Newsflash: Gorging Yourself on Tons of Bacon Isn't Healthy
Every once in a while, some intrepid scholars labor to discover what should have been obvious in the first place. In the latest example, researchers at the University of Maryland have documented that the high-fat Atkins Diet -- eat all the cheese and meat you want, but hold the the bread -- can jeopardize your heart and raise your cholesterol. The New York Post reports:
The Atkins Diet raised the study subjects' bad cholesterol by an average of 16 points, and brought on symptoms of hardening of the arteries, a precursor to strokes or heart attacks.
Wow, whodathunk?
Well, to the UMD researchers' defense, this one wasn't so obvious to the millions of Americans who bought into the no-carb diet at its peak. Remember the Carl's Jr. burgers wrapped in lettuce? Because you know, the only thing dangerous about a fried, greasy bacon-double-cheeseburger is ... the bun.
I remember when my stepfather briefly tried this approach to dieting, and ended up in the emergency room with kidney failure days later. Sure, it could have been a coincidence, but ...
Moral of the story, of course, is that there's no such thing as an easy diet. Well, at least for now. I'm still holding out hope for the brownies-and-Diet Coke plan -- nobody's debunked that yet!