Dr. Robert Atkins passed away a little over two years ago now. He was a major pioneer in helping us appreciate some powerful insights about insulin physiology and how it could be used effectively to control weight and nearly all chronic, degenerative diseases.

I have been practicing nutritional medicine for well over two decades. It is my primary physical intervention. There is no question in my mind that applying limited grains for those with elevated insulin levels was one of the most profound improvements in patients' health I ever witnessed.

What does this mean?

Ideally, you would want to measure your fasting insulin level, and if it was greater than 5-7 you should seriously restrict ALL grains. Yes, even whole unprocessed grains, and alternative grains like quinoa, amaranth, millet and teff.

If you don't want to measure your insulin levels, if you have any of the following conditions you can be virtually assured that your insulin or leptin levels, or both, are elevated.

• High blood pressure
• High blood chloesterol
• Diabetes
• Overweight

So if you have any of the above conditions it would be wise for you to completely eliminate or severely restrict ALL grains until you normalize those conditions. This is the profound knowledge that Dr. Atkins helped bring to social consciousness.

However, there were some serious flaws in a few parts of his program. First, he believed in the use of Splenda. As you will see when my new book, Sweet Deception, comes out this fall, this strategy was never justified.

Additionally, Dr. Atkins really didn't understand the principles of nutritional typing either. Thus, his program worked well for patients who are protein types, yet was an unmitigated failure for carb types.

As I have said above, grain restriction is a profoundly essential part of my Total Health Program. But as useful as this principle is, it pales in comparison to the power of nutritional typing. Without question, nutritional typing is the most important nutritional understanding I have ever encountered.

You can get a jump start on learning what your nutritional type is, and how best to tailor your diet to it, by taking this free test. However, please understand that this free test is merely an example, and it is not as accurate as the paid test that we now offer.

I was doing this test in my office for over five years before I could figure out a way to offer it online at a reasonable cost. This is the same test that EVERY person in our practice is required to take.

Previously I would not offer the same test online because we could not offer a system to have the inevitable questions answered. So we invested over $100,000 to develop a software system and infrastruture that will allow you to have your questions answered.

We have had many hundreds of people take advantage of this new system.

I am saddened that I never had the chance to meet Dr. Atkins personally. I suspect if we had a chance to discuss nutritional typing, he might have adopted this for his program.