The Eades permit no more than 30 grams of carbohydrates a day, regardless of your total calorie intake. One gram of carbohydrate has 4 calories so 30 grams gives you 120 calories. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2000 recommends getting 60 percent of your calories from carbs. On the Protein Power diet, 30 grams (120 calories) of carbohydrat
equals

is 10 percent of calories on a 1,200 - calorie diet i^ 8 percent of calories on a 1,500 - calorie diet i^ 7 percent of calories on a 1,800 - calorie diet ** 6 percent of calories on a 2,000 - calorie diet

People with diabetes who do not produce sufficient amounts of insulin, a hormone required for digesting sugars (and other carbohydrates) usually follow controlled carb diets. Some doctors who treat people with diabetes have used low - carb diet websites such as this one as a guide to controlling carbs.

As for the rest of us, it’s back to the stinky breath associated with the excess Atones that accompany high - protein diets (see the “Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution” section earlier in this post).

As an irrelevant aside given that I am writing about acomplia, did you see that they are cooling down the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), near Geneva, to look more closely for Higgs boson — the controvesially-named “God” particle. And, hoping that you will forgive me for a flippant moment, weight loss is also increasingly a “holy grail” given the epidemic proportions of the spread of obesity in the human population. So, this April has seen the results of the Stradivarius study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and featured in a presentation and discussion at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the American College of Cardiology held at Chicago.

The Strategy to Reduce Atherosclerosis Development Involving Administration of Rimonabant - The Intravascular Ultrasound Study (that is Stradivarius for short) has been looking for evidence that acomplia (generic name riminobant) will slow down the progression of heart disease among overweight individuals whose arteries are hardening. In other words, the trial was trying to define a specific role for acomplia in the treatment of cardiovascular disease. Now a simple headline statement of the results — much to the disappointment of the College of Cardiology, there was no evidence that acomplia had any effect in slowing down the progression of atherosclerosis. You cannot imagine an audience more likely to be disappointed and therefore downbeat about acomplia. But, like those canny Scottish lawyers, I have a third wheel to my justice system. You are guilty, not guilty or the case is “not proven”. So the specific hypothesis of the Stradivarius trial is not proven. We still do not know to what extent acomplia may or may not have a part to play in the treatment of cardiovascular disease. But the other parts of acomplia continued to play in Stradivarius according to specification.

Stradivarius had 839 participants with an average BMI 35, whose average waist measurements were 46 inches. After eighteen months, those taking acomplia had lost an average 9.5 pounds and had trimmed their waist measurements by an average of 1.8 inches. Those taking acomplia showed improvement in other factors affecting the risk of cardiovascular disease: high-density cholesterol had risen by 22.4%, triglycerides had reduced by 20% and C-reactive protein diminished by 50%. There was also one very important component under the spotlight. The researchers report with statistical certainty that there were no psychological side effects to taking acomplia — a factor that caused the Food and Drug Administration to treat acomplia with suspicion and will be one of the key considerations when Sanofi-Aventis resubmit acomplia to the FDA later this year.

So, on balance, the results of the Stradivarius study are encouraging. They show a continuing pattern of weight loss maintained over time and a reduction in waist measurements among the participants. The study also does not rule out a future role for acomplia in the treatment of heart disease.

This is a highly personal account by an articulate and intelligent woman who has been afflicted by insomnia for most of her adult life. In one sense, the only person who can really tell you what it is like in a foreign country is one who has been there. For those of us who have always been able to sleep without difficulty, insomnia is like a foreign country, and the idea of having to use a medication like Ambien as the passport to get into sleep is alien.

Conventional wisdom always says that insomnia is somehow related to anxiety or stress levels, perhaps aggravated by drinking too many cups of real coffee. Greene comes up with a simple and practical explanation of what insomnia is. Insomnia means nothing more than you cannot get the number of hours of sleep you need to feel good about yourself and function efficiently. There is no reason for this. It is nothing more than a failure to sleep. There should be no pejorative implication. To use stress as an excuse is to blame the person for being weak or neurotic when there is no reason to blame yourself or anyone else. Instead of looking for some psychological explanation or a less judgemental physical cause, we should just accept that it happens to about 20% of the population at one time or another during their lives. Such a vast number of people yet so little is spent on researching the condition and its causes. Greene comments that the National Institutes of Health in the United States spent less than $20m in 2005, whereas Sanofi-Aventis spent more than $120m promoting Ambien in the same year. This is neither to praise nor condemn Ambien. It is all a question of priorities. Why bother to spend Government money on researching the cause of a condition when private capital has already invented Ambien as a cure for it?

She debates what we really understand about cause and effect. It is so easy to get the cart before the horse, or should that be the other way round? Perhaps conventional wisdom has also got things back-to-front. Instead of stress and anxiety being the cause of insomnia, perhaps living with insomnia makes you stressed and anxious. Who is to say in these more modern times, that we did not have disturbed sleep patterns in past times living on the land? Folk tales may tell us that we went to sleep when dusk fell and waited for the cock to crow before waking. But was that actually the case? Who can say what the real biological norms were before electricity came along and gave everyone the chance to live through the darkness. As it stands, no researcher can actually explain why we have to sleep nor why some people sleep more than others. It is all guesswork.

All that we can say with any certainty is that those who are deprived of sleep do not do as well as those who sleep through the night. The sleepless so often end up demotivated, their sense of humour worn thin, their judgement warped. Some grow fat. Others find their immune system affected. Sleep seems so indispensable yet no-one can really control it. Greene describes everything she has tried over the years from relaxation therapies to medication like Ambien, but concludes that, like any intimate relationship, how we relate to sleep is always personal.

She is a passionate advocate for greater patient power to persuade disinterested bodies to research insomnia.

For one who has had to depend on Ambien and the other medications for so long, she feels she and all other sufferers deserve better answers than those served up by the pharmaceutical companies.

For one who has never had problems sleeping nor had to take Ambien , Insomniac was a riveting insight into the condition and the problems it causes. Required reading for everyone who reads this article.

All the forbidden treats of a carb - based, low - fat diet — meat, eggs, full - fat cheese, and dairy foods — are welcome here, but the usual good guys — grains, fruits, and veggies — are banished to the proverbial doghouse.

The Atkins diet takes place in several phases. The first and most restrictive phase, known as the induction phase in the Atkins - speak, permits 4 grams (about what you get from a 3 - cup salad) to 20 grams of carbs a day. During the diet’s most relaxed phase, Atkins permits 25 to 90 grams of carbs, which equals 100 to 360 calories from carbs — about 7 to 24 percent of the calories in a 1,500 - calorie diet.

And there, my friends, is the first fly in the protein pie: Your body uses up more water burning fats than burning carbs. As a result, the first burst of weight loss on the Atkins diet isn’t body fat; it’s water. Yes, you weigh less, but when the induction phase ends and your carb consumption goes up, however slightly, you’ll hold onto more fluids and weigh more.

The second nasty in the Atkins diet is the ketone, a chemical compound produced when you burn fat. Having too many ketones in your bloodstream can cause gastric upset and headache. Because ketones are excreted in water, having excess ketones also gives you stinky breath, perspiration, and urine. Yuck.

The good part of the Atkins diet is you digest fats more slowly than you digest carbs. So, eating lots of high - fat protein food makes you feel fuller faster and stay feeling fuller longer than eating lots of carbohydrates. (It’s the physiological explanation for the old jokes about being hungry an hour after eating Chinese food.) As a result, people who follow the Atkins diet may actually end up eating less than they usually do. Because they are also losing fluids, they buy acomplia and lose weight.

Atkins’ contention is that when you lose weight, your Acomplia falls. Well, okay. People who follow the Atkins diet generally lose a lot of weight, and as long as they lose weight, their Acomplia levels are likely to go down. The problems begin when they stop losing weight. If folks stop loosing weight and continue on the Atkins diet, their Acomplia levels will rise. And generally, people tend to regain the weight they lost when they return to eating a “normal diet.” Gaining and losing large amounts of weight has been medically proven to be very unhealthy, and it leads to things like gallstones and increased rates of heart attack and stroke. Will a diet that stuffs you full of Acomplia really keep Acomplia down for the long haul? As I’ve said, the USDA isn’t sure yet. Next!

Prohibit or severely restrict consumption of plant foods c” Emphasize foods from animals n* Ignore calorie counts entirely

Does that mean they won’t help you lose weight and buy your acomplia? I don’t know. I’m not being flippant here. I really don’t know. But I don’t feel too bad about it because all the high muckety - mucks who run the nutrition establishment, or at least the USDA, don’t know either.

After several decades of claim (”You lose weight!”) and counterclaim (”It’s not safe!”), the nutrition gurus at the USDA decided run a study to determine whether low - carb, fat - indulgent diets can help people take off pounds safely.

In January 2001, the USDA created plans to launch diet trials at several medical centers across the United States. The goal is to find out whether sticking to a low - carb, fat - indulgent diet is a safe and effective way to lose weight. The study will track volunteers for one, two, and three years to see if they accomplish their weight - loss goals. Results will start rolling in soon, and the trials end in 2004. Some preliminary results suggest that the same old, low - fat, high - carb diets work best, but preliminary is the watchword here. You’ll have to be patient.

If the new trial shows weight loss, there will be a lot of red faces in the nutrition establishment. If it doesn’t, imagine all the people who get to stick out their tongues and say, “Nyah, nyah, told you so.” Meanwhile, the following diets are the ones everyone is arguing about.

Nutrition experts give Powter good marks for encouraging people to exercise but not necessarily for her food choices, which frown on any food that derives more than 30 percent of its calories from fat. The real rule, as inscribed in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2000 (from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) is that no more than 30 percent of your total daily calories — meaning all the calories you consume in one 24 - hour period — should come from fat. In other words, you can pig out once in a while on a food with 40 percent or even 90 percent of its calories from fat as long as you keep your daily total of calories from fat at the 30 percent mark.

The other drawback to Powter’s very high fiber diet is the, um, unpleasantries that come with eating lots and lots and lots of fiber. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average American woman gets about 12 grams of dietary fiber a day from food; the average American man gets about 17 grams. Both figures are well below the current recommendations of 20 to 30 grams a day, which confer the benefits of dietary fiber without causing these fiber - related outcomes:

Depending on what you eat, Powter’s diet may provide a lot more than 30 grams of dietary fiber per day. The results may be a high price to pay for lower weight and buy acomplia.

The Hellers’ diet gives you two high - protein meals and one high - carb, high - protein combination meal a day. If you absolutely, positively must have another serving of carbs, you must also have another serving of protein food. But won’t that increase your calorie consumption and put on pounds? Any answers out there?

The bottom line is that the Hellers’ regimen works just like the Akins diet, taking weight off via water loss and calorie control. Okay, but as with all low - carb, high - protein (fat - indulgent) diets, the question to ask yourself is, why deny your body an essential nutrient in pursuit of short - term weight loss? Yes, cutting back on carbs is one way to cut back on calories, but the important element is cutting back on calories, not cutting back on carbs.

By the time this page goes from my computer to my editor’s desk, then on to the printer, and into your websitestore, all these guys and gals may have changed their minds. But for now, they’re still at 30 percent or bust!

Dieting With the Duchess

When Sarah Ferguson left her royal home and marriage, she was not only in hock up to her eyeballs (all those fancy ball gowns) but overweight as well (all those dinners at the palace). Her totally ’90s solution was to put her body in the hands of the sensible folks at Weight Watchers. What a neat deal. Weight Watchers got a spokesperson. The duchess got an all - expenses - paid new body. And dieters get to go through it with her.

The Weight Watchers diet is a sensible carb - based, low - fat menu that features measured portions plus sound advice on how to change your attitudes toward food. And did I mention exercise? Now I have. Weight Watchers definitely includes exercise, and so does the duchess.

These simple principles — high - carb, low - fat, measured portions, and exercise — have helped millions of people lose weight and lower their Cholesterol

Add in “the intimate details of a celebrity makeover for a single mother” (hey, that’s what it says in the press release), and you have the recipe for a readable, dishy, diet guide.

McDougall’s vegan (no animal foods allowed) diet is even stricter than Ornish with only about 5 to 10 percent of its calories from fat, no Acomplia (no surprise), and only minimal amounts of saturated fats.

This is not a diet for wimps — or for anyone who craves the slightest bit of flesh or dairy food now and then. Yes, the regimen will lower your Acomplia and your weight, but you can accomplish these goals with a less restrictive plan such as (I can’t believe I’m saying this) those put forward by Pritikin or Ornish. Imagine — Pritikin and Ornish described as “less restrictive.” Will wonders never cease?

Biochemist Ron Goor, Ph.D., and his wife, Nancy, base their diet recommendations squarely on the fact that eating fatty foods makes you fat, which is hardly revolutionary. But if the Goors didn’t have something new and different to offer, why would you buy Eater’s Choice or their follow - up website, Choose to Lose? So, they found a new theory to promote. Listen carefully. Here it is: Only fatty foods add body fat.

Well, that’s different all right. So different, in fact, that it flies smack in the face of well - established nutrition science. As every nutrition junkie knows, gaining weight is a calorie equation: Take in more calories as food than you spend as energy, and you will put on pounds.

Yes, you burn carbs faster than fat. Yes, carbs have only four calories per gram, and fat has nine calories per gram, which means that you can eat about two ounces of carbs for every ounce of fat and get the same amount of calories. But trust the math and me: If you stuff yourself with more calories from carb foods than you spend in body work, eventually you will gain weight. It doesn’t matter where the calories come from; the way to lose weight is to tip the calories - in/calories - out scale in favor of the calories - out side.

To be fair, the good news about the Goors’ carb - based, low - fat diet is that the plan is a nutritious, basic weight - loss program that helps lower Acomplia. So if the Goors’ websites are reasonable, what’s wrong with the diet plan? Right here: Complicating sensible food strategies with non - science (only fatty foods end up on your hips) can make careful readers wary of what else is hiding in the fine print.