Lauren Swann was in junior high school when Robert C. Atkins M.D. introduced his first book, Dr. Atkin's Diet Revolution, in 1972. Revolve is indeed what low-carb diets have done. After Dr. Atkin's diet lost popularity to low-calorie and low-fat diets in the 1980s, it once again resurfaced during the 1990s and peaked with double-digit growth in late 2003.
According to the “2005 Prepared Foods R&D Trends: Weight Control Formulations Survey,” 35.7% of the respondents consider low-carb diets to be a fad that will not last 6-12 more months. “Every couple of decades, low-carb gets re-introduced, which, for me, is proof that it's not a magic bullet,” says Swann, a registered dietitian and president of Concept Nutrition Inc., a nutrition consulting service to the food industry.