Sandi Kaplan, Associate Director, Clinical Development and Support:  

 

A new nutritional term caught my eye as it hit the headlines last week – an ‘Eco-Atkins’ diet. This is what researchers are calling a diet which was tested in a small, four week randomized controlled clinical trial. Half of the participants were put on the ‘Eco-Atkins’ high-protein, low carbohydrate and entirely vegan diet which excluded all animal products. The other half were put on a high-carbohydrate, low-fat, vegetarian diet which included low-fat and nonfat dairy products and egg whites. Both diets were strictly calorie controlled and all participants lost weight – an average of 9 pounds in 4 weeks. All participants also had a reduction in their LDL cholesterol levels but the vegan diet participants had a greater reduction than those on the vegetarian diet.

So what new information is this recent research giving us? The truth is – nothing very much at all. We have known for decades that plant-based diets reduce our weight, lower our cholesterol and blood pressure and improve our overall health. This very small study does not add much in that regard.

It also can be misleading. The ‘Eco-Atkins’ vegan diet is not low in carbohydrates compared to the Atkins diet. The initial phase of the Atkins diet limits carbohydrate intake to about 20g per day. The ‘Eco-Atkins’ diet has a carbohydrate goal of 130g/day. That’s a huge difference! The good news is that you will be far less irritable on the ‘Eco-Atkins’ diet but you won’t have as much carbohydrate as you need to fuel any intense mental or physical workouts.

It’s worthwhile noting that the ‘Eco-Atkins’ diet gets most of its protein from gluten and soy products because these are the highest protein vegan food choices available. So if you are one of the people who cannot tolerate gluten and/or soy, this diet would not be a good choice for you. A vegan diet with a variety of protein sources (and thus a lower protein intake overall) would be a more manageable choice.

What worries me most about this research is that it draws our focus yet again to eliminating food groups from our diets. The ‘Eco-Atkins’ diet, besides allowing no animal foods at all, also removes foods like bread, rice and potatoes. Is this diet sustainable for most people? We know that we don’t maintain health benefits if we can’t maintain the eating changes that brought those about.

The message from this research for me is clear. Eat fewer calories if you need to lose weight. Increase plant based foods in your diet as they have lots of well proven health benefits and are easier on the planet. Include a variety of food groups so that you can sustain your eating plan ten years from now. And pay less attention to sensational nutrition headlines that promise good health from unsustainable diets!