5 ms·

I Gave Up Gluten, Sugar, Dairy, And Coffee (2017)

33 points by Reedx 7y ago

hprotagonist 7y ago
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-032013-182351 https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-publh... Diet is established among the most important influences on health in modern societies. Injudicious diet figures among the leading causes of premature death and chronic disease. Optimal eating is associated with increased life expectancy, dramatic reduction in lifetime risk of all chronic disease, and amelioration of gene expression. In this context, claims abound for the competitive merits of various diets relative to one another. Whereas such claims, particularly when attached to commercial interests, emphasize distinctions, the fundamentals of virtually all eating patterns associated with meaningful evidence of health benefit overlap substantially. There have been no rigorous, long-term studies comparing contenders for best diet laurels using methodology that precludes bias and confounding, and for many reasons such studies are unlikely. In the absence of such direct comparisons, claims for the established superiority of any one specific diet over others are exaggerated. The weight of evidence strongly supports a theme of healthful eating while allowing for variations on that theme. A diet of minimally processed foods close to nature, predominantly plants, is decisively associated with health promotion and disease prevention and is consistent with the salient components of seemingly distinct dietary approaches. Efforts to improve public health through diet are forestalled not for want of knowledge about the optimal feeding of Homo sapiens but for distractions associated with exaggerated claims, and our failure to convert what we reliably know into what we routinely do. Knowledge in this case is not, as of yet, power; would that it were so.
- mcguire 7y ago
  "Can we say what diet is best for health? If diet denotes a very specific set of rigid principles, then even this necessarily limited representation of a vast literature is more than sufficient to answer with a decisive no. If, however, by diet we mean a more general dietary pattern, a less rigid set of guiding principles, the answer reverts to an equally decisive yes. "The aggregation of evidence in support of (a) diets comprising preferentially minimally processed foods direct from nature and food made up of such ingredients, (b) diets comprising mostly plants, and (c) diets in which animal foods are themselves the products, directly or ultimately, of pure plant foods—the composition of animal flesh and milk is as much influenced by diet as we are (31)—is noteworthy for its breadth, depth, diversity of methods, and consistency of findings. The case that we should, indeed, eat true food, mostly plants, is all but incontrovertible. Perhaps fortuitously, this same dietary theme offers considerable advantages to other species, the environment around us, and even the ecology within us (136)."
mister_hn 7y ago
Maybe cut also on happiness?
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  It's amazing how you can shift your own baseline and preferences, like going from craving donuts to craving a bowl of frozen strawberries as your only vice. Sure, it comes at the expense of short-term happiness. But I'd also wager that the average dough-body on HN isn't the key to long-term happiness either.
spzb 7y ago
So basically, she started to eat a healthier diet and felt better for it. Quite how she managed to eat fruit without any sugar is of more interest.
- djohnston 7y ago
  Yes what is this magical sugar free fruit?! XD
  - amelius 7y ago
    Perhaps they put the fruit in a jar with some yeast, let it ferment so the sugar converts to alcohol + CO2?
  - guerrilla 7y ago
    Nuts :)
  - throwaway744678 7y ago
    Perhaps a Juicero product?
- amriksohata 7y ago
  Natural sugars have a completely different effect on your body than refined sugars, plus the fibre in the fruits digests the sugar slower
  - spzb 7y ago
    a: [citation needed] and b: the article title and opening paragraphs specifically say she gave up sugar
    - hombre_fatal 7y ago
      People almost always are referring to added sugar when they talk about dietary sugar. If anybody told me they were weening themselves off sugar, I would expect them to continue eating fruit unless stated otherwise. In fact I'd probably expect them to eat more of it as they're trying to make more healthy choices, and I wouldn't consider them inconsistent with their stated goals given what we tend to refer to when we say "sugar." I get HN/reddit's obsession with haha-gotcha snickering, but c'mon. Also, consider googling "sugar in fruit" to find info about fruit vs sugar: https://nutritionfacts.org/2016/08/09/what-about-all-the-sugar-in-fruit/ https://nutritionfacts.org/2016/08/09/what-about-all-the-sug... It's very interesting and surprising. For example: "Adding berries can actually blunt the insulin spike from high glycemic foods. For example, white bread creates a big insulin spike within two hours after eating it. Eat that same white bread with some berries, though, and we’re able to blunt the spike. So, even though we’ve effectively added more sugars in the form of berries, there’s less of an insulin spike, which has a variety of potential short and long-term benefits."
mcguire 7y ago
That's funny. I gave up on Fast Company, and I've never felt better.
- ttul 7y ago
  The ultimate diet!
jasonhansel 7y ago
Don't take diet advice from an uncontrolled study with n = 1. Especially if it blames unspecified toxins without providing evidence. Losing 6 pounds in 10 days is roughly double the maximum rate of weight loss recommended by the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/losing_weight/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/losing_weight/index.html
- leetbulb 7y ago
  Yes. I've worked in the advertising industry for almost ten years. As soon as I see the word "Detox" it raises enough red flags to wonder why my DNS-BL didn't already block the entire site.
- klodolph 7y ago
  6 pounds in 10 days may be dominated by e.g. water retention levels changing due to changes in sodium intake. Unsafe to maintain that rate of weight loss long-term but it might just be safer, short-term effects. Like you said, N=1 and short-term study, basically worthless.
- orasis 7y ago
  6 lbs in 10 days is trivial if the person is retaining water due to systemic inflammation. Cutting out the sugars often immediately reduces inflammation.
dabbledash 7y ago
My condolences
- timbit42 7y ago
  Once you shake the sugar habit, you will feel so much better that you will have no desire to return to it.
  - mcguire 7y ago
    In fact, you realize that the only joy in life is converting others to sugarlessness.
    - gHosts 7y ago
      Actually, once you're over the addiction to sugar.... * Sugar tastes rotten. Seriously, it's tastes like somebody put something that's gone off in your coffee. * Fat tastes sweet. I use cream in my coffee, don't miss sugar anymore. * The supermarket sugar aisle smells like a gas station. Seriously. I don't miss sugar, it wasn't really adding joy to my life. It was mostly adding dentists bills. My brother once lived in a very hot dry climate and had access to unlimited Coca cola sugary drinks.... within in weeks he had fattened like a bloody pig. It was amazing. He now has type 2 diabetes. :-( I don't miss gluten either, pizza's used to cause excruciating pain.... I now just eat the topping and throw the base away. All the taste, none of the pain.
sdinsn 7y ago
There is no such thing as a "detox". Flagged for spreading unscientific BS.

33 points by Reedx 7y ago

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-032013-182351 https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-publh... Diet is established among the most important influences on health in modern societies. Injudicious diet figures among the leading causes of premature death and chronic disease. Optimal eating is associated with increased life expectancy, dramatic reduction in lifetime risk of all chronic disease, and amelioration of gene expression. In this context, claims abound for the competitive merits of various diets relative to one another. Whereas such claims, particularly when attached to commercial interests, emphasize distinctions, the fundamentals of virtually all eating patterns associated with meaningful evidence of health benefit overlap substantially. There have been no rigorous, long-term studies comparing contenders for best diet laurels using methodology that precludes bias and confounding, and for many reasons such studies are unlikely. In the absence of such direct comparisons, claims for the established superiority of any one specific diet over others are exaggerated. The weight of evidence strongly supports a theme of healthful eating while allowing for variations on that theme. A diet of minimally processed foods close to nature, predominantly plants, is decisively associated with health promotion and disease prevention and is consistent with the salient components of seemingly distinct dietary approaches. Efforts to improve public health through diet are forestalled not for want of knowledge about the optimal feeding of Homo sapiens but for distractions associated with exaggerated claims, and our failure to convert what we reliably know into what we routinely do. Knowledge in this case is not, as of yet, power; would that it were so.

mcguire 7y ago
"Can we say what diet is best for health? If diet denotes a very specific set of rigid principles, then even this necessarily limited representation of a vast literature is more than sufficient to answer with a decisive no. If, however, by diet we mean a more general dietary pattern, a less rigid set of guiding principles, the answer reverts to an equally decisive yes. "The aggregation of evidence in support of (a) diets comprising preferentially minimally processed foods direct from nature and food made up of such ingredients, (b) diets comprising mostly plants, and (c) diets in which animal foods are themselves the products, directly or ultimately, of pure plant foods—the composition of animal flesh and milk is as much influenced by diet as we are (31)—is noteworthy for its breadth, depth, diversity of methods, and consistency of findings. The case that we should, indeed, eat true food, mostly plants, is all but incontrovertible. Perhaps fortuitously, this same dietary theme offers considerable advantages to other species, the environment around us, and even the ecology within us (136)."

mister_hn 7y ago

Maybe cut also on happiness?

hombre_fatal 7y ago
It's amazing how you can shift your own baseline and preferences, like going from craving donuts to craving a bowl of frozen strawberries as your only vice. Sure, it comes at the expense of short-term happiness. But I'd also wager that the average dough-body on HN isn't the key to long-term happiness either.

spzb 7y ago

So basically, she started to eat a healthier diet and felt better for it. Quite how she managed to eat fruit without any sugar is of more interest.

djohnston 7y ago
Yes what is this magical sugar free fruit?! XD
- amelius 7y ago
  Perhaps they put the fruit in a jar with some yeast, let it ferment so the sugar converts to alcohol + CO2?
- guerrilla 7y ago
  Nuts :)
- throwaway744678 7y ago
  Perhaps a Juicero product?
amriksohata 7y ago
Natural sugars have a completely different effect on your body than refined sugars, plus the fibre in the fruits digests the sugar slower
- spzb 7y ago
  a: [citation needed] and b: the article title and opening paragraphs specifically say she gave up sugar
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    People almost always are referring to added sugar when they talk about dietary sugar. If anybody told me they were weening themselves off sugar, I would expect them to continue eating fruit unless stated otherwise. In fact I'd probably expect them to eat more of it as they're trying to make more healthy choices, and I wouldn't consider them inconsistent with their stated goals given what we tend to refer to when we say "sugar." I get HN/reddit's obsession with haha-gotcha snickering, but c'mon. Also, consider googling "sugar in fruit" to find info about fruit vs sugar: https://nutritionfacts.org/2016/08/09/what-about-all-the-sugar-in-fruit/ https://nutritionfacts.org/2016/08/09/what-about-all-the-sug... It's very interesting and surprising. For example: "Adding berries can actually blunt the insulin spike from high glycemic foods. For example, white bread creates a big insulin spike within two hours after eating it. Eat that same white bread with some berries, though, and we’re able to blunt the spike. So, even though we’ve effectively added more sugars in the form of berries, there’s less of an insulin spike, which has a variety of potential short and long-term benefits."

mcguire 7y ago

That's funny. I gave up on Fast Company, and I've never felt better.

ttul 7y ago
The ultimate diet!

jasonhansel 7y ago

Don't take diet advice from an uncontrolled study with n = 1. Especially if it blames unspecified toxins without providing evidence. Losing 6 pounds in 10 days is roughly double the maximum rate of weight loss recommended by the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/losing_weight/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/losing_weight/index.html

leetbulb 7y ago
Yes. I've worked in the advertising industry for almost ten years. As soon as I see the word "Detox" it raises enough red flags to wonder why my DNS-BL didn't already block the entire site.
klodolph 7y ago
6 pounds in 10 days may be dominated by e.g. water retention levels changing due to changes in sodium intake. Unsafe to maintain that rate of weight loss long-term but it might just be safer, short-term effects. Like you said, N=1 and short-term study, basically worthless.
orasis 7y ago
6 lbs in 10 days is trivial if the person is retaining water due to systemic inflammation. Cutting out the sugars often immediately reduces inflammation.

dabbledash 7y ago

My condolences

timbit42 7y ago
Once you shake the sugar habit, you will feel so much better that you will have no desire to return to it.
- mcguire 7y ago
  In fact, you realize that the only joy in life is converting others to sugarlessness.
  - gHosts 7y ago
    Actually, once you're over the addiction to sugar.... * Sugar tastes rotten. Seriously, it's tastes like somebody put something that's gone off in your coffee. * Fat tastes sweet. I use cream in my coffee, don't miss sugar anymore. * The supermarket sugar aisle smells like a gas station. Seriously. I don't miss sugar, it wasn't really adding joy to my life. It was mostly adding dentists bills. My brother once lived in a very hot dry climate and had access to unlimited Coca cola sugary drinks.... within in weeks he had fattened like a bloody pig. It was amazing. He now has type 2 diabetes. :-( I don't miss gluten either, pizza's used to cause excruciating pain.... I now just eat the topping and throw the base away. All the taste, none of the pain.

sdinsn 7y ago

There is no such thing as a "detox". Flagged for spreading unscientific BS.