A web search for “Low Carbohydrate Diet” returns just a few hundred less results than the word “sex.” Low-Carb weight-loss programs, such as The Atkins Diet, have grown increasingly popular since the fad erupted in the seventies.

Such programs can help slightly overweight people loose those extra pounds, according to a handful of reports, but what’s the skinny on the side effects?

Now days, folks can buy all sorts of pills and tonics to kill those annoying Carbohydrates. In fact, several companies have introduced “Carbohydrate Blockers.” Some of these drugs even claim weight-loss while you sleep.

“Blocking” or “depriving” the body of Carbohydrates, vitamins, or fats is Malnutrition (poor nutrition because of an insufficient or poorly balanced diet - The American Heritage Dictionary).

When the body is malnourished, it scavenges and feeds on whatever it can find. These diets force the body to hunt down certain necessary tissues and devour them.

A lack of Carbohydrates may cause damage to brain tissue. A concept familiar in the early seventies and mentioned in a textbook by Benjamin Kleinmuntz (Abnormal Psychology).

According to the Kleinmuntz book, “Malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies,” even a small degree, “can cause central nervous system damage and consequent behavioral and personality changes.”

“Among the nutritive substances essential for adequate physical and psychological functioning,” Kleinmuntz’s book reported, “are the energy-yielding food substances that include carbohydrates, fats, and proteins.”

The results published in Abnormal Psychology are the product of The Minnesota Semistarvation study, which states, “Without adequate amounts [of carbohydrates] the individual undergoes profound personality changes.”

According to the study, “The Long-term effects of nutrient deficiencies, especially the carbohydrates, which are converted to the glucose necessary for brain functioning, include confusion, intellectual deterioration, and poor judgment.”

Being deprave of Carbohydrates, even for a short period of time, can cause brain damage, arguably compared to that of the “sudden development of a brain tumor,” or the “effects of receiving a blow to the head.”

Because this deprivation can be “Mind Altering,” it may become significantly addictive. Science hasn’t found the definitive source of addiction, but research shows “if it feels good or alludes to superficial results, people will do it over and over again.”

Archaic literature claimed that Carbohydrate deprivation caused Neurosis. A Neurosis is “any of various mental or emotional disorders, such as hypochondria or neurasthenia, arising from no apparent organic lesion or change and involving symptoms such as insecurity, anxiety, depression, and irrational fears, but without psychotic symptoms such as delusions or hallucinations.”

Pro-Diet research has said that “Neurosis” is not mentioned in modern reports regarding Low-Carb programs. That might be because the term is no longer in scientific use.

However, the word Psychosis, “A severe mental disorder, with or without organic damage, characterized by derangement of personality and loss of contact with reality and causing deterioration of normal social functioning,” is in use and may best describe the effects of Carbohydrate deprivation.