Like low-carb devotees everywhere, customers at this longtime low-carb mecca in Anderson, S.C., heard the news this week that according to a coroner's report, diet guru Robert Atkins was obese at the time of his death, weighing 258 pounds. He also suffered from heart disease and hypertension.

But cafe co-owner Elaine Payne says the news hasn't shaken one ounce of low-carb followers' faith.

"I don't see great concern," says Payne, who co-founded the store in 1977, opened a sister cafe in Greenville and runs the retail shop Low Carb Connoisseur online. "I haven't seen anyone who is truly a low-carb follower who gives any credence to this at all."

At Carb Cops, a low-carb superstore in Redondo Beach, Calif., owner Sean Williams says the news has given pause only to "newbies" on low-carb diets. "It wasn't really a surprise to anybody in the industry," says Williams, who has lost 35 pounds in two years. "We were familiar with Dr. Atkins and knew he had heart problems unrelated to the diet."

Atkins died in April after falling on ice and injuring his head. A copy of the medical examiner's report was mistakenly released to the vegetarian advocacy group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and the contents first reported in the Wall Street Journal. After the story, the Atkins Physicians Council, a group of doctors paid to provide guidance and education about the diet, said Atkins had gained more than 60 pounds from fluid retention in the eight days he was in a coma before dying. Council chairman Stuart Trager said that Atkins's weight varied from 180 to 195 pounds before he was admitted to the hospital and that his heart ailment was a previously diagnosed cardiomyopathy thought to be the result of a viral infection.

Not long ago, the Atkins Diet was considered a bizarre, even dangerous fad. Most low-carbers all but stop eating bread, pasta, potatoes, sugars, fruits, starchy vegetables and other standard carbohydrates, and favor diets dominated by meats, dairy products and other high-protein and high-fat foods.

Low-carb momentum picked up speed as more research over the past few years seemed to validate it as a healthy alternative to conventional-wisdom pyramid eating. Now an estimated 35 million Americans have bought into one low-carb orientation or another. The low-carb Bible -- "Dr. Atkins's New Diet Revolution" -- sells at a rate to rival Harry Potter. And low-carb momentum has launched a national marketing trend seen in new low-carb magazines, online support groups, low-carb dishes added to restaurant menus, and low-carb products in stores.

But at the belly of the phenomenon is the low-carb community of Atkins devotees who share enthusiasm for the "low-carb way of life," or the LC WOL, as they call it. And the true believers are not panicking at the week's news.

"Quite the opposite. They are angry and upset," says Lora Ruffner, editor in chief of the online Low-Carb Luxury Magazine, who has lost 156 pounds in five years. "We're changing the world and things like this cannot stop us."

On the online forum Talking Low Carbs yesterday, besides the usual chattering about no-crust pizza and low-carb alcoholic drinks, one forum member posted the story about Atkins. Another poster wrote: "Lies, lies and more lies," and said she saw Atkins on television weeks before his death and "no way did he appear obese or overweight to me!"

Another low-carb disciple posted: "In my book, he was ill, not obese. Being bloated and ill is not the same thing as not being ill and being obese. I think 'we' know the difference." Still another ended a message with "Chin up y'all -- sticks and stones and all that!"

The bottom line for most low-carb devotees is that their personal experience confirms the success of the low-carb lifestyle, says Betsy Gartrell-Judd, a co-owner and executive editor of Low Carb Energy Magazine, scheduled to premiere in May. "It's going to take a pretty convincing report to convince them that lower cholesterol and less weight is bad for them."

She says that among the low-carb community, there has been more indignation than panic over the report. "People feel like their intelligence has been insulted," she says. "If the man actually died of a low-carb diet, you better have your ducks in a row before you expect us to buy into that."

Outsider snickering has also annoyed them. Denigrators online and in newspaper headlines are calling the diet doctor "Fatkins." And an online poster, referring to Atkins being injured falling on an icy street, spoofed a current TV ad promoting low-carb dining: "It's okay. He was on his way from Subway."

An online donnybrook broke out yesterday on alt.support.diet.low-carb, a diet newsgroup, when a doubting poster asked: "Is this proof enough?"

One reply: "This article was written by PETA fanatics to try and discredit Atkins and is mostly bunk." To which another person retorted: "Your fat heads are in the sand."

But carb-cutting cultists find little humor in what they consider the latest attack from critics. The word "conspiracy" hangs heavy in the thin air of low-carb country.

"The article has strengthened those who are anti-low-carb -- they are really going after this with a vengeance," says Regina Schumann, chief operating officer of the nonprofit Carbohydrate Awareness Council, a Falls Church-based group formed in November to support the scientific basis of low-carb nutrition.

CAC President Gil Wilshire, an endocrinologist, thinks that until the preponderance of scientific evidence validates low-carb nutrition, antagonists will spread rumors and some people will worry.

"Yeah, people are sheeple," says Wilshire, who calls carb-cutting not a diet but a "paradigm shift in nutrition understanding" that ultimately will change how everyone eats. "In the long run, this report is just a blip."