Whether it's Atkins, South Beach or some other low-carb plan, up to 30 million Americans are following a low-carb diet.

Advocates contend that high amount of carbohydrates in our diet has led to increasing problems with obesity, diabetes, and other health problems. Critics, on other hand, attribute obesity and related health problems to over-consumption of calories from any source, and lack of physical activity. Critics also express concern that lack of grains, fruits, and vegetables in low-carbohydrate diets may lead to deficiencies of some key nutrients, including fiber, vitamin C, folic acid, and several minerals.

Any diet, weather low or high in carbohydrate, can produce significant weight loss during initial stages of diet. But remember, key to successful dieting is in being able to lose weight permanently. Put another way, what does scale show a year after going off diet?

Let's see if we can debunk some of mystery about low-carb diets. Below, is a listing of some relevant points taken from recent studies and scientific literature. Please note there may be insufficient information available to answer all questions.

- Differences Between Low-Carb Diets

There are many popular diets designed to lower carbohydrate consumption. Reducing total carbohydrate in diet means that protein and fat will represent a proportionately greater amount of total caloric intake.

Atkins and Protein Power diets restrict carbohydrate to a point where body becomes ketogenic. Other low-carb diets like Zone and Life Without Bread are less restrictive. Some, like Sugar Busters claim to eliminate only sugars and foods that elevate blood sugar levels excessively.

- What We Know about Low-Carb Diets

Almost all of studies to date have been small with a wide variety of research objectives. Carbohydrate, caloric intake, diet duration and participant characteristics varied greatly. Most of studies to date have two things in common: None of studies had participants with a mean age over 53 and none of controlled studies lasted longer than 90 days.

Information on older adults and long-term results are scarce. Many diet studies fail to monitor amount of exercise, and therefore caloric expenditure, while participants are dieting. This helps to explain discrepancies between studies.

The weight loss on low-carb diets seems to be a function of caloric restriction and diet duration, and not with reduced carbohydrate intake. This finding suggests that if you want to lose weight, you should eat fewer calories and do so over a long time period.

I remember first time I took Chinese herbs. One of my patients told me “You look really tired – Here take these herbs” and handed me a bagful of different colored packages. It hurt to have it put so bluntly, but it was true, I was building a business, working long hours and feeling a bit drained, so I listened and took them home to use that night. One was a peach green tea that tasted like Snapple I had been drinking earlier that day, one was an “interesting tasting” dark green liquid which I took with an OJ chaser and third was a powder that I mixed up with OJ, water and soy milk to make a citrus smoothie. Not bad I thought, for Chinese herbs… And then something amazing happened. I felt full! Little did I know at that time I had been given key to my natural weight loss that I still maintain 15 years later.

I loved it! I had never felt full before in my life. I had been struggling with being thin since childhood. I had learned when to stop eating in order to not gain weight; I knew all kinds of tricks like drinking water before a meal and getting up and walking away from table. I looked at each new “diet trend” and I had eliminated all those “bad carbohydrates” from my diet and lived at gym – and I ended up thin and tired all time. I even tried dexatrim (I may be dating myself – does any body else out there remember that?) and ended up a yo-yo dieter. It was like I was in a constant battle with my body and my weight.

In this process of trying everything I had never before felt this feeling of being satisfied. I loved it! So I used herbs for a few weeks and then I proceeded to talk myself out of taking herbs – too expensive, etc… and promptly got tired and sick, went back on them – stopped and got sick and tired again, repeated it a third time and then I got message that these herbs were doing something really good for my body.

Then to my surprise, six months later I dropped 20 pounds without changing anything else in my life. I even began to eat more without gaining weight like I used to. I had a lifetime of experience struggling with my weight and I was amazed at how these “little packages of herbs” were changing my life. I would never have expected that these nutritional herbs would help me lose weight. I was so intrigued that I ended up going to Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine School to learn more. That was my door into world of Chinese Medicine and acupuncture weight loss and I’ve never looked back.

Weight Loss is quite a difficult complex problem for some of us, and not even an issue for others. Just recently “Language has been removed from Medicare Coverage Issues Manual stating that obesity is not an illness…. The medical science will now determine whether we provide coverage for treatments that reduce complications and improve quality of life for millions of Medicare beneficiaries with obesity.(1)” Being overweight is now officially a disease. “And as a first step, we expect to convene our Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee in fall to evaluate evidence on various surgical procedures used in treating obesity.(2)” There has to be other alternatives besides surgery.

Acupuncture for Weight Loss hit press in 2003 when Reuters, CNN and others reported of successful acupuncture weight loss clinics in China. Chinese Medicine theory, traditionally hold that overweight people have imbalanced digestive systems. By stimulating digestive system through acupuncture and herbs, it becomes more balanced and efficient, thus nutrition is more bio-available and person feels fuller. This is what happened to me when my metabolism came into a better balance. Other theories are that acupuncture mainly helps reduce appetite and improve metabolism.(3)

A slow increase in Obesity in China had lead to this new specialty – acupuncture weight loss. A professor at a Traditional Chinese Medicine College in China states that treatments for weight reduction have been practiced, studied and refined over past 5 years(4). While an exact comparison between US and China is difficult, in China numbers may be close to 10-13% overweight adults, as compared to 64% for US, but with their lifestyles and economic changes this number is beginning to rise (5) . In Beijing, capital, students eagerly enjoy down their Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Pepsi and pop tarts. These foods have slowly replaced previous hot spots with traditional Chinese snacks found in places like Grandma’s Dumpling House (6) . The obesity rate among primary and middle school students has risen to 18 %, from 10% in 1991, state Xinhua news agency said recently, citing a survey from Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention.(7)