Another Wt Loss Expert Dies Young

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Judy Mazel, Creator of Best-Selling ‘Beverly Hills Diet,’ Is Dead at 63By DENNIS HEVESIPublished: October 27, 2007Judy Mazel, author of the 1981 best-selling book “The Beverly Hills Diet,” which recommended eating nothing but fruit, and lots it, for the first 10 days of a six-week regimen, and which drew strong criticism from medical authorities, died in Santa , Calif., on Oct. 12. She was 63 and lived in the Pacific Palisades section of Los Angeles.The cause was complications of a stroke, her sister Carol Friduss said.“The Beverly Hills Diet” (Macmillan) made the New York Times best-seller list on May 24, 1981, and remained on the list for 30 weeks. It sold nearly one million copies, topping even “ ’ Never-Say-Diet Book” (Warner, 1981) on a list heavy with nutrition and self-help books.Ms. Mazel’s regimen called for eating nothing but designated fruits in a specific order for those first 10 days. On Day 11,

one could finally eat bread, two tablespoons of butter and three cobs of corn. Not until Day 19, after a week of similarly precise restrictions, could the dieter consume something, like steak or lobster, that would be a source of complete protein. Since the diet was said to be based on the enzymatic action of foods during digestion, Ms. Mazel’s contention was that what mattered was not what food was eaten but when and in what combination.Soon after the book’s release, an article in The Journal of the American Medical Association said the book was full of medical “inaccuracies” that could harm people.The authors, Dr. Gabe Mirkin of the University of land and Dr. Shore of s Hopkins University, criticized Ms. Mazel’s theory that fruit enzymes make hard-to-digest foods less fattening. Rather, they said, “enzymes in fruit do nothing to help break down food in the stomach and intestines.” Eating great amounts of fruit and little salt, they said,

could lead to diarrhea, fever, muscle weakness and circulation problems.Ms. Mazel had struggled to lose weight since childhood. She was born in Chicago on Dec. 20, 1943, and moved to Hollywood in the mid-1970s as an aspiring actress. After trying all manner of weight-loss remedies, she spent six months with a nutritionist in Santa Fe, N.M., devising her own regimen. She slimmed to 108 pounds, from 180.After returning to Los Angeles, she opened a weight-loss clinic that attracted a number of celebrity clients. Her book jacket carried endorsements from Engelbert Humperdinck, Sally Kellerman, the former Miss America Ann Mobley and Gray of “Dallas.”Besides her sister Carol, of Carbondale, Ill., Ms. Mazel is survived by another sister, Ann Manaster of San Diego.