Independent food experts have told the US Senate that the country's current guidelines on food, which recommend six to 11 servings of carbohydrates a day, are contributing to America's problems with obesity, reports the UK national paper the Daily Mail.

According to the report, the researchers added that the Atkins diet, which recommends low intake of carbohydrates and unlimited consumption of high-protein, high-fat foods, would help to make people thinner.

It also noted that doctors and nutritionists in the US claim that the current guidelines about eating carbohydrates are being used to promote the products that farmers want to sell the most, particularly grains.

The chairman of the Senate Consumer Affairs Committee has proposed replacing the current guidelines to replace them with new, more appropriate ones to combat the nation's ever increasing obesity problem.

There is growing controversy worldwide over the health benefits of the Atkins diet, with numbers in the UK alone trying the diet recently estimated at 3 million. Nutritionists warn that the diet could have a dangerous long-term effect on health.

But could this be the answer to the western world's growing problem of obesity related diseases? While studies have recently found the diet to be effective for weight loss, there have been no long-term studies to evaluate the risks of the diet.