Report: Atkins was obese, suffered heart disease
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wi...-regional-wire
February 10, 2004, 8:44 AM EST
NEW YORK (AP) _ Dr. Robert Atkins weighed 258 pounds at his death and had a history of heart disease, according to a report published Tuesday.
Atkins, whose popular diet stresses protein-filled meat and cheese over carbohydrates, died last April at age 72 after hurting himself in a fall on an icy street.
Before his death, he had suffered a heart attack, congestive heart failure and hypertension, the Wall Street Journal said Tuesday, citing a report by the city medical examiner.
The report was provided to the Journal by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a group that advocates vegetarianism. The medical examiner's office told the Journal that the report had been sent to the advocacy group in error.
A call to the medical examiner's office Tuesday was not immediately returned.
At 258 pounds, the 6-foot-tall Atkins would have qualified as obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's body-mass index calculator.
The diet guru's widow, Veronica Atkins, said she was outraged that the report had been made public.
"I have been assured by my husband's physicians that my husband's health problems late in life were completely unrelated to his diet or any diet," she told the Journal.
Last month, Veronica Atkins demanded an apology from Mayor Michael Bloomberg after Bloomberg called her late husband "fat."
Diet is one potential factor in heart disease, but viruses and infections can also contribute to it.
Stuart Trager, chairman of the Atkins Physicians Council in New York, told the Journal that Atkins' heart disease stemmed from cardiomyopathy, a condition thought to result from a viral infection.
Atkins' weight was due to bloating associated with his condition, and he was much slimmer for most of his life, Trager said.
In April 2002, Atkins released a statement saying he was recovering from cardiac arrest related to a heart infection he had suffered from "for a few years." He said it was "in no way related to diet."