hmmm found this about atkins, which may be of interest...
BBC NEWS | Health | Uncovering the Atkins diet secret
essentially there is no difference between a calorie restricted diet, and atkins - you lose weight because you eat fewer calories. One result from an identical twin study - showed that there was no significant difference in calorie's burned between an atkins diet and a normal calorie restricted one.
the second danish study showed that people on high protein diets (i.e. atkins) eat fewer calories because they feel fuller, and therefore less hungry, and therefore eat less food.
the other point of note that there have been no long term studies looking at the effectiveness of the atkins diet - the longest has been 1 year, most are 6 months or less.
