the very program which, by their own recollection, suited them best—and all because they were snookered by the prevailing winds of propaganda. Rather than choosing to repeat their previous success, they became enthralled with the naked emperor's clothes.

At first I was angry with my former patients. but now that I've observed this reaction a number of times, I'm angry with the society that creates this No Win Situation.

What I've just told you about is cognitive dissonance—the inability to believe what you've been programmed not to believe, however compelling the evidence. I imagine many of you have it, too, so I must deal with it before it defeats you.

Let us start with the main area of cognitive dissonance. People believe that the Atkins diet is bad for the heart. They believe it with such certainty that any attempt to demonstrate that the facts show otherwise is met with a smile of incredulity.

And Yet, With a Low-Carbohydrate Diet, Found the Beginning of an Answer

I'm a cardiologist by training, and I've spent a lot of my life treating cardiac patients. Naturally, it has always been deeply satisfying to me that the Atkins diet is so remarkably heart-healthy. Almost from the first moment that I began using it more than twenty-five years ago, I saw the good effects it had on my patients.

Patients with chest pain found their angina clearing up, often within days of going on the diet. Patients with episodes of cardiac arrhythmias maintained a normal rhythm as long as they kept to the diet. Patients with hypertension lowered their blood pressure—and fast.

I'll bet that's not what you've heard. You've had the opposite message drummed into your head so repetitively that I'm afraid you think I'm lying to you. You know with more certainty than you know the sun rises in the east and sets in the west that a diet allowing cream and butter and red meat causes heart attacks and that it' 11 make your heart symptoms worse.

So let's talk about the preconceptions you may have formed, ideas that could quite possibly lead to your being touted off a diet that may fit you as well as Cinderella's slipper fit her.

I'll start with a rhetorical question: How could the Atkins Center have shown a steady 25-year growth pattern into the significant clinical facility it now is if I had treated my patients with a diet that in any way jeopardized their health'?

No, the facts are quite the opposite, and what may come as a surprise to many of you, the rationale and the all-important bottom-line observations are all documented in the doctor's ongoing bible, the widely disseminated medical journals, which we in the field refer to as "peer-reviewed".