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2016 Nobel prize was awarded to Yoshinori [0] for his work on Autophagy [1] - Cells eating dead cells and auto-correcting body functions when there is lack of c
by crudbug 10y ago
2016 Nobel prize was awarded to Yoshinori [0] for his work on Autophagy [1] - Cells eating dead cells and auto-correcting body functions when there is lack of calories/energy in the system.
Ancient philosophy also says about fasting 2 days a week. The Autophagy process provides a scientific foundation for those claims.
[0] https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2016/press.html https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autophagy
- bykovich 10y agoTo what ancient philosophy are you referring?
- crudbug 10y agoI had the Hindu philosophy of fasting [0] in mind. [0] http://www.yogamag.net/archives/1981/emay81/hindu.shtml http://www.yogamag.net/archives/1981/emay81/hindu.shtml
- FabHK 10y agoI don't think one should give any credence to those ancient theories. Greek philosopher Democritus came up with the theory of atoms, but it was a lucky guess without any evidence at the time.
- bykovich 10y agoYeah, no one before 1600 knew anything. Thousands of years of compounded experience? Just straight-up garbage.
- literallycancer 10y agoThousands years of experience, and yet medical practitioners wouldn't wash their hands less than two centuries ago. 'Ancient' is a meme, just like 'natural' or 'eastern'.
- bykovich 10y agoThis statement bears no logical relation to mine. Who is arguing that we should adopt beliefs solely on their characterization as "ancient"?
- aleeds 10y agoAll he is saying, and this is a good point, is that the long time use of something isn't indicative of it being good for you. Going to church has been around for 2000 years too, that doesn't mean that it's healthy, it's just something people do.
- msandford 10y agoI know, right?! I mean who needs chairs. They've been in use forever and yet not a single double blinded study, nevermind one which shows benefits.
- literallycancer 10y agoFunny that you would bring up chairs. Originally, other pieces of furniture were used for sitting. The chair has been used since antiquity, although for many centuries it was a symbolic article of state and dignity rather than an article for ordinary use.[1] 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chair#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chair#History
- ehoogland 10y agoI see the point, but your example is unfortunate. It turns out it is healthy/protective to go to church (and thus have a large support system) in both the current research and the earlier research that under-reported atheists/non-theists.
- literallycancer 10y ago>Thousands of years of compounded experience? This makes it seem like you ascribe some qualities to old ideas, because they are old. E.g. it's old, so it must have been tried many times and determined to be better than other ideas.
- dwaltrip 10y agoThat compounded experience was not useless garbage, it directly led us to our far more informed state today. A very small percentage of this old knowledge is still "as best as we can do", I would guess. But we have made vast improvements on almost all segments of knowledge.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago>"That compounded experience was not useless garbage" I'm fairly confident that bykovich was being sarcastic.
- dwaltrip 10y agoI'm targeting the strawman argument. Ancient knowledge has played an important role in us reaching great heights, but we should eye it skeptically, and recognize the things we have learned since then. I probably could have made that clearer in my post.
- ZenoArrow 10y agohttp://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/sarcasm http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/sarcasm It's not a strawman argument if you don't mean what you say.
- dwaltrip 10y agoFair enough, my use of the term strawman doesn't really work. I mainly felt the sarcasm was over the top and uncharitable. Fortunately, some good discussion resulted in the follow-up comments, so perhaps it was actually well placed.
- kevin_thibedeau 10y ago100 years ago there were people who still believed in the miasma theory of disease. The scope of human understanding of physiology and nutrition was straight up garbage before the modern era.
- c54 10y agoI'm not sure this is a real counterpoint: with no microscopes or tools, they figured out airborne infections and learned to stay away from dead and rotting things, as well as gases emitted by those who were sick (the same way we're not walking around inhaling peoples' coughs). Of course it's "almost correct", and the theory had holes which we've gotten better at. But the old 'wrong' version gave people a good way to act when faced with limited knowledge. In the diet arena, we are still very much faced with limited knowledge.
- djtriptych 10y agoSo what of the modern illumination of the health benefits of ancient techniques like meditation and yoga? You're saying don't practice until we're 100% sure they're beneficial? Can that even actually happen?
- FabHK 10y agoNot everything that was done thousands of years ago is bad, like for example eating and sleeping and exercise. But of course we should judge practices by today's knowledge and evidence (though informed by a historical perspective). Ancient techniques like crucification and pederasty and slavery and infanticide are, quite rightly, considered passé. My main point was that we should a) not look to ancient texts for profound insights. (Note that it's perfectly fine to read ancient texts for entertainment or research or the historical perspective.) Even philosophy has advanced over time. b) not fall into the trap of ascribing some profound wisdom to ancient thinkers that (on no basis) happened to get something right, like Democritus and his atomic theory. Would you go to Democritus writings for advice on string theory or energy policy or climate change? If tomorrow it is found that the shrimps near Canton province are polluted with heavy metals, should we triumphantly open the bible and point to Leviticus, who admonished us that "And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you."
- djtriptych 10y agolol @ conflating meditation and yoga with slavery and infanticide. Hard to take the rest of this seriously. Look at all texts with skepticism and practice reflective equilibrium, sure. That includes all modern texts.
- FabHK 10y agoI chose these simple, extreme examples to avoid being misunderstood again, because you brought up a complete straw man ("You're saying don't practice until we're 100% sure they're beneficial?") when I said nothing of that sort, so I assumed you might have a certain proclivity for misunderstanding things. Looks like I was right. Needless to say, I am not conflating yoga and slavery, just highlighting that both were prevalent millennia ago, thus demonstrating that this fact alone is not strongly indicative of something being good.
- crudbug 10y agoTotally agree. My point was Autophagy, sort of provides the scientific foundation for benefits of fasting.
- nradov 10y agoIf you look hard enough and squint a little you can always find some ancient philosopher or physician whose writings appear to support whatever you want. But it's just meaningless confirmation bias. People are seeing what they want to see.
- wtbob 10y agoOrthodox Christians also fast two days a week (Wednesday & Friday) most weeks of the year, and for a number of other times, totalling about half the year.
- AlexeyBrin 10y agoSame goes for Eastern Orthodox Christianity if you can accept that religion is form of ancient philosophy, usually Tuesday and Friday are considered fasting days.
- treehau5 10y agoWednesday + Friday * Also this is an extension of the Jewish tradition of fasting on Tuesday/Thursday. AFAIK, the only reason the Church changed it was simply to distinguish themselves from the Jews during the height of the Judiazing heresey.
- athenot 10y agoFriday fasting is a remembrance—and to a certain extent, identification—with the cruxifiction. Mild discomfort to commemorate a much stronger act of self-denial. It's documented as early as the 3rd century by Clement of Alexandria (Stromata VI.75) but as you point out it's a logical extension of a practice that was integrat to the Jewish tradition.
- Mikeb85 10y agoWednesday fasting is to remember the betrayal of Jesus by Judas. Friday fasting to remember the Crucifixion. And of course there's fasting periods as well as weeks you don't fast at all. Monastics also fast an extra day of the week (Mondays), in addition to eating a more restrictive diet in general.
- gaza3g 10y agoFor Muslims, it is recommended to fast on Mondays and Thursdays. Also for the whole month of Ramadan every year.
- miketery 10y agoIt's not the whole month. It's during day light for a month. Which basically means eat once a day.
- YSFEJ4SWJUVU6 10y agoOr twice if you wake up early I guess. Funny that with all the wisdom you'd think a deity possessed, he made the deal pretty bad for those followers who live in the very northern latitudes and happen to be born in the wrong century. Not eating for an entire month (or even a week) is extreme in itself, but not drinking anything either is just impossible. Or maybe Muslims were not intended to come and live here.. :-)
- dvt 10y ago> Funny that with all the wisdom you'd think a deity possessed, he made the deal pretty bad for those followers who live in the very northern latitudes and happen to be born in the wrong century. Not eating for an entire month (or even a week) is extreme in itself, but not drinking anything either is just impossible. Not sure if you're just trolling or being a typical reddit atheist jackass, but Muslims have adapted Ramadan at latitudes that the sun never rises (or sets) by using the times of a city or country where there's a clear and distinguishable difference between day and night. Not only that, but the entire point of fasting isn't the exact time that one is fasting, but the meaning behind it. I'm not even a Muslim, but playing these kinds of logical "gotchas" with religious texts that were written centuries ago is just dumb.
- broahmed 10y agoJust gonna add to what dvt said: the Islamic calendar is based on the lunar calendar. Unlike some other lunar calendars, the Islamic one doesn't add/intercalate days into the calendar to make the lunar months align with the solar months. The lunar year is about 11 days shorter than the solar year, so the month of Ramadan (in which Muslims fast from food, drink, and intercourse during daylight hours for one month) actually moves "back" 11 days each year. Every ~16.5 solar years, the month of Ramadan has effectively moved half a year. All of this translates into much shorter fasts for those of us further north/south when Ramadan falls in the winter. I live in Seattle; being decently north, the Ramadan fasts are long in the summer (~18 hours) and super short in the winter (~10.5 hours). These days, Ramadan falls around June so the fasts are long but in ~16.5 years they'll be short again. Another factor to take into account: the further north/south you are, the milder the summers tend to be, so fasting is a cakewalk compared to what Muhammad and his followers had to deal with. I'll take an 18-hour fast in mild Seattle weather to a 15-hour fast in the deserts of Arabia any day. Even today, Muslim farmers work in the baking heat of an equatorial sun while fasting during Ramadan. And these folks aren't sitting in air-conditioned tractors; they're working the fields by hand, far too poor to afford the machinery considered standard by farmers in the developed world. And before you get worried, those who are too old or sick to fast are excused from it. Anyways, I'm not attacking you. I can understand how impossible it must seem to someone who isn't Muslim. But it really isn't that difficult, especially if your job consists of sitting in a comfy chair in a climate-controlled classroom/office. We have lots of non-Muslims who fast with us from time to time during Ramadan; give it a try and I think you'll be surprised with what you can do when you put your mind to it.
- lottin 10y agoIt's interesting that William S. Burroughs already came up with this theory back in 1953, in his book Junkie, I think.
- amelius 10y ago> fasting 2 days a week. I don't know about you guys, but if I don't eat breakfast and lunch, I get a headache in the afternoon, and have serious problems concentrating, and very little energy. My conclusion is that either I am doing something wrong, or intermittent fasting only works if one stays in bed the whole day.
- lawless123 10y agoThat's a sugar hunger.
- qntty 10y ago1. Stay hydrated 2. Your body will get used to fasting if you do it repeatedly and it will become effortless (this from personal experience so I might be doing something different without realizing)
- aedron 10y agoAt least in the case of ramadan fasting, the difference is that you eat (and drink) nothing at all from waking up until night. This way the digestion system never gets started, the stomach kind of just shrivels up and you never actually feel much hunger. Incidentally, Islamic practice is to fast two days of the week too (outside of the month of ramadan).
- amelius 10y agoThe stomach is not the problem. I can easily ignore it if I put my mind on something else. What I can't ignore is having a pile of work on my desk and absolutely zero energy available to get it done.