Has the actor Rob Lowe recently let you in on his “little chocolate-peanut butter secret?” If so, you were likely watching an ad for the Atkins Diet, a meal plan company that promotes weight loss through a "low carb” diet.
Meal plans that cut back how many carbohydrates you eat have promised slimmer waists for decades. The science behind this claim has drawn on just as long, and won’t be stopping soon. “The research will be ongoing forever,” says Jessica Alvarez, a registered dietician who studies metabolism and Type II diabetes at the Emory University School of Medicine. Though the studies are hard to do, it seems the dietary choice can lead to (at least temporary) weight loss. How exactly that happens, however, remains unclear.
The original biological premise behind a low-carb diet was fairly straightforward. Carbohydrates trigger the release of insulin, a hormone that prompts tissues to absorb sugars ...
