Aug. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Dr. Susan Jebb, head of nutrition and health research at Britain's Medical Research Council and a critic of the low-carbohydrate Atkins Diet, is working on a report into obesity that has received funding from the Flour Advisory Board, the Business newspaper reported.

Jebb denied any connection between the flour industry's 20,000- pound ($31,924) payment to the Medical Research Council and her negative assessment of the Atkins Diet, which advocates eating less bread, pasta and other carbohydrates, the report said. The MRC also received funding from the Flour Advisory Board for a 1999 study on obesity, the paper reported.

The Flour Advisory Bureau said it hadn't influenced Jebb's views in any way, the newspaper said. In a briefing at the Royal Institution last week, Jebb warned that the Atkins diet, endorsed by celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston and Nigella Lawson, is ``a massive health risk'' and that ``there is not a shred of evidence that Atkins works.''

Eating high-fat red meats and dairy products such as cream may increase the risk of breast cancer in pre-menopausal women, according to a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute last month. The findings suggest that the Atkins diet and other regimens that encourage people to eat meat to lose weight may harm younger women, said lead author Eunyoung Cho, a nutrition researcher at Boston's Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital.

(The Business, 8-17, p. 1)