The Dukan Diet is fast becoming the best selling diet book in the world, and emerging science reveals why: the plan can cure the syndrome that’s packing fat onto more than 50% of American women.
As talk of the royal wedding reached a fever patch, it wasn’t just Kate Middleton’s dress that had US media outlets buzzing it was the diet that she and her mother had reportedly followed to slim down for the event.
And so before the book the Dukan Diet was even available for purchase in the states, American women hungry for details on the program hit the Internet in droves ordering copies in advance scouring chat rooms, boards and social network pages for inside information.
One American woman had the French website translated into English so she could start taking advantage of the plan before its U.S. release. Like so many others who followed the program, these ladies are glad they made the extra effort – one lost 7 pounds in seven days; the others shed 25 pounds in two weeks. They join the ranks of the millions of French women who are loyal to the plan so grateful for its ability to transform their bodies and deliver vibrant health that they call themselves Dukeamaniacas, Dukanistas or Dukanians.
Not everyone counts himself as a fan of the plan someU.S.health experts insist it’s a trend that will pass. But that hasn’t been the case inFrance, where the book, written by French Physician Pierre Dukan, M.D., in 2000, has sold more than 3 million copies and has topped the bestseller list since 2006.
How is it that this diet an Atkins inspired plan that calls for cutting carbs and increasing protein intake can have so many women singing its praises? As one woman told her story the appeal is that it doesn’t just promise to para pounds it promises to adjust the underlying cause of weight gain that affects millions of American women.
Why so many American women can’t slim down?
Studies done by the US Department of Health and human services estimate that up to 33% of American women now suffer from the metabolic syndrome, a condition that especially shifts the body into fat storage mode and makes it nearly impossible to shed pounds. As women enter their 40s, the number affected by this syndrome climbs to 37%, and it rises to 54%, for women over 60. Even more unsettling: as many as 90% of those that harbor signs of the syndrome have no idea that they are affected. As a result, they continue to tackle weight loss by trying one diet after another, unaware that there bodies are incapable of responding.
At the heart of the metabolic syndrome is insulin, a hormone that determines whether glucose is buried as fuel or stored as fat. Insulin is so central to the condition, in fact, that many specialists referred to it instead as insulin resistance syndrome (IRS).
Here’s how insulin is supposed to work: we eat a meat, which releases glucose into the bloodstream (blood sugar). In response, the pancreas produces insulin, which tells receptors on cells to allow glucose to enter. Once in the cell, glucose is buried for energy.
All too often, though, this process runs amok. Years of high carb eating can results in the cellular glucose receptors becoming deaf to insulin’s orders to open up. That causes glucose to build up in the bloodstream, where it can end up damaging blood vessels and organs they supply.
