The Pritikin diet is a low-fat, high-fibre diet which forms part of the "Pritikin Program for Diet and Exercise", a lifestyle regimen originally created by Nathan Pritikin. The 1979 book describing the diet became a best-seller.[1][2]
The diet is based around low-fat, high-fibre food and limiting red meat, alcohol, and processed food.[3] When it was launched, the diet was considered radical, but its precepts are now considered largely in alignment with mainstream nutritional advice.[3] The Pritikin Diet has been categorized as a fad diet with possible disadvantages including a boring food choice, flatulence, and the risk of feeling too hungry.[4]
Gastroenterologist David Hershel Alpers and colleagues described the Pritikin diet as "nutritionally adequate, but the low fat content makes it unpalatable, and the likelihood of compliance is low."[5]
