Following a high-protein, high-fat regimen can affect your sleep.
Credit: USDHH
SYDNEY: The Atkins Diet may give people bad dreams, a new study suggests, putting another nail in the coffin of the already ailing diet fad.
“Even though people sleep better while on the Atkins Diet, there are unwanted side effects,” Chin Moi Chow, a sleep researcher at the University of Sydney, told the annual conference of the Australasian Sleep Association in Perth on Friday. “These symptoms include: a slow start to the day, being tired or sleepy during the day, irritability, craving sugar, difficulty with concentration and making decisions.”
Fifteen healthy, normal sleepers followed a conventional low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet for the first day of the study before following the Atkins Diet for three consecutive days.
The Atkins regimen requires people to eat a high-protein, high-fat and low-carbohydrate diet. Atkins dieters are able to shed kilograms quickly because the diet causes blood glucose levels to drop, forcing the body to produce energy from other food sources, so the body begins to burn fat, said Chow. This fat-burning process, also called ketosis, develops after three days of being on the diet.
Chow said the popularity of the diet prompted her and colleagues to find out how the Atkins Diet affects sleep. “It’s very popular in America. Restaurants have menus based on the diet. With that being the case, we wanted to know how the Atkins Diet affects sleep.”
“We were surprised by the data,” Chow told Cosmos Online. “The sleep changes occurred immediately on the first night when the first (Atkins) meal was taken. This sleep pattern was consistent until day three – it’s not ketosis because it does not develop until day three – so it had to be because of the diet.”
Chow said one of the more notable sleep changes involved a two-and-a-half fold increase in the number of dreams people recalled. Subjects filled out questionnaires detailing the number of dreams they recalled and the nature of these dreams.
Subjects usually failed to recall the content of their dreams, only remembering the emotions they felt in the dream, said Chow. Most of the dreams were reported as being unpleasant, but not classified as nightmares.
For example, Chow recalled one man who had an unpleasant dream consisting of being chased before awaking mid-dream.
Chow believes subjects may have remembered their dreams better because they “were aroused from sleep more often when on the Atkins Diet.” Subjects may not have had more dreams than a person on a normal diet, but it may simply be that they were able to remember their dreams better after spontaneously awaking during the night.
In the future, Chow and her colleagues would like to continue to study the effects of the Atkins Diet on sleep, but she realises that the diet industry may be shifting toward more traditional, low-fat diets. “If the trend for diets is changing, then it’s not appropriate to continue research on the Atkins Diet.”
BAD DREAMS
I AM A PHYSICIAN (30 YEARS - BOARD CERTIFIED INTERNAL MEDICINE AND CARDIOLOGY). BEEN ON ATKINS FOR 8 WEEKS. STILL ON INDUCTION. 25 POUND WEIGHT LOSS WITH NO HUNGER. ALL LAB TESTS BETTER.
------------------ I HAVE 66 YEARS OF SLEEP HISTORY. I NOW HAVE BAD DREAMS EVERY NIGHT, AND EVEN DURING NAPS. NOT BAD ENOUGH TO STOP THE DIET EVER --- BUT AFTER 66 YEARS IT IS EVERY NIGHT. THEY ARE NOT "DEATH" DREAMS, JUST UNPLEASANT. BEFORE ATKINS, MABY ONCE A MONTH.
I WILL BE ON ATKINS FOR LIFE. MY BLOOD PRESSURE IS DOWN FROM 210 TO 120 -(SYSTOLIC). I NEVER SAW A PATIENT IN 30 YEARS HAVE SUCH A GOOD RESPONSE TO WEIGHT LOSS. THERE ARE STANDARD CAUTIONS TO FOLLOW, BUT I HAVE NO "SKINNY" CLOTHES TO WEAR.
RY
atkins research
Hi. I went on the atkins diet for a year after a long and losing battle with weight on the low-fat diets. Not only did the low-fat diets NOT work for me, but they caused a lot of nasty symptoms like hair loss, severe vitamin absorbtion problems, recurrent vitamin-B complex deficiencies (very painful), and all kinds of weird inflammatory/auto immune responses, migraines four times a week, and scary neurological symptoms like numbness in the hands and feet. I only lost a few pounds on these, then all progress would stop completely. My blood sugar was so hypoglycemic that I would have fainting spells.
When I went on atkins, the first week had all the weird dreams, strange symptoms, feeling tired, cravings, etc. BUT, after the first week, these all tapered off as my body adjusted to a brand new thing. I got to my goal weight in ten weeks. That's 50 pounds in ten weeks. I took vitamin supplements with the diet and avoided any deficiencies.
I noticed after the one week adjustment period to the low-carb diet had passed, all the neurological and auto immune/inflammatory problems began to improve. Thirty days into the program, I was free of the persistent migraines and nerve problems, as well as the auto-immune stuff. Even my asthma cleared up to only four attacks per year rather than four a week. My hypoglycemia gave me very few troubles. So my other health issues had a 75% improvement, I would estimate...which is way better than 0%. I'm no doctor, but I've heard that sometimes ketogenic diets can curb the inflammatory response caused by hyper-insulin production in prone people, and that it can quiet down over-excited neurons in the brain and improve nerve problems, and also it can help you absorb vitamins better because there are no sugar spikes competing with them at the cell level, and no glycolization of collagen in tissues due to sugar highs/lows.
This diet, I agree, is probably not the best for everyone. But it is for people like me. And I think we should get out of the mind-set that one size fits all, and one method works for all, and that all bodies react the same to all substances or regimens. With all the benefits I recieved from this diet, I think one week of irritating dreams is a small price to pay.
Besides, I noticed that this study only resaerched the THREE DAYS of induction into the diet.....which is the adjusting period. Any time you do something your body is unfamiliar with, it resists for a few days. I realized this when I quit smoking 5 years ago. Four days to a week is the time it takes to readjust and calm your body down. The three day research period is totally wrong. This period is "heck week" for beginning Atkins. It definitely DOES NOT represent how you will feel after a week. This is poor research in my mind. Especially since any Atkins dieter knows that the first week is total "yuck" until you get over that 4 day hump, then it's happy sailing all the way. Next time, give it a month to research it. I also think you should listen to your own body, and to what your intuition is telling you and act accordingly. Nobody said you can't tweak and tailor a system so it works for you. No one said it was a sin to experiment and see what works and what doesn't. Common sense: If something is ineffective or makes you feel sick, STOP!
Atkins Research
I've just started this food plan program and this morning had the weirdest dreams - they really left me emotionally drained for the whole day so it was amazing to open the internet tonight and read your comments. I am not hungry but dragging myself around - hello weight resistance exercise NOT HAPPENING!!!. I'm on day 4 and will give it another 3 days if I'm this exhausted AND FUZZY HEADED how will I lift weights again?? However...have lost 2 kgs. Do you think dry eyes, fuzzy head (brain fog) and tiredness will last??? Anyone's feedback would be appreciated. BC
I found the foggy head and
I found the foggy head and tiredness wear off usually after about 2 weeks, if you read the Atkins book there is a mention to the approx duration that you will feel 'bad'. I stuck it out through the 'bad' first 2 weeks and i can tell you that it is so worth it. I guess giving up carbs is like a smoker giving up smoking, your body will crave the carbs but once out of your system it's like a totally differnet feeling. There is no more bloating, mid-afternoon energy slump, I found I didn't need as much sleep as before and I woke feeling rested which I never felt before Atkins. Lets not forget the weight loss, I went from 105kg to 74kg in less than 6 months, I didn't exercise for the first 3-4 weeks on the program but once i found i had this abondance of energy I really wanted to exercise and I found for the first time that I loved exercising. I had heard all this negative stuff on Atkins and a friend at work said she had done it and lost alot of weight and my reaction was "I'm not doing that, I have heard all the talk about it and it's dangerous" She handed me the book and told me to read it from cover to cover and then make up my mind. I satrted reading it that night and I couldn't put it down, it's was my 'light globe' moment, the moment that I realised that I was addicted to carbs, the nvery next morning I stared the diet and I have never looked back.
Responding to "visitor" 13
Responding to "visitor" 13 November 2007 3:43 pm.
You write, "This is poor research in my mind. ... Next time, give it a month to research it."
I second that emotion. Three days? Excuse me, EVERY diet sucks for the first three days! Withdrawal from sugar alone, let alone other carbs, always costs me three days of flu-like symptoms. Take away caffeine and you have at least two weeks of misery.
Getting the poisons out is never fun. Try quitting smoking, ugh!
But don't mistake the withdrawal-from-toxins symptoms from long-term symptoms of being on the diet.
Atkins dreams
I dream of carbs while on the Atkins diet - vivid dreams of eating bread and pumpkin pie.
atkins headache!!!!!!!!
im on day 5 when does he awful headache go away? thank you
And the point of this is??
Why on earth would anyone waste their time on such nonsense? How about looking into how great the Atkins diet is! Why doesn't Ms Chow look for people that have been on Atkins for years and are doing just fine?
you call this research?
I'll bet PETA sponsored this sham....snort!
When I did Jenny Craig I developed MS= M oney S hortage .
Atkins is FREE, it works, it's healthy and it's easy to do for life. Get over it!
Atkins diet causes bad dreams
This is absolute nonsense. I wouldn't classify this as "True" research at all. I have been on Atkins for over 5 years and have had no experience of bad dreams. Oh, and incidentally I have lost over 150lbs.