nd lose weight. However, the question still remains, “Is this diet healthy for Americans?” This is exactly what I hope to answer for you in the following pages. What is A Protein Diet?To help you understand what nutritionists are calling a high protein diet I will review the popular literature that has been published on the topic. You have heard the popular saying, “History repeats itself.” It appears that it applies to diets as well, because in actuality, high protein diets have appeared for over 40 years. In the 1960s the Atkins’ Diet. In the 1970s, it was reincarnated as the Stillman Diet. Then, in the 1980s it surfaced again as the popular Scarsdale Diet. In each of these decades the high protein diet craze eventually died down because of the lack of scientific support and the publics trust in the guidelines put forth by our government. Despite high protein’s questionable past and the repeated warnings by every major health institute in America, a new crop of high protein diet books, such as The Zone and Dr Atkin’s New Diet Revolution has caught the public’s attention again (4). To try to comprehend what the stir is all about we will examine one of the top selling books on the market today about protein diets, The Atkin’s Diet. The main dietary principle driving the Atkins Diet is ketosis (5). Ketosis is a condition in which unusual products of fat are broke down in the blood. More simply stated, it means excess, stored body fat is burned, which results in weight loss. To put the body into a state of ketosis you must restrict the amount of carbohydrates consumed in a day to less than 100 grams. According to Dr. Atkins, regular insulin production converts excess carbohydrates into body fat. However, in the absence of carbohydrates the body cannot use its’ fat in the normal way. Therefore, energy the body requires can be burned through benign dietary ketosis...
