ABSTRACT
During the 1970s, Dr. Robert C. Atkins' high-fat diet rendered him the nation's leading diet physician. Faced with a weight problem early in his career while serving as a medical consultant for AT&T, Atkins explored the possibilities of a no-carbohydrate diet having the same metabolic effects as total fasting. Atkins was heavily criticized by the organized medical and nutritional establishment. Frederick J. Stare, professor and chairman of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, argued that it bordered on malpractice to recommend such large proportions of saturated fats and cholesterol when the hazards to the heart were so well known. The chairman of the board of the New York County Medical Society posited that Atkins' book was unethical and self-aggrandizing. The basic premise of the Atkins diet posited that obese individuals had something wrong with the way their bodies handled sugar and other carbohydrates; that is, they were "carbohydrate intolerant".
