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American Morning
Different Diet Types To Lose Weight
Aired August 22, 2001 - 10:38 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: You know, dieters are struggling to lose weight, medical experts searching to find answers. Are eating habits entirely to blame for the excess poundage, or is there something at fault at our most basic level, inside?
Joining us to talk about the so-called fat gene is Dr. Neal Barnard. He is president of the Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine. He's also a leading advocate for the critical role of diet in one's health. We thank you for coming in this morning. How are you?
DR. NEAL BARNARD, AUTHOR, "TURN OFF THE FAT GENE": Just fine, thank you.
HARRIS: Let me ask you first of all, because you see things -- first of all, you see things like what Elizabeth Cohen just showed us, Exercise In A Bottle...
BARNARD: Right.
HARRIS: ... then we hear things like what you're saying here about a fat gene, that sounds to me like a quick fix once again. Is there such a thing as a fat gene, and if you identify it and isolate it people will never be fat again?
BARNARD: In our research studies done at Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine working with Georgetown University, we test the effects of different kinds diets. And probably the most telling thing is researchers have actually put a needle into your body fat, extracted it and analyzed it, and that gives us the most important key. It tells us where that fat came from.
And what is really quite surprising is you see remnants of chicken fat, beef fat, fish fat, olive oil in our own body fat. And the way the system works is, chromosome number 8 makes a gene that stores the fat from the foods that we have eaten into our body fat.
So, throw aside the gimmicks. What we have to do is take the fat out of the diet. We always knew that was important, now we know how important it is.
HARRIS: So it's not -- it's taking the fat from the diet and not necessarily manipulating or isolating this gene? BARNARD: You're not going to get rid of the gene. We all have it. In some people it's more active, so they have a greater tendency to make more fat; in others it's less active, so they have less of that genetic tendency.
But in our studies, what we do is we'll take a short period of time and we will say, let's really go all the way with this. Let's take all of the animal products out of the diet, that eliminates all of the animal fat. We then also keep the vegetables oils very, very low, and we find that our research participants, using that kind of a regimen, lose about a pound to a pound and a half every week, week after week after week; which doesn't sound like a lot in the first few weeks, but if you add it up over 52 weeks in a year...
HARRIS: Yes, you're starting to talk about some weight loss there.
BARNARD: ... t's quite a lot. Yes.
BARNARD: Now, I understand that your group, the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine, is basically against people eating meat entirely. But I want to ask you, realistically and just honestly here, to give us an assessment of some other diets that people -- that are really popular right now. For instance, the Atkin's Diet.
BARNARD: The Atkin's Diet, there are really a couple of worries associated with it. The first is that it really doesn't work so well for a lot of folks. It's based on the premises that if I take carbohydrates out of the diet, my body will stop producing insulin, which can interfere with weight loss. The problem is, high-protein foods, it turns out, also cause an insulin release. So, that slab of fish will cause the same problem.
And recent research studies show that people who follow the Atkin's Diet have very aggressively worsening heart disease. We think it's a dangerous diet.
HARRIS: Well, our most recent study shows that we are out of time this morning, unfortunately, although we'd love to talk to you some more about this. Dr. Neal Barnard, thank you very much.
And again, folks take the advice of the expert. We appreciate it.
BARNARD: Thank you.
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