The American Cancer Society which had launched the huge study of 118000 Californians in 1959 was the first to take aim saying: We

The American Cancer Society, which had launched the huge study of 118,000 Californians in 1959, was the first to take aim, saying: “We are appalled that the tobacco industry has succeeded in giving visibility to a study with so many problems”.The British Medical Association, which owns the BMJ, was the next surprise critic, describing the study as “fundamentally flawed” and adding: “Most of the data has [sic] been around for decades but was judged by many expert groups to be inadequate to accurately measure passive smoking”.So had the BMJ been duped? Richard Smith, its editor and no stranger to controversy, offered a robust response. The paper had been thoroughly peer reviewed, the source of funding had been disclosed and it was accompanied by a critical commentary. “This is a big study with very complete follow-up about an important question. I take the view that not to publish is a form of scientific misconduct,” Dr Smith said.He was backed by Professor Martin Jarvis of the University of London, a leading expert on smoking research. “Science is science and one must not take the view that anything which has got any association with the industry is wrong,” he said.Anyone can level accusations of bias.

In a press release I received last week, the pro-smoking group Forest says that the Californian study was funded by “anti-smoking largesse” – a levy on cigarette sales – until the plug was pulled in 1999.”There is a strong suspicion that funding was stopped when the anti-smoking lobby saw the initial results and realised how damaging they might be to their claim that passive smoking harms non-smokers,” Forest says.So, bias cuts both ways. Is it more alarming that the study was funded by the tobacco industry – or not funded by the anti-smoking lobby? There is only one way to settle such disputes: publish and be damned. It may be uncomfortable, it may cause damage, but it is preferable to undermining public trust and denying readers the chance to make up their own minds.. As moments go, it was one of the sweetest I’m in the changing rooms, trying on a skirt It fits – and it’s a size 12 I’m blinking, squinting at the label Is this a mistake? I’ve been a 14, and then a 16, for years. But there’s no mistake – I look at the mirror, see my newly slim shape, and feel like weeping I love Dr Atkins

As moments go, it was one of the sweetest I’m in the changing rooms, trying on a skirt It fits – and it’s a size 12 I’m blinking, squinting at the label Is this a mistake? I’ve been a 14, and then a 16, for years.

Last week, the first clinical trials of the Atkins diet were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The diet, which involves cutting out carbohydrates such as bread, pasta and rice, but eating plenty of protein and usually forbidden fats, has sold millions of copies and is much praised by celebrities such as Ren?Zellweger It has attracted plenty of controversy, too. Yet these trials show that people lose weight faster on this diet than using other methods and that it doesn’t appear to damage your health, as its critics have suggested.For me, it all changed last autumn. In the past, as an avid follower of a fat-free dietary lifestyle, I swear no globule of butter passed my lips for 10 years. Well, except when I fell off the wagon, which led to month-long eating-everything-I-could-find binges. This is the denial/yo-yo madness that many women will identify with.

And a curious thing happened during this decade of (mostly) fat phobia: I steadily gained weight. Years of dry toasted bagels and plain jacket potatoes, and my reward: wobbly thighs. Last summer I was a bewildered size 16, feeling betrayed by a body not behaving the way it should.But last October, I heard about the Atkins diet, and cautiously (and sceptically) began to allow all sorts of dairy, fat and oil into my life, feeling like a terrified vegetarian eating red meat for the first time I banished carbs – out went rice, bread, pasta, potatoes. In came chicken, meat, fish and veg.And today, I’m almost a stone lighter and pretty much a size 12. And the other amazing thing: I no longer think about food all the time, no longer see chocolate brownies hovering over people’s heads as I talk to them, fantasising about going home and eating one. Instead, I find myself thinking “it’s 8.45pm, you really must think about what to eat for dinner”.