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This is key: Mayo's Thompson counters. He points out that data supporting the ketogenic diet in cancer are limited — and further that rigorous dietary studies a

by themgt 11y ago

This is key: Mayo's Thompson counters. He points out that data supporting the ketogenic diet in cancer are limited — and further that rigorous dietary studies are incredibly hard to pull off. "The drug companies aren't going to fund these types of trials," he says. "They can't make money marketing a diet." I would highly recommend people do their own research into nutrition and its relation to health, along with the proven/likely/possible health benefits of various plants, spices and dietary patterns. The fact is, our Big Pharma/FDA/IP-driven approach to medicine makes it almost impossible to test and profit off something like garlic, or a low glycemic index diet or intermittent fasting or turmeric or fruit and fiber or astragalus, etc. The necessary research is just not occurring, because corporate/govt $ are poured into finding synthetic, patentable compounds to target specific problems after they occur. General lifestyle/nutrition advice to prevent/mitigate a huge spectrum of issues that occur as we age? Ain't no money in that science. Blatantly obvious how the same thing occurs w/ psychotropic compounds, with millions being poured into synthetic cannabinoids, opiates, serotonergics, etc. almost all of which are medically inferior to and more dangerous than the natural compounds they mimic. The system is not designed around efficacy, but patentability.

jostmey 11y ago
While there are many problems with how research is funded, the NIH and NSF grants awarded to University's and their professors are not biased toward business friendly solutions to diseases, at least as far as I could see during my years in an academic setting. There has been plenty of research on how dieting increases longevity, and reduces the propensity to catch various diseases such as cancer.
nostromo 11y ago
I really liked these two charts to explore what foods and supplements are worth considering: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-oil-supplements/ http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-o... http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-oil-superfoods/ http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-o...
- henrikschroder 11y ago
  That's a pretty cool visualization! I only wish you could search or highlight a single compound to see how effective it is against a range of symptoms.
jszymborski 11y ago
>The fact is, our Big Pharma/FDA/IP-driven approach to medicine makes it almost impossible to test and profit off something like garlic, or a low glycemic index diet or intermittent fasting or turmeric or fruit and fiber or astragalus, etc. That's patently false. The vast majority of cancer funding does not come from industry or private interests, but from government or non-profit sources. If I can convince my PI that garlic or a low glycemic index diet can improve survival outcomes in an inducible cancer mouse model, then I'd be grinding garlic and putting mice on starvation diets for the next 2 years.
- refurb 11y ago
  You're both wrong. Most drugs comes from private companies, not public institutions. It's about a 2/3 private and 1/3 public split. Note, that's discovery, not development. Private companies almost exclusively bring discoveries to market. Second, yes, if garlic cured cancer drug companies could make money off of it. Isolate the active compounds, optimize it for efficacy and patent it. Kind of what they've already done for antibiotics, antifungals, anticholesterols and anticancer drugs. It's nothing new.
  - jszymborski 11y ago
    Public institutions wouldn't necessarily find a druggable small molecule, but every last step up until that point is almost assuredly being funded by the public. That'd include verifying that diets rich in garlic or what have you have an affect on overall survival. My point still stands, private funding is not the bottle-neck. If garlic or low glycemic index diets actually made a difference in overall survival, it would mostly likely be discovered in a publicly funded institution. A private institution would then jump on the opportunity to "discover" and develop a small molecule that is suitable for drugging and IP'ing based on the findings of the public lab.
    - chii 11y ago
      What if the effects are not based on one active compound, but on a complex mix which could be rather chaotic, but an experienced practitioner could devise a treatment, but a drug company can't easily pinpoint a one size fits all formulae?
forgetsusername 11y ago
>"They can't make money marketing a diet." I think history has proven they can make money marketing anything. I thought this was the land of entrepreneurship?
saiya-jin 11y ago
big pharma will do what their management and owners force them to do. surprisingly, unlike all other companies in this world, they want to make money and somehow they are in everybody's health business... as for good advices - i don't think anybody literate in this world doesn't know that being active and doing sports is a massive net benefit to individual. same goes for generally healthy diet - vegetables, fruit, not eating too much, limit sweet stuff and so on. yet when I look around, I see people trying to blame others, blame evil corps, doing a lot of similar mental work except the very thing that everybody knows is healthy - or why isn't everybody who is able regularly exercising? if I give up on my body, mkay that's called freedom, but damn I won't go around and try to blame corn industry of some crazy conspiracy (even if there would be one). I am the one shopping for food, and healthy in supermarkets ain't so expensive. In fact, many times it's dirt cheap. until somebody forces my hand to pay for the food i don't want to eat and forces it down my throat, we are free in our choices, and it's only our responsibility to make them as good as possible.
atomical 11y ago
People with serious illnesses like depression aren't taking natural compounds because they aren't effective and they don't work. It's interesting that the comment that is most conspiracy driven is voted to the top.
afarrell 11y ago
> I highly recommend people do their own research into nutrition Where do I get the massive amounts of money I would need to run a valid nutrition study? Or do you mean reading papers? How do I, without the time to get a degree, sort through all of the literature of a field where it seems even experts cannot agree?
Gatsky 11y ago
I notice you didn't include anti-oxidants in your list of things it is impossible to test, because of the mounting evidence that they A) do nothing and B) have a plausible mechanism to be harmful. It's not Pharma or the FDA. Why would a company selling garlic extract want to run a trial to prove that their one product doesn't work? The number of people using it would probably barely increase if the result is positive, and if the result is negative they will go out of business.
mtgx 11y ago
> General lifestyle/nutrition advice to prevent/mitigate a huge spectrum of issues that occur as we age? Ain't no money in that science. If the US had single-payer healthcare, the focus likely would be much more on prevention, because that would mean the government would get to directly save more money on healthcare. It would also encourage the government to put more money into research that the private pharma companies aren't doing, like you said.

by themgt 11y ago

jostmey 11y ago

While there are many problems with how research is funded, the NIH and NSF grants awarded to University's and their professors are not biased toward business friendly solutions to diseases, at least as far as I could see during my years in an academic setting. There has been plenty of research on how dieting increases longevity, and reduces the propensity to catch various diseases such as cancer.

nostromo 11y ago

I really liked these two charts to explore what foods and supplements are worth considering: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-oil-supplements/ http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-o... http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-oil-superfoods/ http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-o...

henrikschroder 11y ago
That's a pretty cool visualization! I only wish you could search or highlight a single compound to see how effective it is against a range of symptoms.

jszymborski 11y ago

>The fact is, our Big Pharma/FDA/IP-driven approach to medicine makes it almost impossible to test and profit off something like garlic, or a low glycemic index diet or intermittent fasting or turmeric or fruit and fiber or astragalus, etc. That's patently false. The vast majority of cancer funding does not come from industry or private interests, but from government or non-profit sources. If I can convince my PI that garlic or a low glycemic index diet can improve survival outcomes in an inducible cancer mouse model, then I'd be grinding garlic and putting mice on starvation diets for the next 2 years.

refurb 11y ago
You're both wrong. Most drugs comes from private companies, not public institutions. It's about a 2/3 private and 1/3 public split. Note, that's discovery, not development. Private companies almost exclusively bring discoveries to market. Second, yes, if garlic cured cancer drug companies could make money off of it. Isolate the active compounds, optimize it for efficacy and patent it. Kind of what they've already done for antibiotics, antifungals, anticholesterols and anticancer drugs. It's nothing new.
- jszymborski 11y ago
  Public institutions wouldn't necessarily find a druggable small molecule, but every last step up until that point is almost assuredly being funded by the public. That'd include verifying that diets rich in garlic or what have you have an affect on overall survival. My point still stands, private funding is not the bottle-neck. If garlic or low glycemic index diets actually made a difference in overall survival, it would mostly likely be discovered in a publicly funded institution. A private institution would then jump on the opportunity to "discover" and develop a small molecule that is suitable for drugging and IP'ing based on the findings of the public lab.
  - chii 11y ago
    What if the effects are not based on one active compound, but on a complex mix which could be rather chaotic, but an experienced practitioner could devise a treatment, but a drug company can't easily pinpoint a one size fits all formulae?

forgetsusername 11y ago

>"They can't make money marketing a diet." I think history has proven they can make money marketing anything. I thought this was the land of entrepreneurship?

saiya-jin 11y ago

big pharma will do what their management and owners force them to do. surprisingly, unlike all other companies in this world, they want to make money and somehow they are in everybody's health business... as for good advices - i don't think anybody literate in this world doesn't know that being active and doing sports is a massive net benefit to individual. same goes for generally healthy diet - vegetables, fruit, not eating too much, limit sweet stuff and so on. yet when I look around, I see people trying to blame others, blame evil corps, doing a lot of similar mental work except the very thing that everybody knows is healthy - or why isn't everybody who is able regularly exercising? if I give up on my body, mkay that's called freedom, but damn I won't go around and try to blame corn industry of some crazy conspiracy (even if there would be one). I am the one shopping for food, and healthy in supermarkets ain't so expensive. In fact, many times it's dirt cheap. until somebody forces my hand to pay for the food i don't want to eat and forces it down my throat, we are free in our choices, and it's only our responsibility to make them as good as possible.

atomical 11y ago

People with serious illnesses like depression aren't taking natural compounds because they aren't effective and they don't work. It's interesting that the comment that is most conspiracy driven is voted to the top.

afarrell 11y ago

> I highly recommend people do their own research into nutrition Where do I get the massive amounts of money I would need to run a valid nutrition study? Or do you mean reading papers? How do I, without the time to get a degree, sort through all of the literature of a field where it seems even experts cannot agree?

Gatsky 11y ago

I notice you didn't include anti-oxidants in your list of things it is impossible to test, because of the mounting evidence that they A) do nothing and B) have a plausible mechanism to be harmful. It's not Pharma or the FDA. Why would a company selling garlic extract want to run a trial to prove that their one product doesn't work? The number of people using it would probably barely increase if the result is positive, and if the result is negative they will go out of business.

mtgx 11y ago

> General lifestyle/nutrition advice to prevent/mitigate a huge spectrum of issues that occur as we age? Ain't no money in that science. If the US had single-payer healthcare, the focus likely would be much more on prevention, because that would mean the government would get to directly save more money on healthcare. It would also encourage the government to put more money into research that the private pharma companies aren't doing, like you said.