New York ? Dr. Robert C. Atkins, the weight-loss guru whose low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet was adopted by millions of people despite concern over its potential dangers, died Thursday. He was 72.

Atkins died at the New York Weill-Cornell Medical Center after suffering a severe head injury April 8 when he fell on an icy sidewalk, said his spokesman, Richard Rothstein. He underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain.

Atkins first advocated his unorthodox plan — which emphasizes meat, eggs and cheese and discourages bread, rice and fruit — in his 1972 book, “Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution.”

When the book was published, the medical establishment was promoting a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. The American Medical Assn. dismissed the Atkins’ diet as nutritional folly and Congress summoned him to Capitol Hill to defend the plan.

Labeling it “potentially dangerous,” the AMA said the diet’s scientific underpinning was “naive” and “biochemically incorrect.” It scolded the book’s publishers for promoting “bizarre concepts of nutrition and dieting.”

This year, his approach was vindicated in part by the very medical community that derided him. In February, some half-dozen studies showed people on the Atkins diet lost weight without compromising their health. The studies showed that Atkins dieters’ cardiovascular risk factors and overall cholesterol profiles changed for the better.

Heather Jackson, a St. Martin’s Press editor who worked with Atkins on his latest book, said he did not consider himself a diet guru.

“He considered himself a doctor,” she said. “He believed that the nutritional approach he recommended was the way people should be eating for good health.”