WHEN one thinks of low-carbohydrate diets today, one tends to think that they are "new" or "revolutionary" in some way.

You may also think that these "new" low-carbohydrate regimes have been pioneered by learned medical men. We are wrong here as it was a 19th century English undertaker by the name of William Banting who changed the thinking on diet completely.

He was well-regarded in society. He was a fine carpenter and an undertaker to the rich and famous.

He started with a booklet entitled Letter on Corpulence Addressed. It was first published in 1863, it went into many editions and continued to be published long after the author's death.

Although there was no family history, he became overweight in his thirties. A doctor he consulted recommended exercise.
Banting took up rowing for two hours a day. This gave him a strong appetite. He put on weight and was advised to stop.

Banting tried every form of slimming treatment the medical profession could devise but it was all in vain. Eventually, discouraged and disillusioned -- and still very fat -- he gave up.

By 1862, at the age of 64, William Banting weighed 92kg and he was only 1.7 metres tall. Banting said that although he was of no great weight or size, he could not stoop to tie his laces and had to walk down the stairs backward.

In 1862 Banting consulted a noted Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons: an ear, nose and throat specialist Dr William Harvey.

Dr Harvey had recently heard Dr Claude Bernard, a renowned physiologist, talk of a new theory about the role the liver played in diabetes.

Bernard believed that the liver secreted a sugar-like substance. This started Harvey's thinking about the roles of the various food elements in diabetes and he began a major course of research into the way in which fats, sugars and starches affected the body.

Harvey put Banting on a diet. By Christmas, Banting was down to 83.64kg and by the following August he was 71kg.

Harvey's advice to him was to give up bread, butter, milk, sugar, beer and potatoes. These, he was told, contained starch and saccharine matter tending to create fat and were to be avoided altogether.

His friend put him on a diet plan. Within a few days, Banting derived immense benefit from it. The plan led to an excellent night's rest with six to eight hours of sleep per night.

Banting lost nearly 0.45kg per week from August 1862 to August 1863. In his own words he said: "I can confidently state that quantity of diet may safely be left to the natural appetite; and that it is quality only which is essential to abate and cure corpulence."

After 38 weeks. Banting felt better than he had for the past 20 years. By the end of the year, not only had his hearing been restored, he had much more vitality and he had lost 20.91kg in weight and 31cm off his waist. His health recovered.

He wished that the medical profession would acquaint themselves with the cure for obesity so that many men would not descend into early graves.

When Banting's booklet, in which he described the diet and its amazing results, was published, it was so contrary to the established doctrine that it set up a howl of protest among members of the medical profession.

The "Banting Diet" became a controversy. His papers and book were ridiculed and distorted.

No one could deny that the diet worked, but as a layman had published it -- and medical men were anxious that their position in society should not be undermined -- they felt bound to attack it. Banting's paper was criticised solely on the grounds that it was "unscientific".

Dr Harvey had a problem, too. He had an effective treatment for obesity but not a convincing theory to explain it. He came in for a great deal of ridicule until his practice began to suffer.

However, the public was impressed. Many desperate overweight people tried the diet and found that it worked. Like it or not, the medical profession could not ignore it. Its obvious success meant that the Banting Diet had to be explained somehow.

Banting's descriptions of the diet are quite clear, however. Other than the prohibition against butter and pork, nowhere is there any instruction to remove the fat from meat and there is no restriction on the way food was cooked or on the total quantity of food which may be taken.

Only carbohydrate -- sugars and starches -- are restricted. The reason that butter and pork were denied was that it was thought at the time that they too contained starch.

Banting lived in physical comfort and remained at a normal weight until his death in 1878 at the age of 81.

In the 1890s, an American doctor, Helen Densmore, modelled diets on Banting. She tells how she and her patients lost an average 4.55kg-6.82kg in the first month on the diet and then 2.73kg-3.64kg in subsequent months "by a diet from which bread, cereals and starchy food were excluded".

Her advice to would-be slimmers was: "0.45kg of beef or mutton or fish per day with a moderate amount of the non-starchy vegetables will be found ample for any obese person of sedentary habits."

Over the next 70 years many epidemiological studies and clinical trials were conducted in several countries and the evidence mounted.

By the mid-1950s, there was no doubt that the low-carbohydrate diet worked and clinical trials at the Middlesex Hospital in London had demonstrated how it worked.

Doctors could now put their overweight patients on a dietary regime which enjoyed overwhelming evidence of benefit and which was easy to follow and live on for life.

It is no coincidence that obesity is on the rise today -- healthy eating advises a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet. This the exact opposite of Banting's diet.

The diet still remains controversial as a quick search on the Internet will tell you.

However, one thing is clear, all the new diet recommendations are focused on getting out the refined carbohydrates.

Not long after Banting's Letter on Corpulence was published the verb "to Ban" entered the language and people losing weight said they were "Banting". It remained in common parlance well into this century.

To get a free copy on Banting's original book, email: info.rajen@gmail.com or call 03- 79652888.

Datuk Dr Rajen M. is a pharmacist with a doctorate in holistic medicine. Email him at health@po.jaring.my