9 ms·

I hope we get more research and recommendations regarding this. It'd be great for young (and old) men to have the information they need to make good decisions.

mrtweetyhack 7y ago
This won't change men one bit
ChuckNorris89 7y ago
I don't think it takes more research to know you should be treating yourself well physically and mentally, eat well, sleep well, go outdoor and exercise, eliminate stress factors and don't consume drugs or alcohol.
- wtetzner 7y ago
  Eating well is not straight forward, there's a lot of misinformation out there.
  - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
    Well, depends. If you want to look like Thor, then yes, nutrition is complicated. If you just want to stay in decent shape and be healthy it's not really that hard. Let me summarize it: 1. Don't eat processed food !!!! 2. Limit your portions to the size of a medium plate(don't stack it though) 3. Eat your green vegetables. No need to count calories either, just split your plate in 3 roughly evenly sized slices: 1st should be protein(chicken breast, fish, eggs, low fat mozzarella or cottage cheese for example) 2nd should be starchy carbs(pasta, rice or potatoes for example) 3rd should be fibrous carbs(broccoli, spinach or bell peppers for example) and lastly you can add a little healthy fats like a fist full of nuts, a slice of avocado or a few table spoons of olive oil(men need this healthy fat for testosterone production). And you can play around with this like increasing the ratio of the starchy carb slice for breakfast/lunch for more energy during your evening workout and increase the ratio of the protein slice for dinner for better muscle recovery after your workout.
    - eikenberry 7y ago
      > 1. Don't eat processed food !!!! This has become all but meaningless as what it means to be processed varies so much and has come to include almost anything. You mention pasta, yet many definitions include flour as being processed. I've seen it go so far as defining anything with salt added as processed (even by you right before you eat it). What is a reasonable definition of processed food that you can actually use when shopping?
      - forgotmypw 7y ago
        Something that has been mushed up from its original form to the point of being unrecognizable, bonus points for a bunch of different things mixed together, extra bonus points for containing things that were once in a big reaction vat.
        balfirevic 7y ago
        > Something that has been mushed up from its original form to the point of being unrecognizable So it does include flour and pasta? Edit: olive oil and butter would also seem to fit the bill.
        AlanSE 7y ago
        Flour is like the granddaddy of all processed foods. Yes, it is processed. Modern nutrition studies tend to suck, because they are laughably narrow. Flour is probably the biggest thing we have been capable of studying on a population scale. Throughout history, flour has made many populations unhealthy and fat. Olive oil is hugely controversial. Don't expect an answer on that. Processing foods tends to remove the stuff which is good for you. That's why "whole" grain is advocated. You would do even better to selectively eat the wheat germ! So let me make the controversial but empirically true statement that it's possible to make a food more healthy by processing it. The reason processed foods are bad is because of our taste bud and business incentives. That's why it's extremely problematic to focus on food processing, as opposed to an underlying nutrient understanding. The first thing that goes when we process foods is the fiber, and this is missing nutrient number 1 in the American diet. As long we lack an ability to talk about the truly root issues with diet, reducing processed foods will do nothing (given sufficient time). Companies will figure out a way to call something unprocessed, but still give the same bad composition of nutrients.
- jplayer01 7y ago
  Unfortunately, some of these studies suggest that the damage is done before you hit puberty. It shows that we should have more concern for how what behaviors we teach our children from the beginning will affect our grandchildren and even their children. It’s not enough to consider ourselves or our children in isolation. This is a communal problem, or even a societal one, as much as it is a familial one. And the consequences can span generations.
  - K0SM0S 7y ago
    Side-related but it's one thing probably easier to add to a culture of extended family (where several generations stick together and live under the same roof etc). Not so much in Western countries where nuclear family has become the norm and we basically consider "external" or indeed "extended (family)" our parents as much as our future grand children, you know, on a day-to-day basis. The real links are stronger and more persistent than that it seems.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Everything you mention requires lots of research. "Eat well" is meaningless, for example. Depending on who you ask that might mean anything from paleo to its near polar opposite, vegan. The scientific consensus is not in. Hell, it's not even clear if eating whole eggs is good or bad for you, the recommendations keep seesawing. Similarly ... How much exercise and what kinds? There's plenty of people who hurt or even kill themselves by doing the wrong kind of exercise, or overdoing it. Serious long distance runners, for example, die younger than more moderate exercisers, and they have terrible knee, foot, and hip problems past middle age.
  - beerandt 7y ago
    "You should be healthy by eating healthy food and doing healthy things!"
  - drdrey 7y ago
    You're presenting things as facts here, what are your sources to claim something extraordinary like "serious runners die younger"?
    - tbihl 7y ago
      Pardon my laziness, but this should suffice as a starting point. https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/news/20140401/too-much-running-tied-to-shorter-lifespan-studies-find https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/news/20140401/too-muc...
  - wallflower 7y ago
    > Similarly ... How much exercise and what kinds? An anecdote. I have a friend who used to walk everywhere in the city. They were always overweight but healthy. Flash forward to several years later. They are in the thick of a PhD program. The last couple years they have gained considerable weight. Lots of inactivity (sitting in a room all day) coupled with lack of sleep and not the best eating habits. And I recently learned that they have trouble walking, say, a parking lot distance. And their knees will start to hurt on a scale of 6 on a 10 scale if they do too much walking. Too little exercise if accompanied by other less healthy life actions (sleep deprivation, less healthy diet) can rob you of one thing you might take for granted: mobility or the ability to walk across a long parking lot without strain. There is no one size fits all recipe for how much physical activity. Your health is ultimately your responsibility.
- tathougies 7y ago
  Well, yes, it does actually. Not all 'common sense' solutions have the same impact. I will never understand this line of anti-science thinking. In the past, all sorts of 'obvious' advice turned out to be terribly wrong. For example, in the past, before knowledge of infectious disease, people would have told you that you didn't need scientific inquiry to understand how to stay well, just avoid 'bad air'. This was terrible advice as the air could be crisp and clear, but still contaminated with viruses or bateria, while polluted air could be free of the same agents. Another example is low-fat diets. These are now known to not be as healthy as purported, and indeed for men, it is known that such a thing would actually lower testosterone, so maybe it's not just simply a matter of putting into motion the abstract ideal of 'treating yourself well', but actually a matter of offering targeted, specific advice. We should not substitute 'common sense' with actual, careful study.
  - XorNot 7y ago
    A better example is the food pyramid, which was just, hilariously, hugely wrong advice for the entirety of my childhood and formative years.
  - rjf72 7y ago
    Miasma theory [1], as you are referencing, was not "obvious advice" - it was the scientific consensus, worldwide, for thousands of years in terms of the propagation of illness. Germ theories had been suggested by numerous people for many centuries, but a problem is that miasma theory was deeply entrenched as the consensus view and could also explain most things such as people who are around sick people also getting sick. It's a theory that was extremely difficult to falsify until it became undeniably wrong once we developed the technology to actually be able to literally see bacteria. On top of scientific inertia, another issue is that "actual, careful study" often fails to detect things that are really there. A great example of this is scurvy. Scurvy at one time was one of the most virulent diseases there was. It killed many millions of people during the age of sail alone and long-term voyages simply accepted the reality that they would likely lose a significant portion of their crew to scurvy. [2] We now know that scurvy is simply caused by a lack of vitamin C, but one problem with resolving the scurvy mystery over time is that the actual cure sounds absurdly hokey and superstitious. Oh you're dying from this absolutely awful disease that's causing your entire body to deteriorate and rot from the inside out? Here, suck on some limes - it'll cure you! And scientific trials to test the "lemon theory" (which had been written about for hundreds of years) failed to show any meaningful success. The reason is that exposing lime juice to light, air, and certain metals used in storage/delivery (all as happened during experimentation) worked to greatly reduce its vitamin c content. It was also confounded by the fact that fresh meat also has lots of vitamin C. So you notice claims that fresh fruits seem to cure scurvy and fresh meats also seem to cure scurvy. This now led to the scientific view that the problem was caused by tainted food. So forth and so on, stumbling very awkwardly along again until we reached an era of technology where we could isolate and measure 'vitamin C' and finally prove, once and for all, it was indeed the root cause. As a fun aside, vitamin C was not initially named ascorbic acid. It was named hexuronic acid. It was renamed to antiscorbutic (against scurvy) acid, shortened to ascorbic, once it's effect was proven once and for all. This is also where the slang of a limey for a British sailor came from. They were one of the first nations to require a regular dosing of lime for their sailors. So there's always a balance in life. It's important for the evolution of our entire species that not everybody believe the exact same thing. Common sense is usually right, but sometimes it's very wrong. And science is usually right, but sometimes it's very wrong. People diverging from the norm to pursue their own views and values is something that benefits everybody as they work as completely volunteer guinea pigs. And it's often the case both that common sense ends up complimenting science, as well as science complimenting common sense. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasma_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasma_theory [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy#History
- K0SM0S 7y ago
  One thing though: "well" is very idiosyncratic here — a different biology leads to different reactions. IMHO the most important is to listen to your own body, learn in time what makes you "well" and what doesn't. Might be very different even between siblings. Use data whenever possible to rule out misguiding perceptions.
adrr 7y ago
If you're trying to have a baby. Alcar is shown to improve sperm quality. https://examine.com/supplements/l-carnitine/ https://examine.com/supplements/l-carnitine/

mrtweetyhack 7y ago

This won't change men one bit

ChuckNorris89 7y ago

I don't think it takes more research to know you should be treating yourself well physically and mentally, eat well, sleep well, go outdoor and exercise, eliminate stress factors and don't consume drugs or alcohol.

wtetzner 7y ago
Eating well is not straight forward, there's a lot of misinformation out there.
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  Well, depends. If you want to look like Thor, then yes, nutrition is complicated. If you just want to stay in decent shape and be healthy it's not really that hard. Let me summarize it: 1. Don't eat processed food !!!! 2. Limit your portions to the size of a medium plate(don't stack it though) 3. Eat your green vegetables. No need to count calories either, just split your plate in 3 roughly evenly sized slices: 1st should be protein(chicken breast, fish, eggs, low fat mozzarella or cottage cheese for example) 2nd should be starchy carbs(pasta, rice or potatoes for example) 3rd should be fibrous carbs(broccoli, spinach or bell peppers for example) and lastly you can add a little healthy fats like a fist full of nuts, a slice of avocado or a few table spoons of olive oil(men need this healthy fat for testosterone production). And you can play around with this like increasing the ratio of the starchy carb slice for breakfast/lunch for more energy during your evening workout and increase the ratio of the protein slice for dinner for better muscle recovery after your workout.
  - eikenberry 7y ago
    > 1. Don't eat processed food !!!! This has become all but meaningless as what it means to be processed varies so much and has come to include almost anything. You mention pasta, yet many definitions include flour as being processed. I've seen it go so far as defining anything with salt added as processed (even by you right before you eat it). What is a reasonable definition of processed food that you can actually use when shopping?
    - forgotmypw 7y ago
      Something that has been mushed up from its original form to the point of being unrecognizable, bonus points for a bunch of different things mixed together, extra bonus points for containing things that were once in a big reaction vat.
      - balfirevic 7y ago
        > Something that has been mushed up from its original form to the point of being unrecognizable So it does include flour and pasta? Edit: olive oil and butter would also seem to fit the bill.
        AlanSE 7y ago
        Flour is like the granddaddy of all processed foods. Yes, it is processed. Modern nutrition studies tend to suck, because they are laughably narrow. Flour is probably the biggest thing we have been capable of studying on a population scale. Throughout history, flour has made many populations unhealthy and fat. Olive oil is hugely controversial. Don't expect an answer on that. Processing foods tends to remove the stuff which is good for you. That's why "whole" grain is advocated. You would do even better to selectively eat the wheat germ! So let me make the controversial but empirically true statement that it's possible to make a food more healthy by processing it. The reason processed foods are bad is because of our taste bud and business incentives. That's why it's extremely problematic to focus on food processing, as opposed to an underlying nutrient understanding. The first thing that goes when we process foods is the fiber, and this is missing nutrient number 1 in the American diet. As long we lack an ability to talk about the truly root issues with diet, reducing processed foods will do nothing (given sufficient time). Companies will figure out a way to call something unprocessed, but still give the same bad composition of nutrients.
jplayer01 7y ago
Unfortunately, some of these studies suggest that the damage is done before you hit puberty. It shows that we should have more concern for how what behaviors we teach our children from the beginning will affect our grandchildren and even their children. It’s not enough to consider ourselves or our children in isolation. This is a communal problem, or even a societal one, as much as it is a familial one. And the consequences can span generations.
- K0SM0S 7y ago
  Side-related but it's one thing probably easier to add to a culture of extended family (where several generations stick together and live under the same roof etc). Not so much in Western countries where nuclear family has become the norm and we basically consider "external" or indeed "extended (family)" our parents as much as our future grand children, you know, on a day-to-day basis. The real links are stronger and more persistent than that it seems.
CydeWeys 7y ago
Everything you mention requires lots of research. "Eat well" is meaningless, for example. Depending on who you ask that might mean anything from paleo to its near polar opposite, vegan. The scientific consensus is not in. Hell, it's not even clear if eating whole eggs is good or bad for you, the recommendations keep seesawing. Similarly ... How much exercise and what kinds? There's plenty of people who hurt or even kill themselves by doing the wrong kind of exercise, or overdoing it. Serious long distance runners, for example, die younger than more moderate exercisers, and they have terrible knee, foot, and hip problems past middle age.
- beerandt 7y ago
  "You should be healthy by eating healthy food and doing healthy things!"
- drdrey 7y ago
  You're presenting things as facts here, what are your sources to claim something extraordinary like "serious runners die younger"?
  - tbihl 7y ago
    Pardon my laziness, but this should suffice as a starting point. https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/news/20140401/too-much-running-tied-to-shorter-lifespan-studies-find https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/news/20140401/too-muc...
- wallflower 7y ago
  > Similarly ... How much exercise and what kinds? An anecdote. I have a friend who used to walk everywhere in the city. They were always overweight but healthy. Flash forward to several years later. They are in the thick of a PhD program. The last couple years they have gained considerable weight. Lots of inactivity (sitting in a room all day) coupled with lack of sleep and not the best eating habits. And I recently learned that they have trouble walking, say, a parking lot distance. And their knees will start to hurt on a scale of 6 on a 10 scale if they do too much walking. Too little exercise if accompanied by other less healthy life actions (sleep deprivation, less healthy diet) can rob you of one thing you might take for granted: mobility or the ability to walk across a long parking lot without strain. There is no one size fits all recipe for how much physical activity. Your health is ultimately your responsibility.
tathougies 7y ago
Well, yes, it does actually. Not all 'common sense' solutions have the same impact. I will never understand this line of anti-science thinking. In the past, all sorts of 'obvious' advice turned out to be terribly wrong. For example, in the past, before knowledge of infectious disease, people would have told you that you didn't need scientific inquiry to understand how to stay well, just avoid 'bad air'. This was terrible advice as the air could be crisp and clear, but still contaminated with viruses or bateria, while polluted air could be free of the same agents. Another example is low-fat diets. These are now known to not be as healthy as purported, and indeed for men, it is known that such a thing would actually lower testosterone, so maybe it's not just simply a matter of putting into motion the abstract ideal of 'treating yourself well', but actually a matter of offering targeted, specific advice. We should not substitute 'common sense' with actual, careful study.
- XorNot 7y ago
  A better example is the food pyramid, which was just, hilariously, hugely wrong advice for the entirety of my childhood and formative years.
- rjf72 7y ago
  Miasma theory [1], as you are referencing, was not "obvious advice" - it was the scientific consensus, worldwide, for thousands of years in terms of the propagation of illness. Germ theories had been suggested by numerous people for many centuries, but a problem is that miasma theory was deeply entrenched as the consensus view and could also explain most things such as people who are around sick people also getting sick. It's a theory that was extremely difficult to falsify until it became undeniably wrong once we developed the technology to actually be able to literally see bacteria. On top of scientific inertia, another issue is that "actual, careful study" often fails to detect things that are really there. A great example of this is scurvy. Scurvy at one time was one of the most virulent diseases there was. It killed many millions of people during the age of sail alone and long-term voyages simply accepted the reality that they would likely lose a significant portion of their crew to scurvy. [2] We now know that scurvy is simply caused by a lack of vitamin C, but one problem with resolving the scurvy mystery over time is that the actual cure sounds absurdly hokey and superstitious. Oh you're dying from this absolutely awful disease that's causing your entire body to deteriorate and rot from the inside out? Here, suck on some limes - it'll cure you! And scientific trials to test the "lemon theory" (which had been written about for hundreds of years) failed to show any meaningful success. The reason is that exposing lime juice to light, air, and certain metals used in storage/delivery (all as happened during experimentation) worked to greatly reduce its vitamin c content. It was also confounded by the fact that fresh meat also has lots of vitamin C. So you notice claims that fresh fruits seem to cure scurvy and fresh meats also seem to cure scurvy. This now led to the scientific view that the problem was caused by tainted food. So forth and so on, stumbling very awkwardly along again until we reached an era of technology where we could isolate and measure 'vitamin C' and finally prove, once and for all, it was indeed the root cause. As a fun aside, vitamin C was not initially named ascorbic acid. It was named hexuronic acid. It was renamed to antiscorbutic (against scurvy) acid, shortened to ascorbic, once it's effect was proven once and for all. This is also where the slang of a limey for a British sailor came from. They were one of the first nations to require a regular dosing of lime for their sailors. So there's always a balance in life. It's important for the evolution of our entire species that not everybody believe the exact same thing. Common sense is usually right, but sometimes it's very wrong. And science is usually right, but sometimes it's very wrong. People diverging from the norm to pursue their own views and values is something that benefits everybody as they work as completely volunteer guinea pigs. And it's often the case both that common sense ends up complimenting science, as well as science complimenting common sense. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasma_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasma_theory [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy#History
K0SM0S 7y ago
One thing though: "well" is very idiosyncratic here — a different biology leads to different reactions. IMHO the most important is to listen to your own body, learn in time what makes you "well" and what doesn't. Might be very different even between siblings. Use data whenever possible to rule out misguiding perceptions.

adrr 7y ago

If you're trying to have a baby. Alcar is shown to improve sperm quality. https://examine.com/supplements/l-carnitine/ https://examine.com/supplements/l-carnitine/