Dean Ornish Called Out For Attacking Atkins Diet
Why is Dr. Dean Ornish STILL attacking the Atkins diet?
The dust has barely settled on the recent JAMA study from Stanford researchers that found the Atkins diet was best among four popular diets, including The Zone, LEARN, and Ornish. But it's that last diet among that group that has the low-fat diet king himself in a tailspin tizzy right now and back into his usual attack mode against the Atkins diet.
Despite our amicable conversation just six months ago when he declared to me in my interview with him at my blog that he is "tired of the diet wars" and that "to the degree we can look for common ground [between low-fat and low-carb] at this point is going to be everyone's advantage," it seems Dr. Dean Ornish has completely abandoned his own advice and gone into a full-fledged, all-out assault against the very weight loss and health plan he was praising me for helping people better understand not that long ago.
Interestingly, the original version of that Newsweek column contained some extremely malicious lies surrounding the untimely death of the late great Dr. Robert C. Atkins that the magazine now describes at the end of their revised column an "inaccurate account of events" and that "Newsweek regrets the error." Well isn't that just nice. It's as if to say Oops--but the damage and urban legend about that amazing man continues on long after he has been laid to rest.
As you read through Ornish's all-too-familiar whining and complaining about the JAMA study being somehow "flawed," you get the feeling he's trying to redefine what "healthy" is using his own bias in favor of a low-fat diet while completely overlooking the incredible changes that happened in the weight and health of the Atkins dieters in the study. Unfortunately, the idea that any one diet is good for everyone is ridiculous as most people will readily admit.
Except for Dr. Ornish that is.
We hear the same old tired arguments against livin' la vida low-carb from him that we've always heard--it's just "bacon and eggs"; you can't tell me pork skins and brie are health foods; LDL goes up on low-carb; HDL are "garbage trucks" for the body; on and on it goes with the stale arguments that nobody is buying anymore, Dr. Ornish!
And now a group of low-carb health experts who are totally fed up with Dr. Ornish and his irresponsible lies are calling him out for attacking the Atkins low-carb nutritional approach with the cold hard facts. Led by Dr. Mary C. Vernon, the distinguished list of real experts also includes Jacqueline A. Eberstein, Dr. Stephen D. Phinney, Dr. Eric C. Westman, and Dr. Jay Wortman.
In an open letter to the public that was summarily rejected by several major media outlets as a direct response to Ornish's column entitled "Dean Ornish: Science Be Damned, Self-Interest Be Served," these low-carb experts are merely asking to be given a voice to their concerns that Dr. Ornish is not serving the best interests of the tens of millions of overweight and diabetic Americans who are being severely misinformed about their diet by him.
"Write to your local media, the national media, phone, email and demand that Dr. Vernon and other experts who follow the trail of science be given a voice."
When you read through what Dr. Vernon and the rest have written in their op-ed response to Dr. Onrish, then you will quickly realize that the low-fat diet guru has done nothing but thrown up a bunch of smoke screens in an attempt to bamboozle the public as he has done throughout his career as a so-called health "expert." Sure, he pretends to be in favor of low-fat and low-carb (and even writes as much at the end of his own column), but his obvious disdain for the Atkins diet could not be clearer.
So what should you do now if you agree that this response from the low-carb experts needs to be out there for the public to see? If you have a blog, then write about it TODAY and link to Dr. Vernon's blog as I have. Otherwise, let's bombard Newsweek, Time, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), your local newspaper, and anyone else in the media you can think of to request they publish this powerful response to Dr. Dean Ornish and his baseless and unfounded attacks against the Atkins low-carb diet. The truth deserves to be out there for all the world to see.
I've done my part today to spread the news. What will YOU do?
Labels: Atkins, Dean Ornish, diet, JAMA, low-carb, low-fat, Mary Vernon, Newsweek, study
posted by Jimmy Moore at
3/26/2007 12:01:00 AM
8 Comments:
Like the USSR in the eighties, low-fat is in the denial stage of death. As Ronald Reagan saw, this was not the time to remove pressure, but to increase it shrewdly. We are in the early rounds of this fight, and landing blow after blow. Dr. O is getting desperate, but he cannot deny the accumulating rock-solid research. It is only a matter of time before low-fat crumbles on its legs of clay.
Ornish also attacked Agatston of the South Beach Diet, in a Newsweek interview last year.
Let's face it. The man is desperate and will go down fighting.
Let me tell you, in the 80's and early 90's I bought all his books and followed his low fat diet - yeah even making his fat free cake recipes calling for white cake flour, sugar, but hey - no fat - only to feel awful, suffer from blood sugar imbalances, and GAIN weight.
Dr. Agatson was too kind and dignifed in the newsweek article last year when Ornish clobbered him.
I hope someone finally puts Ornish in his place. His diet is a failure. That's why hardly anyone follows it anymore. Low fat is dead. Ornish, wake up and smell the roses.
The man looks like he is on a low fat diet-he sure don't look healthy!
He sure does look old and sickly - probably why he still uses a younger picture of himself with articles and his blog.
I'll acknowledge that you can most certainly low-carb that way if you want, Jeff. But the vast majority of people on a low-carbohydrate nutritional approach are NOT just eating those foods. That's the point that Dr. Vernon and the other low-carb medical professionals were making.
And I happen to agree with them. :) But you keep doing what works for you, buddy! Bacon and eggs for you? Knock yourself out!
Regina Wilshire has posted the reply from the low-carb group to Dr. Ornish's article in its entirety. It is very important that low-carb practitioners and researchers start to coordinate their public relations efforts as they are much stronger when people hear them speaking as an organized, intelligent group of highly professional individuals. In their open letter, the low-carb group seem to bend over backwards to be reasonable, and not be too challenging to the status quo, although they have every right to be. It is a sad reflection on the major media outlets who are still too afraid or ignorant (read conformist) to publish it.
Kevin---you are so right about the media---
but my question---is what the heck is up with medical profession--why do they not see the research for what it is??? Why do they keep pushing low fat????
Dieticians and nutritionists---I understand their stupidity---but Doctors---come on people wise up.
1. Can anyone please introduce me to a morbidly obese person who lost weight easily, healthily and kept it off on a low fat diet?
2. I have heard Ornish present Atkins as "pork rinds and heaps of bacon" which is lies. If he has read Atkins books, which surely he must have, he knows darn well that the diet includes three cups of veg right from the start and that some people on OWL etc are even having wholemeal bread and rice now and again.
Ornish should be forced to look at the before-and-after photos on LowCarbFriends. That'll show him!
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