What You Should Know About the "Fad" Diets
It seems that diets are like fashion and are continually re-inventing themselves as a new discovery in weightloss. The low carb diet is one of the hottest "new" diets to hit the news in the past few years though it’s actual origins lie a great deal earlier in history. Laura Fraser in her book Losing it, describes this low carb diet to have resurfaced in the 1940’s though it did not gain widespread popularity until 1961 (62). Dr. Herman Taller, an obstetrician-gynecologist had studied many of these early low carb diets, coverted, then moved on to publish his own version of the diet Calories Don’t Count. Fraser states that Taller’s philosopy was "that by eating fats, you stimulate the body’s fat-burning system, which makes the stuff burn more efficiently" (63). The diet was edited next by a Dr. Irwin Stillman. His spin on this now age old tale was that one should be almost a complete carnivore, eating "only lean meats, poultry, eggs, and low-fat cheeses" (63). The problem with these low carb diets is that without carbohydrates the body brakes down fats in the body too fast for it to deal with the ashy protein leftovers called ketones. These ketones are known to be the causes of hetosis (bad breath), weakness, constipation, and nausea while the high fat content of the diet skyrocketed the colestestoral of those who followed it. Stillman himself died of a heart attack in 1975 (63). The name most would associate with this diet is Dr. Robert Atkins with his "new diet revolution". Though this diet under his name debuted in 1966 it is still listed on the New York Times best seller list and has been there for 234 weeks and counting.
Made famous by talk show host Oprah Winfrey, this diet has been known to have caused at least 58 deaths (Fraser, 1994: 91). The main problem with this diet is the extremely low amount of calories in the product as well as the amount of protein in the drink was "insufficient to keep the body from feeding on its own stores of protein, including lean muscle tissue and vital organs" (92).
Diet tea is simply just an herbal laxative known as senna, and with the abuse of any laxatives there can be serious comsequences since they are flush important electrolytes from the body (Fraser, 1994: 97). These electrolytes are of great importance because they include potassium which is used by the body to send electric signals to the heart to keep it beating normally (97). Margo Maine warns in her book that if "used excessively these ostensibly benign drinks can cause cardiac arrhythmias" (47).
Our modern society is most definitely one of the "quick fix". If a magic pill existed for any of life’s problems most would rather shell out for that than realize that some things, like weight loss require major changes to lifestyle and habits (Fraser, 1994: 82). Most diet pills and appetite surpressants contain drugs like ephedrine or herbal likenesses. Ephedrine is a highly addictive drug which can speed the heart rate, heighten the blood pressure and for those who already have high blood pressure, cause seizures and strokes (94-95).