Negative Dukan press in France

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** Chief WITCH **
For the French speakers among us, the press is having a field day at the moment.

Régime Dukan: Une recette miracle qui inquiète la communauté scientifique - 20minutes.fr

and
Les médecins alertent sur les dangers du régime Dukan

entitled "The miraculous Dukan diet worries the scientific community" and "Doctors raise the alarm on the dangers of the Dukan diet", respectively.

While I take it with a pinch of salt, particularly for those of us who really have/had no choice at the outset, I remain convinced that this diet is not the answer for people with "normal BMIs" (because that's the only way to gauge - not because I think it's the right weight for them necessarily) and will continue to try to persuade people to look elsewhere if at a reasonable weight.

They talk of 80% having regained their weight and more besides three years after. They talk of potential kidney problems (fair enough - people MUST drink plenty of H20). Intestinal problems (hmm). Even cardiovascular problems linked to our over consumption of protein.

So... while we know all this of course, newbies attracted by the hype of losing 2 stone in a month without effort keep popping up and doing a quick blast and disappearing...; they're the ones most likely to suffer I think from the inevitable yoyoing...
 
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I saw Dr D on the news last night too, Jo.
If we listened to all the health warnings over the years, nobody would have needed this forum. We'd all be dead of starvation because we'd not dare eat anything.:rolleyes:

That said, common sense. He did advise getting a medical before starting the diet (to check for any existing kidney or other health problems) and to drink enough.
 
For me, the informed choice to follow a restrictive diet Dukan is like the choice of any intervention in any condition - drugs, surgery, exercise, birth control; do the risks and side effects of the treatment outweigh the risks and side effects of the condition?

All the risks the article above outlines I read about before I started - but I lined them up again the increased risks exactly the same experts would list for remaining obese - heart disease, diabetes, cancers, alzheimers, damage to hips, knees, ankles, along with the social and physical discomforts, and made my choice.

There is unfortunately an assumption by some experts, journalists, by society as a whole that big women must be stupid and incapable of making choices in their lives.
 
Also: my french is in no way good enough to read the articles above, but based on what little I can glean...

80% regain weight - this figure is meaningless because we do not know what the 100%, the sample represents! Was this the figure a well planned, large scale study of a range of popular diets, over 3 years, with a the inclusion of a control group who ate their normal diet, with the results of each group compared at intervals during the diet and in follow-up? Of course not. But that's the only way that figure would be meaningful at all.

Here is the shocking fact - despite all the hype about an obesity epidemic, and all the cash being harvested in the search for a wonder pill there has been only one controlled study of popular weight control regimes in the past 60 years.

That figure you here all the time - 80/90 of all dieters regain weight?

It may be true - but we don't know, because no one has measured it. If you trace that statement, repeated over and over again, like a mantra, back through the scientific (and not so scientific) press - you come back to 1959, and the results of a single random questionaire, with a sample size of 20.

In any other field any scientist would use that result as scrap paper - yet how many times have we heard that figure used to beat us around the head and dissuade us from believing we might actually have some agency and control in our lives?
 
Papers and others love to knock success. But it does underline the importance of all four stages. I'm no expert, not having got to goal yet, but if one doesn't do the last two stages properly, one can't be judged to have completed the diet. It finishes up with guided good eating habits, as does the South Beach diet, so not the construction of the diet that's responsible for putting on weight again, unlike powder based ones. I reckon I'll be able to maintain my goal weight on DD rules.
An obese friend and I have been looking at diets and agree this one is not for her because of her IBS. So she ll talk to doctor before embarking on one.
 
Yes but also remember those dear little fat cells just waiting to refill. And the risk that with a BmI of over about 28/29 they have doubled themselves by splitting.
If we listed our ten favourite foods I bet they'd not include much that wasn't fattening. Here goes: toast and butter, possibly with jam, toasted cheese, biscuits and cheese, wine, strawberries and cream, chocolate, sauces with butter or cream or similar, etc etc. Having one or more of these every day plus similar things like crisps and syrup pancakes, is going to get us back where we started really fast. I too fell off the wagon this weekend with friends and it was two of those wot done it.
 
80% regain weight - this figure is meaningless because we do not know what the 100%, the sample represents! Was this the figure a well planned, large scale study of a range of popular diets, over 3 years, with a the inclusion of a control group who ate their normal diet, with the results of each group compared at intervals during the diet and in follow-up? Of course not. But that's the only way that figure would be meaningful at all.

Here is the shocking fact - despite all the hype about an obesity epidemic, and all the cash being harvested in the search for a wonder pill there has been only one controlled study of popular weight control regimes in the past 60 years.

That figure you here all the time - 80/90 of all dieters regain weight?

It may be true - but we don't know, because no one has measured it. If you trace that statement, repeated over and over again, like a mantra, back through the scientific (and not so scientific) press - you come back to 1959, and the results of a single random questionaire, with a sample size of 20.

In any other field any scientist would use that result as scrap paper - yet how many times have we heard that figure used to beat us around the head and dissuade us from believing we might actually have some agency and control in our lives?

Excellent points, Atropos.

As one of the commentators to the articles Jo posted pointed out, do these stats include only people who followed the diet correctly through to its conclusion, including the completion of Conso and continuing with Stab? I suspect not.
 
The press does this all the time - hypes a diet, promoting it to the max, gets people on board and then....bam - slates it and labels it "dangerous and ineffective!" it's predictable and boring now...but I suppose the reporters have jobs to do.
Doesn't Dr Dukan emphasize the importance of sticking with the diet...forever, making it a way of life? I cannot see how 80% of people fail if they are truly following stabilization 100% - but I'll let you know when I get there about a year from now!!! :)
 
As others have said, we don't know who these survey respondents are, or how effectively they followed the diet - so may only have done 4 days of Attack, then gone back to normal eating habits and OF COURSE put it all back on again!! These 'internautes' are probably those who try every diet going which certainly isn't the way to lose weight. I also think the articles forget about the fact that this is a diet for overweight people, of course a 8st woman 5 months pregnant shouldn't start this!

And I'm very excited that 'cerise sur le gâteau' is an expression in French :eek:!
 
And more Dukan press today

La guerre des régimes fait un crochet par le tribunal - 20minutes.fr

He's taking a fellow nutritionist to court for €15,000 damages for comments he made on TV about the Dukan diet! Go Pierre!


I agree with most of your comments above. But still think, given the problems we see here with stabilisation, that people without a real problem with their weight should stay well away from any diet which removes food groups.
 
given the problems we see here with stabilisation, that people without a real problem with their weight should stay well away from any diet which removes food groups.

I have to agree with you.

People who don't have weight to lose shouldn't be attempting weight loss diets.

It sounds surreal when you put it like that - but it is all part of this endless social pressure never to be content with the body you have.

My mum is horrified at the idea that I would chose to stop losing weight now, when I could shrink even further. It doesn't compute to her - people are always "too big" or "too thin" never "just right".
 
Its funny - for all the issues I have with my Mom, she sure did one thing right and that was allow me to be confident at ANY size. I've always thought I was fine - even at 300lbs!! Never understand why so much energy is wasted on something so superficial (health reasons, I TOTALLY get and that's why I chose to lose, but just to look good?? Nah, life's way too short!)
 
If its not one thing its another last week they were reporting obese people would cost nhs millions due to our over eating but they never report about the cost balemia or anarexic patients cost nhs and the damage to society it causes. Thats my rant over with x
 
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