Dr. Robert Atkins
From Atkinspedia
Dr. Robert Coleman Atkins, MD (October 17, 1930 – April 17, 2003) was an American doctor and cardiologist, best known for the Atkins Nutritional Approach (or "Atkins Diet"), a popular way of dieting that entails eating low-carbohydrate, high-fat and high-protein foods.
Atkins graduated from the University of Michigan in 1951 and received a medical degree from Weill Cornell Medical College|Cornell Medical College in 1955, after which he specialized in cardiology and herbal remedies in place of (or before) pharmaceutical drugs, but not limited to acne, cancer, carpal tunnel syndrome, and depression.
On April 18, 2002, Atkins suffered a cardiac arrest. A year later, on April 8, 2003, Atkins slipped on ice and fell in front of his medical office in New York City and sustained major head injuries that put him in a coma. He never recovered from his injuries, and he died on April 17 of kidney failure. By mistake, the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office released Atkins' medical records to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a group associated with PETA. The record stated his weight to be approximately 260 lb (118 kg) at the time of death. In terms of simple height/weight measure, this would mean he was obese; the apparent irony of a diet guru being obese caused the information to be circulated around the world by the media and animal rights groups, much to the distress of his family. Later, it was claimed that he weighed only 195 lb (88 kg) upon admission to the hospital indicating that apparent increase in weight is probably due to fluid retention following the failure of his major organs.
Bankruptcy
On July 31, 2005, Atkins Nutritionals—the company that Dr. Atkins founded in 1989—filed for bankruptcy protection in New York. The company had been hurt in recent years by the adoption of high-protein low carb diet products by other competing diet food manufacturers. The company emerged from bankruptcy January 10, 2006 with a business strategy that softened the emphasis on the low carbohydrate diet and concentrated on the sales of prepared nutritional bars and shakes.
References
- Atkins, Robert C. (2002). Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution. New York: Avon Books. ISBN 006001203X.
- Barnard, Neal D. (2004). The controversy over Dr. Atkins' health. Good Medicine, XIII (2–3), pp. 6–8.
