Interview AMA President, Dr Bill Glasson, with Steve Price, Radio 2UE - Atkins Diet; Obesity

PRICE:            Joining us on the line is our old mate from the AMA, their President, Dr Bill Glasson.  Thanks for your time.

GLASSON:       Pleasure, Steve.

PRICE:            You've just got to be sensible about it, don't you?

GLASSON:       That's right.  Dr Kroger spoke extremely well.  I mean, it's all about education not legislation and it's all about getting a balance in your diet, as he's clearly pointed out.  What they often do is they start, I understand, on these diets initially which are high protein, low fat.  And I think when the initial Atkins diet came out 40 years ago - I think what you're seeing now is something totally different, by the way - and again, so long as it's controlled, Steve, and you end up with a balance of good sugars and good fats.  As you know, there's things like fish oil, for instance, extremely good for you and the studies, for instance, a country like Greece, show they've got a much longer life expectancy because of all the fish oils they eat.           

So there's good fats, there's good sugars and what we should be trying to do here is actually get people's weight to something that's reasonable because of the obesity problem we have but it should not be a - you know, it should be based on science, as he said, and it should not be putting the patient at risk from the point of view of making any of these particular risk factors particular from heart disease or bone problems, or whatever, in children, worse. 

So I think we should be looking at, as you say, a balanced approach with diet and exercise and re‑emphasise the fact, if you're going to sort of go on some sort of a diet you need to sort of make sure you balance that with walking, swimming or jogging.

PRICE:            Of course you do.  You've got to do the exercise.  I don't want to overload your blokes at all but if I go to the GP in a normal check-up, are they qualified to advise me if I ask a question about Atkins or a diet?

GLASSON:       Some of them will be, Steve.

PRICE:            Or should I go to a nutritionist?

GLASSON:       I think what you'll find, I think the first thing, go to your doctor, just make sure your blood pressure's okay and work out basically what percentage overweight you are and then say, why are you overweight, Steve?  And Steve says because I'm not exercising enough, I'm eating the wrong foods, blah, blah, blah.  And you say right,  Steve, you've got good blood pressure, mate, your cholesterol's a bit high, let's look at some diets here. 

Now, if they're good at it they might give you a diet but often we work with dietitians and people who deal in those areas all the time and they'll come up with an appropriate diet for you and hopefully an appropriate sort of exercise strategy to go with it.

PRICE:            Nice to talk to you, as usual.

GLASSON:       Thanks, Steve.

PRICE:            Good on you, Dr Bill Glasson, AMA President. There you go, just get the diet.  I'd love to hear from you if you've done that Atkins diet, like I did.  I did it and then I sort of really moulded it around how I wanted my lifestyle to be.  If you've lost weight, used it and it's worked for you, let me know.  Likewise if you've used it and it hasn't worked for you and you've regained the weight you lost I'd also like to hear from you.

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