Kidney Research UK

Fat chance

It advocates eating protein, protein and more protein, and two recent studies have given it a clean bill of health. But could the Atkins Diet - and other food fads like it - actually increase the risk of kidney disease?

You can never be too rich or too thin, said Jackie Collins. And for as long as people have been trying to get thin, we've have been to trying to find the one diet that would let us eat what we wanted and lose weight without months of deprivation. In short, we were after a miracle.

Then came Dr Atkins. His high-protein, low-carb diet seems to be just the miracle that slimmers have been looking for. There's no calorie counting, no portion control, and, even better, all the food you thought was banned - like bacon, eggs and cheese - is back on the menu. It's no wonder, then, that the Atkins Diet has become such a phenomenon - especially among the rich and famous.

When something catches on in the celeb world, it catches on fast. After Catherine Zeta Jones ballooned to nearly 13 stone after the birth of first son Dylan, she turned to the Atkins Diet. In the space of three months, she dropped an incredible three stone. Likewise Jennifer Aniston, who slimmed down dramatically before her wedding to Brad Pitt, and Renée Zellweger, who shed her Bridget Jones podge on the high-protein regime.

And who could forget ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell's transformation from busty good-time girl to svelte LA goddess? Another dieting miracle attributed to none other than Dr Atkins. And this so-called wonder diet is not just for women - Jennifer Aniston's Friends co-star Matthew Perry was said to have shifted stones by sticking to the high protein regime.

Recently, there was even better news for devotees of the Atkins Diet. Two reports out in America suggested the regime, far from being bad for your health, might actually be good for it. The first report, from the University of Pennsylvania, compared the effects of the Atkins Diet against a traditional low-fat plan, using a sample of 63 obese men and women. Scientists from Philadelphia followed the same method, testing 132 clinically overweight people. Surprisingly, both studies reported that the low-carbohydrate diet was more successful in encouraging the participants to lose weight, and one even suggested that levels of a blood fat called triglyceride had fallen.

But these reports are in direct conflict with established medical opinion that has, ever since the first publication of Dr Atkins' Diet Revolution in 1973, argued that this type of high-fat, high-protein diet may damage the kidneys and lead to other health complications, including heart disease. One of its most outspoken opponents is Dr Dean Ornish, clinical professor of medicine at the University of California and author of Eat More, Weigh Less. He says:'Even a single meal high in fat and cholesterol makes your arteries constrict and your blood clot faster.'

Ornish is not alone in his views.The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in America are backing a recent report that appeared to confirm that the Atkins Diet could lead to kidney damage. Dr Amy Joy Lanou, their nutrition director, said:'A Harvard study published earlier this year in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that high-protein diets may cause permanent loss of kidney function in anyone with reduced kidney function.'

Specifically, the Harvard researchers found that a high-protein diet - particularly one high in meat - contributed to kidney deterioration in those women who already had a mild kidney problem. When protein is broken down into amino acids, urea and nitrogen are produced, which have to be excreted by the kidneys. The more protein you eat, the more waste products are produced and the harder the kidney has to work. This can put an intolerable strain on an already weakened kidney.

Experts in Britain tend to agree. In a recent interview, Catherine Collins of the British Dietetic Association, said 'A high-protein diet can create nutritional deficiencies and it's not very good for bone health. High-protein loads and ketosis can increase the risk of kidney problems, especially in those people who have an underlying kidney problem. You may not know about a kidney disorder at the time.'

Other popular diets have also come in for criticism from the medical profession. Most fad diets encourage cutting out one specific food group and can put a strain on the body. The Zone Diet, for example, advocates eating fatty foods in place of complex carbohydrates. But nutritionists argue most of the weight loss from this type of diet is due to dehydration. Overworked kidneys lose water as they work hard to excrete waste products - water that is vital to good kidney function. What's more, any diet that cuts out one particular food group tricks the body into thinking it's in starvation mode. That makes it more likely you'll pile even more weight back on once you start eating normally.

The Atkins Centre in New York states it does not encourage people with kidney disease to attempt the diet, but they do suggest it can help prevent the onset of Type II diabetes. Their core claim is that eating the wrong sort of carbs encourages the body to produce insulin, which can affect weight gain. Excess insulin also contributes to the development of Type II diabetes, in turn the leading cause of kidney failure. The Atkins Diet, with its low-carb intake, is an ideal nutritional treatment for this condition, they say.

There is a common sense solution to these medical conundrums, however. What the Harvard research made clear is that it's not a good idea for kidney patients - or those who suspect they may have a kidney condition - to cut carbohydrates out of their diet. For years, nutritionists have been arguing that a balanced diet and lots of exercise are the best and healthiest ways to lose weight.

The Atkins Diet appears to work, they say, purely because you're actually eating less calories.Which in the end takes us back to square one - you'll only lose weight if you expend more calories than you take in. In other words, there are no wonder solutions to the weight loss problem, however fashionable they are.

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