Support Atkins with fish oil

Another mainstream sacred cow took a credibility hit last week when the American Heart Association’s low-fat “Step 1” diet was shown to have markedly inferior weight-loss and heart-health effects compared to the high-protein Atkins diet.

It turns out that in that e-Alert (“Beef – but no Cake” 11/20/02) I failed to mention one very important detail.

An HSI reader named Jerome sent an e-mail with this observation: “I have a number of friends who did well in losing weight with Atkins, however none of them observed the fish oil requirement. I feel you owe it to your readers to point this out – i.e.: the fish oil part of the diet is essential for good health.”

Good catch, Jerome. In fact, the study results released at the AHA annual meeting did mention that subjects on the Atkins diet supplemented with fish oil capsules for omega-3 fatty acids – as is the recommendation for anyone on the Atkins diet. No doubt this played an important role in the results, which showed that those following the Atkins plan not only increased their HDL cholesterol more than those on the low-fat diet, but – more importantly – the Atkins subjects experienced a triglycerides drop of almost 50 percent – more than double the AHA dieters.

Maybe for Thanksgiving dinner this week I’ll serve a side of fish oil capsules instead of cranberry sauce.

To Your Good Health,

Jenny Thompson
Health Sciences Institute