Is the Media Softening Towards Low-Carb Diets?
Yesterday's release of the diet comparison study in the New England Journal of Medicine brought on an immediate and overwhelming media response, with every major newspaper and TV news show in the country covering it. As Regina Wilshire in the her low-carb blog The Weight of the Evidence pointed out, the reactions were varied. Still, I've seen a distinct difference in the media reaction to this research when compared to other large-scale studies in the last few years which favored low-carb diets.
True, there were outright detractors. Dr. Dean Orish, the low-fat diet advocate who writes for Newsweek, led the charge against the study, pointing out that the low-fat diet wasn't very low in fat (true, but the low-carb diet wasn't very low in carbs, either, potentially muting the effects of both). He also said that since the prescribed low-carb diet advised emphasizing plant-based sources of protein and fat (which admittedly was odd), it wasn't really Atkins, because, "Most people associate an Atkins diet with bacon, butter and brie". Well, gee, I wonder why people make that association? Could it be because people in the media like Dr. Ornish keep repeating it again and again? The fact is that Dr. Atkins neither advised for or against vegetable sources of protein, and he advised a balance of types of fats (not counting trans fats, which he consistently advised against). I'm sure Dr. Ornish knows this fully well, as he has had plenty of contact with low-carb advocates over the years, including Jimmy Moore.
There were a few folks who parroted Ornish. Dr. Nancy Snyderman of NBC's The Today Show even used the "bacon, butter, and brie" quote, and dismissed the whole study, saying it must be flawed because the calories didn't add up (even though this happens in very well-controlled studies, such as this one, where low-carb eaters lost more than they "should" have). At least Julie Bain of the Reader's Digest blog confessed to being a friend of Dr. Ornish.
All in all, though, the response was much milder than in the past. In recent memory the most usual response to such a study would be something like "put down the mayonnaise jar and no one will get hurt". This time around, those reporters were in the minority. A sizeable minority, to be sure, but I read or watched 15-20 news reports, and most of them were at worst saying that the diets are all the same. That is a big improvment in just the last year or so.
In some reporting, the issues were more fully explored. CNN, for example, instead of just noting that the Atkins Foundation partially funded the study as if it had to be a negative, actually asked about this and found out that the researchers, looking for funding sources, asked the Atkins Foundation for money. The researchers alone were responsible for designing and running the study, and the New England Journal of Medicine, when investigating conflicts of interest, found none. The study was also commended by the independent Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University.
The CNN report, unlike many others, also focused on the health benefits of the low-carb and Mediterranean approaches.
I think it was a decent day for low-carb diets, both in the science journals and the media. I'll take any improvement over the automatic rejections of the past, no matter how strong the data they were rejecting. I think the day will come when we will look back and realize it was yet another example of the medical establishment being just too slow to change.
Photo © Frank van den Berg
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Great post, very useful! Many thanks!
Thanks for this post. I have been on Atkins for over 5 years. I must say that I have gaine a lot in health and lost a lot in weight. Too bad “experts” like Dr. Ornish are leading their followers into an abyss of insulin related diseases just for the sake of ego. I don’t understand how this can happen in an era where scientists are trying to “cure” diseases. Dr. Ornish please begin telling the truth.