THE DECISION by an NHS hospital not to provide patients with meals that follow the controversial Atkins diet has been endorsed by a senior nutritional nurse.

The Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital ruled that the popular diet is inappropriate for recovering patients, after staff were asked to serve meals that followed the diet's rules.

Hazel Rollins, a nutrition nurse specialist at Luton and Dunstable hospital, told Nursing Standard that nurses should advise patients against following the Atkins diet while they are ill or when recovering from surgery. 'For patients who are ill I would not consider it a suitable diet,' she said. 'When people are unwell they need to ...