Carbo-phobia

Headnote

Zoning Out on the New Diet Books

"Having just completed Barry Sears's The Zone, I'm hesitant to continue the highcarbohydrate, low-fat approach to nutrition that I've been following for the past several years," writes Nutrition Action reader George H. Bailey. "Is the book cover right when it says: `Eating carbohydrates could be dangerous to your health'?"

"I lost weight, gained new admiration for protein, kept my respect for complex carbohydrates, and began to question some of the very tenets of dietary dogma," writes reporter Suzanne Hamlin in the New York Times.

Sigh. Another diet craze. And this one's big.

Barry Sears's The Zone has reportedly sold 400,000 copies. And wannabes like Michael and Mary Dan Eades's Protein Power and Rachael and Richard Heller's Healthy for Life are also racking up impressive sales. All say that cutting back on carbohydrates like pasta and bread will solve our battle with the bathroom scale.

Is this the answer we've been waiting for?

Hardly. Sears's advice will probably help you lose weight.. .but only because you'll be eating fewer calories, not because his untested theories about protein, carbohydrates, and insulin will put you into what he calls "The Zone."

And to experts who have seen miracle diets come and go like hemlines, hair-dos, and celebrity romances, that's nothing new.

"It's one crazy diet after another," says Kelly Brownell, an obesity expert in the psychology department at Yale University. "Over the years we've had the Rotation Diet, the Beverly Hills Diet, the Scarsdale Diet, the Dr. Atkins Diet, the Dr. Stillman's Diet, and on and on.

"They all have a brief flurry in the market. They're all condemned by health professionals either because they're dangerous or because there's no data to support them. And then another comes along, and people say `Oh, maybe this is the real one.'

"When I get calls about the latest diet fad, I imagine a trick birthday cake candle that keeps lighting up and we have to keep blowing it out."

SCIENCE FICTION

Like most of their brethren, The Zone and other "carbo-phobia" diets are based on an eensy-weensy kernel of truth...blown way out of proportion by theory, not evidence.

"It's science fiction," says Alice Lichtenstein, a researcher at the Jean Mayer U.S. Department...