5 ms·

The question here is why dietary science is so unreliable? There are so many fads. Every year. Many of them with a base in a peer reviewed paper, but all confli

by zby 5y ago

The question here is why dietary science is so unreliable? There are so many fads. Every year. Many of them with a base in a peer reviewed paper, but all conflicting with each other. And even reading this comments here: yes keto diet makes me sharp thinking, no actually keto gives 'brain fog', no it is glucose that gives 'brain fog'. It reads like a primary example of some random effects that people interpret to be caused by whatever they currently do. I am all for going to the source and reading scientific articles - but it is hard. And at some point it is important to admit that we are laypersons in such and such area and the fact that we read (and partially understood) a peer reviewed paper might not mean that much because science is too under the pressure of https://www.gwern.net/Littlewood https://www.gwern.net/Littlewood Here is another argument for why reading just one peer reviewed article is not too informative in some health related problems: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/covidvitamin-d-much-more-than-you https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/covidvitamin-d-much-mo... And by they way the abstract of this particular article is a kind of strange: first they admit that "Neuro-cognitive research has confirmed that glucose, as a main energy substrate for the brain, can momentarily benefit cognitive performances, particularly for memory functioning." - so they admit that the effect of glucose is positive and they even say that it is confirmed. Then they go to their own experiment and report "ingestion of glucose and sucrose led to poorer performances on the assessed tasks as opposed to fructose and the placebo" - so the effect here was negative. But they don't even notice that it is the reverse of what they believe was 'confirmed'. The activities were maybe different - but still.

tudorw 5y ago
Because biopsychoholisticepigenomicgenomicnutrition as a field is only just getting started, food is easily more complicated than brain activity.
amelius 5y ago
You can get more insight by discarding all studies that were performed in a timeframe of less than a year.
- shlant 5y ago
  yea when it comes to diet, I think longevity studies can usually provide the most useful insights (although usually pretty generalized). You can do a diet for 5-10 years and not see the ill effects until that far in. Anyone who tries to sell you on a way of eating that has only been done en masse (relatively speaking) for a few years is a bit suspect.
foerbert 5y ago
I don't think I'd inherently read all the conflicting reports from people as obviously mis-attributed noise. I don't think there's strong enough reason to expect everybody to response similarly to the same diets. Not only does everybody have unique genetics, environments, and histories, but how sure are we that all the people saying they do keto, for example, are doing the same thing? It's a giant complex mess, even if you assume humans are prefect and infallible observers and attributers of cause to effect. Which, as you pointed out, they absolutely are not. At all. So not only do you not have the expectation that individuals will respond similarly, the difficulties in ascertaining what any individual is actually doing, you also have to deal with misattributed experiences, and the ability for our brain to play tricks on us. And that's even assuming everybody is acting in good faith. Which they almost certainly are not, considering money can be involved. I've yet to come up with any decent way of approaching these topics. There are so many confounding factors I don't even know where to begin. Turning yourself into an endless experiment and figuring out ways to blind yourself and measure results (which is yet another rabbit hole...) is honestly starting to look like the most viable way to get to some kind of 'truth' for this stuff, at least for you, now. Though even at this extreme, time is limited. Otherwise... I guess you just do what you feel like and do something different if you feel bad. If you feel good doing whatever you're doing, maybe that just has to be good enough. Because I don't know how to actually get any deeper than that in any reasonable way.
- zby 5y ago
  Yeah - it is a good point about people reacting differently. My sister had Hashimoto and she did diet and now her hormones are OK without any supplementation. She did it a few years ago - and every doctor she consulted (here in Poland) did not believe that a diet can do that. But I trust her and she did a regular checkups of thyroid hormones and and something that showed the immune reaction to track the progress and check what foods are good. I think now doctors are more open towards diets - but still I think no one would believe in a complete remission. On the other hand you can find many similar first hand stories about every health condition with such weird beliefs. It is a fascinating subject - and also a very high impact one: https://zby.medium.com/rational-patient-community-6d3617dffcfe https://zby.medium.com/rational-patient-community-6d3617dffc...
globular-toast 5y ago
One problem is it's notoriously hard to get subjects to follow a diet and accurately report it. Due to both practical and ethical constraints you can't keep human subjects locked up and eating only what they're allowed to eat. I think this goes a long way to explaining all the conflicting results out there.
DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
When I look at the garbage people buy in supermarkets and all the products that are peddled (in Europe btw, I understand US has a lot more "choice") no wonder people have no chance of winning. You go to a doctor being "markedly obese" with some additional health issue, they will not believe you'll ever get better. The fact that you could lose 20 or 40kg doesn't even enter their mind. Instead they give you blood-pressure meds and other things to "manage the symptoms". With the medical industry depending on adding things to the list of purchases you have to make instead of just advising to stop eating people will continue to be fat and unhealthy. The whole dietary and supplements industry is a historic dumpster fire of corporate disinformation. I recently came across a YT channel where they made a point about water diet in which the author advertised all kind of supplements that he recommended (incl an affiliate link to these products). I was like "serious? the whole point of water diet is to stop stuffing your face not to make a trip to the pharmacy" I bring this up specifically because once you've done water diet for 30 or 40 days (or whatever crazy limity you thought you couldn't achieve), everything that dietary/medicine science suggests looks like it's a scam to profit from the weak and gullible. I was in a really horrible shape just before divorce, sick, depressed, overweight, ... (felt horrible especially because I used to run marathons nearly every year so I missed feeling great a lot). When I attempted my first water diet there was no YT channel and no research other than stern health warnings by the quacks. I knew it had to work because my dad was on water diet once a year when I was a kid. In his 40ies and he became so good at it that he lasted over 2 months (he also had gained a lot of experience with this over the years and slowly built things up). First time I tried it I managed to do it for 2 weeks but then caved watching my family eat dinner every night. Still I felt proud AF. 2 years later I lasted 40 days. It not only got rid of all my fat but there was also no brain fog. And it boosted my confidence tremendously. It made me confident that I could keep going after 30 days that it was actually really hard to stop since I had became mentally so strong. I literally had to force myself not to go one more day "because I came this far already" 2 weeks into the 40 days I was still going for runs of up to 1 hrs/daily and ran until week 3, then changed to walks. I was dropping ~1kg almost every day the first 10-14 days and then 0.5 - 0.7 /day. The amount of mental energy I had was like I was on some kind of secret drugs (only without the side-effects). I didn't feel tired as long as I had 4-5 hrs sleep per night. I did lose some muscles but I also lost _all_ of my fat and despite people talking about "jo-jo effect" and saying "ugh you're just losing water", I never gained more than a few kg afterwards (still true today and it was almost a decade ago). few weeks after finishing the diet and getting into a normal eating cycle, I was being able to continue my running routine which I was used to from my marathon times. The weight and pressure on joints were no longer an issue. I don't believe in organized religion but I still felt a moment of "awakening" during those days. The amount of clarity I had in my head can only be described as "spiritual" with a huge capacity to analyze many things at the same time. I imagine this is what microdosing feels like only the results are real and not imagined. I suddenly understood why fasting is a common theme in every religion. It was life altering in every sense. While I've never done 40 days again I do every couple of months 3-5 days and once a year up to 10 days. The rest of the year I'm on an IF plan of 20:4 and it's laughably easy simply because my brain has the memory of having lasted once a lot longer and because of it I know my body quite well. The reason why I still do this is that I want to replicate that mental power I learned I could have in a sustainable and safe manner (I no longer have the kg/reserves to just not eat for a month LOL). Having learned this also now allows me to sometimes keep going for days without food on my summer long distance hikes through the wilderness if I'm forced - and it's a lot less scary if I know I'm out of resources as long as I got water. Most people will not do water-diets because they can't picture not eating this long. But you're hungry only for the first couple of days. The rest is easy in comparison. What makes other types of dieting hard is a constant on/off cycle in which you need to go through the hunger peaks over and over. Beat your mind first then beat your body is much more effective. PS: after I did the 40 days I ended up having kidney stones. Not from the diet but the diet flushed it all out which were the result of couple of years of terrible diet (and would have been something I'd have to eventually go through anyway). There are some doctors who say if you have cancer cells your body might actually eat them as these get attacked/eaten first). IDK probably needs citations and more research but since I have taught myself to experiment with this I kind of feel sorry for those who are getting gamed by latest research on what causes people to be fat. Stop eating. Don't do the stupid "eat less" or eat better advise - that comes second, and it comes automatically anyway. First learn that you have power and are able to survive for several months if needed. Problem solved and you can skip debunking whatever clueless academics are saying in their studies (who probably most of them are fat and unhealthy themselves anyway).
flyinglizard 5y ago
Because a) you can’t dissect and a human being and connect them to instrumentation for test and measurement like you would to a machine, and b) the meticulous wide scale testing available to drug companies costs billions, which no one would invest for dietary insights.
- loa_in_ 5y ago
  I sometimes think I'd volunteer (for money to my family's name) but it's not possible even if I want
digitcatphd 5y ago
Very good point
kossTKR 5y ago
Luckily you can create a Venn-Diagram and arrive at something pretty universal. First understand three things: 1) People are very different; genetics, microbiome, allergies and daily habits makes different diets great for different people. We are talking diets as different as super high fat keto, compared to high carb vegan that can probably all be great. 2) Most people thrive with the mysterious 80-20 rule, meaning don't go overboard unless of course trying to achieve something like Keto or are allergic. Most people do not need "very dogmatic" diets. 3) Diets are linked to lifestyle, microbiome, social setting and other factors that we are only beginning to understand, so don't look at anything in isolation. Then look at the universals: - Don't bomb your system with high amounts of simple carbohydrates too quickly, unless very active or in a fasted state. It will wreck your insulin system. - Don't eat to much processed foods, they are always way lower in nutrients, and if fortified, still missing phytonutrients and often contains too much sugar etc. - Eat a varied diet and cherish high density nutrient foods like dark leafy greens and offal. Lots of foods today have less nutrients because of horrible soil quality. - Learn to listen to your body also foods are somewhat psychoactive if you start listening to the queues. Try an elimination diet if having problems, otherwise adjusting these things are often key: Dairy, Fats, Carbs, Caffeine, Fiber, Meat and more contested; classes of greens like nightshade, organic / non pesticide, raw vs cooked. - Try fasting or just eating at different times of the day or skipping meals. - Lots of people are Vitamin D deficient, and supplementng is easy. Omega3/6 ratio is also out of whack in most people but this is harder to fix. - Keep an eye on the field of gut-brain-axis, microbiome etc, there seems to be a revolution around the corner, and its a key to understand everything from mood disorders to skin problems, weight loss and autoimmune diseases. But we aren't a place where there is hard data on "what to do" besides fecal transplants.
- amelius 5y ago
  > Lots of foods today have less nutrients because of horrible soil quality. Is this true? How can a plant look healthy and delicious if it didn't get the right nutrients?
  - kossTKR 5y ago
    Yes, but by how much, and the gravity is of course still getting figured out. A lot of nutrients though has fallen between 5% and 40% - which is worrying because if it continues, who knows how much we are going to rely on supplements which lacks a lot of phytonutrients. Also, already healthy people have to double or triple their vegetable intake to meet daily reqs, which isn't feasible. This paper from Davis is about soil depletion: https://journals.ashs.org/hortsci/view/journals/hortsci/44/1/article-p15.xml https://journals.ashs.org/hortsci/view/journals/hortsci/44/1... Another factor besides soil depletion is Carbon Dioxide recently revealed: https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511/ https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrie...
threatofrain 5y ago
I find it takes about 10 to 20 articles to give context into the ongoing conversation that is any particular journal article.

by zby 5y ago

tudorw 5y ago

Because biopsychoholisticepigenomicgenomicnutrition as a field is only just getting started, food is easily more complicated than brain activity.

amelius 5y ago

You can get more insight by discarding all studies that were performed in a timeframe of less than a year.

shlant 5y ago
yea when it comes to diet, I think longevity studies can usually provide the most useful insights (although usually pretty generalized). You can do a diet for 5-10 years and not see the ill effects until that far in. Anyone who tries to sell you on a way of eating that has only been done en masse (relatively speaking) for a few years is a bit suspect.

foerbert 5y ago

I don't think I'd inherently read all the conflicting reports from people as obviously mis-attributed noise. I don't think there's strong enough reason to expect everybody to response similarly to the same diets. Not only does everybody have unique genetics, environments, and histories, but how sure are we that all the people saying they do keto, for example, are doing the same thing? It's a giant complex mess, even if you assume humans are prefect and infallible observers and attributers of cause to effect. Which, as you pointed out, they absolutely are not. At all. So not only do you not have the expectation that individuals will respond similarly, the difficulties in ascertaining what any individual is actually doing, you also have to deal with misattributed experiences, and the ability for our brain to play tricks on us. And that's even assuming everybody is acting in good faith. Which they almost certainly are not, considering money can be involved. I've yet to come up with any decent way of approaching these topics. There are so many confounding factors I don't even know where to begin. Turning yourself into an endless experiment and figuring out ways to blind yourself and measure results (which is yet another rabbit hole...) is honestly starting to look like the most viable way to get to some kind of 'truth' for this stuff, at least for you, now. Though even at this extreme, time is limited. Otherwise... I guess you just do what you feel like and do something different if you feel bad. If you feel good doing whatever you're doing, maybe that just has to be good enough. Because I don't know how to actually get any deeper than that in any reasonable way.

zby 5y ago
Yeah - it is a good point about people reacting differently. My sister had Hashimoto and she did diet and now her hormones are OK without any supplementation. She did it a few years ago - and every doctor she consulted (here in Poland) did not believe that a diet can do that. But I trust her and she did a regular checkups of thyroid hormones and and something that showed the immune reaction to track the progress and check what foods are good. I think now doctors are more open towards diets - but still I think no one would believe in a complete remission. On the other hand you can find many similar first hand stories about every health condition with such weird beliefs. It is a fascinating subject - and also a very high impact one: https://zby.medium.com/rational-patient-community-6d3617dffcfe https://zby.medium.com/rational-patient-community-6d3617dffc...

globular-toast 5y ago

One problem is it's notoriously hard to get subjects to follow a diet and accurately report it. Due to both practical and ethical constraints you can't keep human subjects locked up and eating only what they're allowed to eat. I think this goes a long way to explaining all the conflicting results out there.

DyslexicAtheist 5y ago

When I look at the garbage people buy in supermarkets and all the products that are peddled (in Europe btw, I understand US has a lot more "choice") no wonder people have no chance of winning. You go to a doctor being "markedly obese" with some additional health issue, they will not believe you'll ever get better. The fact that you could lose 20 or 40kg doesn't even enter their mind. Instead they give you blood-pressure meds and other things to "manage the symptoms". With the medical industry depending on adding things to the list of purchases you have to make instead of just advising to stop eating people will continue to be fat and unhealthy. The whole dietary and supplements industry is a historic dumpster fire of corporate disinformation. I recently came across a YT channel where they made a point about water diet in which the author advertised all kind of supplements that he recommended (incl an affiliate link to these products). I was like "serious? the whole point of water diet is to stop stuffing your face not to make a trip to the pharmacy" I bring this up specifically because once you've done water diet for 30 or 40 days (or whatever crazy limity you thought you couldn't achieve), everything that dietary/medicine science suggests looks like it's a scam to profit from the weak and gullible. I was in a really horrible shape just before divorce, sick, depressed, overweight, ... (felt horrible especially because I used to run marathons nearly every year so I missed feeling great a lot). When I attempted my first water diet there was no YT channel and no research other than stern health warnings by the quacks. I knew it had to work because my dad was on water diet once a year when I was a kid. In his 40ies and he became so good at it that he lasted over 2 months (he also had gained a lot of experience with this over the years and slowly built things up). First time I tried it I managed to do it for 2 weeks but then caved watching my family eat dinner every night. Still I felt proud AF. 2 years later I lasted 40 days. It not only got rid of all my fat but there was also no brain fog. And it boosted my confidence tremendously. It made me confident that I could keep going after 30 days that it was actually really hard to stop since I had became mentally so strong. I literally had to force myself not to go one more day "because I came this far already" 2 weeks into the 40 days I was still going for runs of up to 1 hrs/daily and ran until week 3, then changed to walks. I was dropping ~1kg almost every day the first 10-14 days and then 0.5 - 0.7 /day. The amount of mental energy I had was like I was on some kind of secret drugs (only without the side-effects). I didn't feel tired as long as I had 4-5 hrs sleep per night. I did lose some muscles but I also lost _all_ of my fat and despite people talking about "jo-jo effect" and saying "ugh you're just losing water", I never gained more than a few kg afterwards (still true today and it was almost a decade ago). few weeks after finishing the diet and getting into a normal eating cycle, I was being able to continue my running routine which I was used to from my marathon times. The weight and pressure on joints were no longer an issue. I don't believe in organized religion but I still felt a moment of "awakening" during those days. The amount of clarity I had in my head can only be described as "spiritual" with a huge capacity to analyze many things at the same time. I imagine this is what microdosing feels like only the results are real and not imagined. I suddenly understood why fasting is a common theme in every religion. It was life altering in every sense. While I've never done 40 days again I do every couple of months 3-5 days and once a year up to 10 days. The rest of the year I'm on an IF plan of 20:4 and it's laughably easy simply because my brain has the memory of having lasted once a lot longer and because of it I know my body quite well. The reason why I still do this is that I want to replicate that mental power I learned I could have in a sustainable and safe manner (I no longer have the kg/reserves to just not eat for a month LOL). Having learned this also now allows me to sometimes keep going for days without food on my summer long distance hikes through the wilderness if I'm forced - and it's a lot less scary if I know I'm out of resources as long as I got water. Most people will not do water-diets because they can't picture not eating this long. But you're hungry only for the first couple of days. The rest is easy in comparison. What makes other types of dieting hard is a constant on/off cycle in which you need to go through the hunger peaks over and over. Beat your mind first then beat your body is much more effective. PS: after I did the 40 days I ended up having kidney stones. Not from the diet but the diet flushed it all out which were the result of couple of years of terrible diet (and would have been something I'd have to eventually go through anyway). There are some doctors who say if you have cancer cells your body might actually eat them as these get attacked/eaten first). IDK probably needs citations and more research but since I have taught myself to experiment with this I kind of feel sorry for those who are getting gamed by latest research on what causes people to be fat. Stop eating. Don't do the stupid "eat less" or eat better advise - that comes second, and it comes automatically anyway. First learn that you have power and are able to survive for several months if needed. Problem solved and you can skip debunking whatever clueless academics are saying in their studies (who probably most of them are fat and unhealthy themselves anyway).

flyinglizard 5y ago

Because a) you can’t dissect and a human being and connect them to instrumentation for test and measurement like you would to a machine, and b) the meticulous wide scale testing available to drug companies costs billions, which no one would invest for dietary insights.

loa_in_ 5y ago
I sometimes think I'd volunteer (for money to my family's name) but it's not possible even if I want

digitcatphd 5y ago

Very good point

kossTKR 5y ago

Luckily you can create a Venn-Diagram and arrive at something pretty universal. First understand three things: 1) People are very different; genetics, microbiome, allergies and daily habits makes different diets great for different people. We are talking diets as different as super high fat keto, compared to high carb vegan that can probably all be great. 2) Most people thrive with the mysterious 80-20 rule, meaning don't go overboard unless of course trying to achieve something like Keto or are allergic. Most people do not need "very dogmatic" diets. 3) Diets are linked to lifestyle, microbiome, social setting and other factors that we are only beginning to understand, so don't look at anything in isolation. Then look at the universals: - Don't bomb your system with high amounts of simple carbohydrates too quickly, unless very active or in a fasted state. It will wreck your insulin system. - Don't eat to much processed foods, they are always way lower in nutrients, and if fortified, still missing phytonutrients and often contains too much sugar etc. - Eat a varied diet and cherish high density nutrient foods like dark leafy greens and offal. Lots of foods today have less nutrients because of horrible soil quality. - Learn to listen to your body also foods are somewhat psychoactive if you start listening to the queues. Try an elimination diet if having problems, otherwise adjusting these things are often key: Dairy, Fats, Carbs, Caffeine, Fiber, Meat and more contested; classes of greens like nightshade, organic / non pesticide, raw vs cooked. - Try fasting or just eating at different times of the day or skipping meals. - Lots of people are Vitamin D deficient, and supplementng is easy. Omega3/6 ratio is also out of whack in most people but this is harder to fix. - Keep an eye on the field of gut-brain-axis, microbiome etc, there seems to be a revolution around the corner, and its a key to understand everything from mood disorders to skin problems, weight loss and autoimmune diseases. But we aren't a place where there is hard data on "what to do" besides fecal transplants.

amelius 5y ago
> Lots of foods today have less nutrients because of horrible soil quality. Is this true? How can a plant look healthy and delicious if it didn't get the right nutrients?
- kossTKR 5y ago
  Yes, but by how much, and the gravity is of course still getting figured out. A lot of nutrients though has fallen between 5% and 40% - which is worrying because if it continues, who knows how much we are going to rely on supplements which lacks a lot of phytonutrients. Also, already healthy people have to double or triple their vegetable intake to meet daily reqs, which isn't feasible. This paper from Davis is about soil depletion: https://journals.ashs.org/hortsci/view/journals/hortsci/44/1/article-p15.xml https://journals.ashs.org/hortsci/view/journals/hortsci/44/1... Another factor besides soil depletion is Carbon Dioxide recently revealed: https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511/ https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrie...

threatofrain 5y ago

I find it takes about 10 to 20 articles to give context into the ongoing conversation that is any particular journal article.