BRITAIN: Disciples of the Atkins diet are gambling with their future health, a top nutrition expert in Britain said yesterday.
Dr Susan Jebb, of the Medical Research Council's Human Nutrition Research Centre in Cambridge, said it would be "negligent" to recommend the diet to anyone overweight.
She said the claims made for the Atkins diet were based on "pseudo science".
She argued that despite a number of small studies, no one knew what the long-term effects of the Atkins diet might be.
But data gained from large diet investigations involving thousands of participants had set alarm bells ringing.
The Atkins diet cuts out carbohydrates and boosts consumption of protein without having to avoid fatty foods.
It is a favourite of celebrities such as Geri Halliwell, Catherine Zeta Jones, Renee Zellweger and Minnie Driver.
Dr Robert Atkins, who developed the diet, believed that carbohydrates, such as bread, pasta, rice and starchy vegetables, over-stimulated the production of insulin, resulting in hunger and weight gain.
For most people, protein accounts for a mere 15 per cent of the calorie intake. But much higher levels are consumed by people following the Atkins diet.
Dr Jebb said: "We simply do not know the long-term health implications, and it's such a profound change from what we're doing at the moment. I certainly think we should be adopting a precautionary principle in terms of public health."
Dr Jebb's warning comes two months after two teams of American scientists declared the Atkins diet was effective and safe.
The two studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that the diet resulted in more weight loss than conventional low-fat diets.
But Dr Jebb said these studies and others focusing on the Atkins diet were too small, short and limited to provide any meaningful evidence.