September 01, 2003

And, in Atkins diet news (related to comments in response to this post):

“U.S. hospitals would be wise to emulate Britain’s Norfolk and Norwich Hospital and protect their patients from the dangerous Atkins Diet,” says PCRM [Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine] nutrition director Amy Joy Lanou, Ph.D. “Hospitals that serve meat-heavy, fatty foods might be good at keeping their beds filled, but they’re doing little to improve patient health. Research has clearly shown that high-protein, meat-heavy diets increase the risk of osteoporosis and kidney disorders and that low-fat vegetarian diets help prevent heart disease, diabetes, some cancers, and other health problems.”

"Research" has shown lots of things, Doc. Until it shows something else.

If I thought that the PCRM's concern was just for hospital patients, I wouldn't object. If you're in hospital, you're sick, and there's no reason to get all nuts with the diet. Eat the bland food, get better, leave hospital, return to Atkins when you've healed up.

But I suspect that the PCRM's motive has more to do with nutritional orthodoxy than anything else. Just read the letter they've created. During the course of what length of hospital stay, exactly, and for what condition, should doctors be concerned with their patients developing colorectal cancer, cardiovascular disease, and osteoporosis? These are lifetime concerns, not daily, weekly, or even monthly concerns. It's as though the PCRM fears those on Atkins will turn into suppurating tumorous lumps right there in the ward.

The PCRM is clearly using the excuse of hospitilization as an opportunity to evangelize against the Atkins diet, and that's patently disingenuous. They even admit as much:

Hospitals play a vital role in helping consumers understand the importance of food and nutrition to individual health.

So, it's not about science, is it? It's about marketing!

When in hospital, you're under the doctor's care. You do what they say. If you're on Atkins and you demand protein and fat while you're in hospital for kidney stones or a bowel resection, you're being stupid.

But the PCRM is trying to establish anti-Akins practice in the hospital as a forced means of influencing patient behavior outside the hospital.

I say, do the research, do it properly, and present it to people when they're sitting on the couch watching TV or reading a magazine, not lying in the hospital with tubes in every orifice.