Are There Negative Consequences of the Atkin's Diet?

With obesity on the rise, people continually look for easy ways to lose weight where minimal effort is required. One of the most popular diets lately has been the Atkin's Diet, which was created by Dr. Robert Atkins. His system allows you to eat a lot of foods that are considered fatty and unfit for dieting, but it still manages to have a high success rate at losing weight. Many people have jumped on this bandwagon, and they don't know the consequences of such a lifestyle. Perhaps they don't care, but there are a lot of possible and serious negative effects from the Atkin's diet.

The purpose of the Atkin's diet is to put your body into ketosis after you cut carbohydrates from your body. When you cut out carbohydrates from your diet, your body has to use fats for energy. This process of your body switching from using carbohydrates to using fats for energy is called ketosis. A minor side effect of this process is bad breath, but there are many worse side effects to worry about. Gorging on fats and proteins may seem very appealing to some, and there isn't conclusive evidence to immediate negative side effects. However, this diet has to be maintained for life to be effective.

This diet seems like an easy way out, but there is a good possibility that the future consequences will outweigh the immediate gains. When on this diet, most fruits and vegetables are prohibited, so there goes many vitamins, minerals, and also fiber. Fiber cannot be obtained by whole wheat either since that is prohibited. Without fiber, your risk of colon cancer is increased as well as other intestinal problems. Permanent Kidney scarring is also a serious possibility from the extreme levels of protein you will have to consume on this diet. Also, over a long period of time, all that fat and cholesterol buildup will start to accumulate, and your heart will be affected. Also, many people that have used this diet and then stopped had their weight soon rise to an even higher number than before. Some people think the diet is worth the risk, but nobody knows for sure just what the long term consequences will be.