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Atkins charity to bankroll diet research

By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff  |  June 23, 2004

A charity founded by the late diet doctor Robert C. Atkins stands to
inherit his vast fortune and plans to bankroll a barrage of studies
championing his popular low-carbohydrate diet, positioning it to
dominate diet research at a time when an unprecedented number of
Americans are seeking weight-loss guidance.

With Atkins's estate worth an estimated $600 million, the Robert
C. Atkins Foundation will eventually become the largest private
supporter of dieting research in the United States. Its budget could
rival what the federal government now spends on studying diets.

Atkins's will called for his fortune to be held in a trust for his
wife, Veronica, and instructed that it be transferred in chunks to the
charity, with the entire remaining amount going to it upon her death,
according to officers at the charity. This year, Veronica Atkins, 61,
will give the charity $46 million, said the charity's officials,
boosting its assets twentyfold.

The New York-based foundation's leadership, which includes Atkins's
widow, says it intends to use the cash infusion to continue Atkins's
crusade, following his death last year. Its sole stated mission
remains the same as it was when Atkins founded it in 1999, to fund
research into low-carbohydrate diets.

The development marks a dramatic turnabout: Atkins was long
marginalized by the nutrition research community, but critics now
worry that the Atkins foundation's wealth and singular focus could
distort the nation's dieting research agenda in a way that benefits
Atkins Nutritionals, the for-profit company that sells Atkins diet
products and that once had close ties to the charity.

"The studies they fund keep the Atkins name in your face," said
Dr. David L. Katz, a Yale University nutritional specialist. "If
you've got a product to sell, just being out there is worth it. The
foundation can buy those headlines."

For instance, headlines worldwide trumpeted a scientific study last
month demonstrating the short-term effectiveness of the Atkins
diet. The study, conducted by Duke University researchers, had been
funded three years earlier by the Atkins foundation. Executives for
Atkins Nutritionals, who at the time sat on the charity's board,
approved the research topic.

The medical director of Atkins Nutritionals, Dr. Stuart L. Trager,
said the company no longer has any role in the foundation, but
acknowledged that its research could help the company. "As the science
continues to validate the safety and efficacy of controlling carbs as
a nutritional principal . . . the interest in this approach will
rise," he said.

Charity specialists interviewed could not cite another example like
the Atkins case, in which a charity and company have such a similar
and narrow focus.

William Josephson, a New York assistant attorney general in charge of
charities, called the arrangement rare, but said it violated no
laws. "If it wasn't bona fide research, it would cross the line."

Between 1999 and 2002, the charity funded 11 studies at a cost of
about $1 million, according to the charity's tax records. These
studies have suggested that the Atkins diet is a safe and effective
weight loss method for up to one year. But the research has not yet
shown that dieters keep the weight off over the long term.

The studies thus far have mostly been published in legitimate science
journals. But Atkins's goal in creating the charity hardly envisioned
disinterested scientific inquiry.

"He just wanted vindication," said Abby Bloch, a nutritionist who is
the foundation's vice president. In the late 1990s, she said,
"Dr. Atkins was getting increasing criticism from his opponents that
he didn't have any research backing his claim."

So, as his diet surged in popularity, Atkins decided to use his new
wealth to answer the criticism. He established the charity in 1999
with a $1,000,100 donation, according to the foundation's tax
records. A charity, unlike a company, could produce science that
appeared free of taint, Atkins said at the time, according to Bloch.

The charity's first grant went to Dr. Eric Westman at Duke
University. Westman's specialty was nicotine research. He had noticed
that some patients trying to quit smoking adopted the Atkins diet to
avoid weight gain. He called Atkins seeking data on the diet and came
away with a $71,159 grant to study it.

Atkins insisted to scientists that the charity was independent from
the company, said scientists interviewed.

However, by 2000, the charity's board comprised just four people, all
of them closely associated with the company: Atkins, who owned a
majority stake in Atkins Nutritionals; his wife; the company's
chairman, Paul D. Wolff; and president, Scott Kabak, according to tax
records. Dr. Atkins remained its sole funder.

Bloch reviewed all the grant proposals. But it was the Atkinses and
the corporate officers who had the final word on which were
funded. Bloch, however, said the company never exercised "any
influence or restriction on the research."

The charity gained immense resources following the death of the
72-year-old Atkins in April 2003.

Lawyers for the Atkins family quickly realized that Atkins's will
meant that the charity would become enormous, requiring tighter
management and independence from Atkins Nutritionals, said family
associates. They brought in the National Philanthropic Trust,
professional managers of charity money. Veronica Atkins became
chairwoman of the foundation, with two officials of the trust as
deputies.

As the charity transformed itself after Atkins's death, so too did
Atkins Nutritionals. Boston-based investment firm Parthenon Capital,
along with Goldman Sachs, bought an 80 percent controlling share in
the company for $533 million, according to Wall Street analysts. The
Atkins family no longer has any investment in the company.

Though Atkins himself is no longer alive to control the charity, its
officers made clear it would continue to wage his fight for the
low-carbohydrate diet. "We're really looking to primarily study the
low-carb approach to eating," said Eileen R. Heisman, a trust
executive who now sits on the charity's board. Veronica Atkins could
not be reached for this story.

As its funding increases, the foundation is looking beyond mere weight
loss.

It has begun funding studies on using the low-carb approach to treat
diabetes, epilepsy, and seizures, loss of cognitive function in the
elderly, and esophageal reflux. It plans to range more widely in the
future.

The foundation's growth gives it the potential to wield outsize
influence in the health-research world, which is chiefly driven by
grant funding. The government does not compile figures on how much it
spends studying diets specifically. But this year, the federal
government will spend $400.1 million for a major push on obesity
research, which covers a wide variety of studies. By comparison, the
Atkins Foundation may eventually have $600 million in assets to back
its goals.

The charity's largest funding recipient has been Dr. George
L. Blackburn of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard, who
got a $260,000 grant in 2001, which he continues to use on a low-carb
study. He said Atkins Nutritionals has never tried to influence his
work, and he expressed his skepticism of the diet.

"There's been no data showing that it would be safe [over the long
term] to be on a diet that had more than 10 percent of the calories
from saturated fat," he said.

But Tufts University science policy scholar Sheldon Krimsky said the
Atkins foundation and the company clearly "have a theory that they're
trying to prove."

"They seem to have mutual goals," he said.

Katz said that even ambiguous studies that mentioned the Atkins name
would keep the brand in the public eye. Case in point, he said, was
the foundation-funded study by Westman at Duke, published last month
in a major scientfic journal. It showed that the diet bested low-fat
diets over a six month period. That time span is considered by
nutritionists to be too short to measure the true effectiveness of a
diet.

"When you get a published study that says look at all this short-term
weight loss, people get distracted by it," Katz said. "Atkins was in
all the headlines, and the foundation bought that."

Raja Mishra can be reached at rmishra@globe.com.