69964 French nutritionist Dr Pierre Dukan, creator of the popular Dukan Diet, has been struck off France’s medical register for promoting his diet, according to reports in The Guardian and Daily Mail.
The Dukan Diet has been followed and popularised by a number of celebrities. However, new research has found that the high protein diet is not as healthy Dr Dukan claimed!
What is the Dukan Diet?
The Dukan Diet is a high-protein diet that includes a list of 100 allowed foods (mostly proteins) and is divided into four stages known as attack, cruise, consolidation, and stabilisation.
Thanks to celebrity followers, the Dukan Diet became a wildly popular weight loss plan with the book – The Dukan Diet – translated into 14 languages and published in 32 countries!
Dangers of the Dukan Diet
The British Dietetic Association (BDA) assessment of the Dunken Diet found the diet to be nutritionally imbalanced and the rapid weight loss unhealthy. Added to this, a recent study by the University of Granada found that high-protein diets, like the popular Dukan Diet diet, increases the chance of developing kidney stones and renal diseases.
The study found that rats on a high-protein diet lost up to 10% of their body weight over 12 weeks but urinary citrate in these rats was 88% lower, urinary pH was 15% more acidic, kidney weight increased by 22%, glomerular area (the network of capillaries that filter blood in the kidneys) by 13%, and the mesangium (a collagen structure surrounded by these capillaries) by 32%.
The results of this study lead the principle author, Dr Virginia A. Aparicio, to stress the need to closely monitor anyone on a high-protein diet.
From a top diet to a diet scam, many will be surprised that the Dukan Diet has been found to be so unhealthy. However, it’s not the only diet to be making the headlines for all the wrong reasons – researchers from the University of Toronto recently found that the theory behind the popular blood type diet to be invalid.
