7 ms·

One word of caution on these "only this diet". Your gut bacteria is a jungle with many species of microbes, trillions of them. They basically fight for territor

by keyle 4y ago

One word of caution on these "only this diet". Your gut bacteria is a jungle with many species of microbes, trillions of them. They basically fight for territory and some subspecies will die if you stop injecting <x food>. So if you are not lactose intolerant and get off lactose for 6-9 months, don't expect that your belly will react well to a glass of milk in a year. I'm all for _reducing_ X and Y. But completely going polar is trendy and extremely dangerous long term.

giardini 4y ago
This. My doctor put me on a "no milk products" diet years ago for a digestive ailment. I [too rigorously, perhaps] held to it for a year and a half. The diet solved my problems but at end left me lactose intolerant. It didn't at first seem like much to live without milk products. But the ramifications of eating say, a banana pudding, which then turns one's intestines into a freestyle trumpet, cannot be ignored.
infofarmer 4y ago
> Your gut bacteria is a jungle with many species of microbes, trillions of them. To clarify: modern science estimates 300–1000 species in gut microbiota, 99% by number of cells coming from 30-40 species. The total number of microbial and viral cells throughout a healthy adult body is estimated at over 100 trillion, or roughly 10x the number of one's own body cells. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_microbiota https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_microbiota
- rtpg 4y ago
  I really want a huge tech tree and flowchart of all the things these microbes love to eat and everything like that. Not really to provide an argument for only potatoes, but to perhaps have stronger ideas about the value of certain kinds of food I want to get beyond the boring "too much of anything is bad". Of course it is! That's what "too much" means!
  - exar0815 4y ago
    http://biochemical-pathways.com http://biochemical-pathways.com Well, have fun!
    - thret 4y ago
      That was far more complicated than I would have imagined. Thank you for linking it.
      - anotherhue 4y ago
        It's microservices all the way down!
        Cockbrand 4y ago
        Microbe-services, probably
        majkinetor 4y ago
        Nah... just regular human chemistry
      - tigerlily 4y ago
        It’s not complicated, it’s just very detailed :)
    - beachy 4y ago
      Worth noting you can get a free poster of these, which are great for the wall and the wow factor. Took a few months for mine too arrive.
      - vanderZwan 4y ago
        That sounds awesome! How does one order a free poster? I don't see an obvious link to click on the website
- zikduruqe 4y ago
  And for all your bro-dieters out there eating a "paleo" diet, realize that our Paleolithic friends ate mostly plants. The Hadza tribe is one of our last living examples and their gut biome is amazing. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/08/24/545631521/is-the-secret-to-a-healthier-microbiome-hidden-in-the-hadza-diet https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/08/24/5456315... https://www.wired.com/2014/04/hadza-hunter-gatherer-gut-microbiome/ https://www.wired.com/2014/04/hadza-hunter-gatherer-gut-micr...
  - causi 4y ago
    That would depend on your ancestry. If you're European, yes. If you're, say, Inuit, your ancestors ate mostly meat and fat.
  - pc86 4y ago
    This seems pretty dismissive of a diet that - like all diets - has some idiotic and vocal adherents, but consists basically of "don't eat processed food or added sugar."
    - shadowfox 4y ago
      > but consists basically of "don't eat processed food or added sugar." Paleo goes a bit beyond that, to be fair.
      - 7speter 4y ago
        The last I checked (maybe 6 years ago), the paleo diet strongly encouraged adherents to eat greens, berries, and seeds.
  - samatman 4y ago
    The only thing we know Paleolithic people ate a lot of is meat. Paleolithic archaeological sites are full of marrow-scraped bones and the stone tools used to kill and butcher. Paleolithic teeth have little of the damage associated with eating grit from ground grains. We have such remarkable discoveries as a building made entirely of mammoth skulls. The Hadza are a modern people, and modern hunter-gatherers have been pushed to the fringes. Early English and French explorers documented the diets of the North American people they encountered: they ate a lot of meat, growing the Three Sisters as a supplement to a diet heavy in game and fish. It was the Neolithic in which population pressure forced people to start eating grain, and eventually growing it. They immediately became shorter and their teeth started falling out.
nxpnsv 4y ago
Lactose intolerance is not nice, but perhaps not extremely dangerous either...
DonHopkins 4y ago
It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from blowing chunder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g-Yk9F2mM8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g-Yk9F2mM8
- Kaibeezy 4y ago
  Chips in the front room, roasties in the back.
Accacin 4y ago
I've been off milk and dairy for about 4 years now and my wife accidentally bought me a vegetarian pizza - I thought I'd have some bad stomach or something but I was actually fine (notwithstanding existential dread). Obviously everyone will react differently.
bil7 4y ago
anecdotal but I didn't eat meat for about 8 years and had absolutely no problems transitioning back to frequent carnivory, despite reading many warnings much like yours. Different strokes I guess.
nopcode 4y ago
I read just as much hocus pocus articles about "gut bacteria" then any "fad diets", and it all seems to boil down to "it looks important but we don't know how it works".
DoreenMichele 4y ago
I'm a big believer in the idea that diet can influence the microbiome but current science does not support the above statements. While diet can induce a shift in the gut microbiota, these changes appear to be temporary. Whether prolonged dietary changes can induce permanent alterations in the gut microbiota is unknown https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6950569/#:~:text=Table%201%20%20%20%20Primary%20Author%20,within%2024%20...%20%207%20more%20rows%20 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6950569/#:~:tex... I am unaware of dietary induced lactose intolerance as a thing. I tried to google it and can't find support for the idea. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/lactose-intolerance-101 https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/lactose-intolerance-101 As far as I know, lactose tolerance is the exception for the human race and it is deemed to be genetic. Many humans are lactose intolerant by default. According to the following source, 65 percent of humans are lactose intolerant and up to 100 percent of the population in some sub groups are lactose intolerant. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/lactose-intolerance-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/lactose-i...
- easygenes 4y ago
  Yeah, you need to be able to produce the lactase enzyme yourself to avoid having your gut bacteria be the ones to break down lactose (and thus produce indigestion). On the idea that your microbiome can take a long time to recover from elimination diets: 1) From a gastrointestinal morphology perspective, we are opportunistic scavengers, so our whole biology is directed around sporadically eating just about anything. 2) I've seen several studies showing that, for the most part, our gut microbiome radically reshapes itself within a matter of days in response to major diet changes.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
  "unsupported" sounds more like not truthful, but unknown make it seems like it's unexplored.
- causi 4y ago
  I'm always baffled at how China is largely lactose-intolerant while also being ground-zero for weird milk drinks.
silicon2401 4y ago
> So if you are not lactose intolerant and get off lactose for 6-9 months, don't expect that your belly will react well to a glass of milk in a year. I've quit all dairy for years in the past and had no issues when chugging a glass of milk or having something with cheese in it later. It's very case by case
dayvid 4y ago
I’ve found that a lot of people who advocate alternative diets have weird genetic circumstances where that’s the only diet they can function normally on. They promote it to people not in their situation, the other people adopt it and now they have to eat a specialized diet because they sensitized their body.
tomjen3 4y ago
I would agree with this, except that there are actually some good long term suggestion that if you put large groups people on nearly/entirely only potatoes you do end up with remarkably healthy people. This is noted in, of all things, Adam Smiths the Wealth of Nations when he compares the diet of the poor in England (mostly wheat), in Scotland (Barley?) and, of course, Ireland (Potatoes). He notes that, of these groups, it is not the relatively well-of poor in England who are the healthiests, but the poorest of the all, the Irish. The poor in Ireland would not be able to afford more than the cheapest food, which would be whatever greens were in season and potatoes.

by keyle 4y ago

giardini 4y ago

This. My doctor put me on a "no milk products" diet years ago for a digestive ailment. I [too rigorously, perhaps] held to it for a year and a half. The diet solved my problems but at end left me lactose intolerant. It didn't at first seem like much to live without milk products. But the ramifications of eating say, a banana pudding, which then turns one's intestines into a freestyle trumpet, cannot be ignored.

infofarmer 4y ago

> Your gut bacteria is a jungle with many species of microbes, trillions of them. To clarify: modern science estimates 300–1000 species in gut microbiota, 99% by number of cells coming from 30-40 species. The total number of microbial and viral cells throughout a healthy adult body is estimated at over 100 trillion, or roughly 10x the number of one's own body cells. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_microbiota https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut_microbiota

rtpg 4y ago
I really want a huge tech tree and flowchart of all the things these microbes love to eat and everything like that. Not really to provide an argument for only potatoes, but to perhaps have stronger ideas about the value of certain kinds of food I want to get beyond the boring "too much of anything is bad". Of course it is! That's what "too much" means!
- exar0815 4y ago
  http://biochemical-pathways.com http://biochemical-pathways.com Well, have fun!
  - thret 4y ago
    That was far more complicated than I would have imagined. Thank you for linking it.
    - anotherhue 4y ago
      It's microservices all the way down!
      - Cockbrand 4y ago
        Microbe-services, probably
        majkinetor 4y ago
        Nah... just regular human chemistry
    - tigerlily 4y ago
      It’s not complicated, it’s just very detailed :)
  - beachy 4y ago
    Worth noting you can get a free poster of these, which are great for the wall and the wow factor. Took a few months for mine too arrive.
    - vanderZwan 4y ago
      That sounds awesome! How does one order a free poster? I don't see an obvious link to click on the website
zikduruqe 4y ago
And for all your bro-dieters out there eating a "paleo" diet, realize that our Paleolithic friends ate mostly plants. The Hadza tribe is one of our last living examples and their gut biome is amazing. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/08/24/545631521/is-the-secret-to-a-healthier-microbiome-hidden-in-the-hadza-diet https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/08/24/5456315... https://www.wired.com/2014/04/hadza-hunter-gatherer-gut-microbiome/ https://www.wired.com/2014/04/hadza-hunter-gatherer-gut-micr...
- causi 4y ago
  That would depend on your ancestry. If you're European, yes. If you're, say, Inuit, your ancestors ate mostly meat and fat.
- pc86 4y ago
  This seems pretty dismissive of a diet that - like all diets - has some idiotic and vocal adherents, but consists basically of "don't eat processed food or added sugar."
  - shadowfox 4y ago
    > but consists basically of "don't eat processed food or added sugar." Paleo goes a bit beyond that, to be fair.
    - 7speter 4y ago
      The last I checked (maybe 6 years ago), the paleo diet strongly encouraged adherents to eat greens, berries, and seeds.
- samatman 4y ago
  The only thing we know Paleolithic people ate a lot of is meat. Paleolithic archaeological sites are full of marrow-scraped bones and the stone tools used to kill and butcher. Paleolithic teeth have little of the damage associated with eating grit from ground grains. We have such remarkable discoveries as a building made entirely of mammoth skulls. The Hadza are a modern people, and modern hunter-gatherers have been pushed to the fringes. Early English and French explorers documented the diets of the North American people they encountered: they ate a lot of meat, growing the Three Sisters as a supplement to a diet heavy in game and fish. It was the Neolithic in which population pressure forced people to start eating grain, and eventually growing it. They immediately became shorter and their teeth started falling out.

nxpnsv 4y ago

Lactose intolerance is not nice, but perhaps not extremely dangerous either...

DonHopkins 4y ago

It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from blowing chunder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g-Yk9F2mM8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g-Yk9F2mM8

Kaibeezy 4y ago
Chips in the front room, roasties in the back.

Accacin 4y ago

I've been off milk and dairy for about 4 years now and my wife accidentally bought me a vegetarian pizza - I thought I'd have some bad stomach or something but I was actually fine (notwithstanding existential dread). Obviously everyone will react differently.

bil7 4y ago

anecdotal but I didn't eat meat for about 8 years and had absolutely no problems transitioning back to frequent carnivory, despite reading many warnings much like yours. Different strokes I guess.

nopcode 4y ago

I read just as much hocus pocus articles about "gut bacteria" then any "fad diets", and it all seems to boil down to "it looks important but we don't know how it works".

DoreenMichele 4y ago

I'm a big believer in the idea that diet can influence the microbiome but current science does not support the above statements. While diet can induce a shift in the gut microbiota, these changes appear to be temporary. Whether prolonged dietary changes can induce permanent alterations in the gut microbiota is unknown https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6950569/#:~:text=Table%201%20%20%20%20Primary%20Author%20,within%2024%20...%20%207%20more%20rows%20 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6950569/#:~:tex... I am unaware of dietary induced lactose intolerance as a thing. I tried to google it and can't find support for the idea. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/lactose-intolerance-101 https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/lactose-intolerance-101 As far as I know, lactose tolerance is the exception for the human race and it is deemed to be genetic. Many humans are lactose intolerant by default. According to the following source, 65 percent of humans are lactose intolerant and up to 100 percent of the population in some sub groups are lactose intolerant. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/lactose-intolerance-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/lactose-i...

easygenes 4y ago
Yeah, you need to be able to produce the lactase enzyme yourself to avoid having your gut bacteria be the ones to break down lactose (and thus produce indigestion). On the idea that your microbiome can take a long time to recover from elimination diets: 1) From a gastrointestinal morphology perspective, we are opportunistic scavengers, so our whole biology is directed around sporadically eating just about anything. 2) I've seen several studies showing that, for the most part, our gut microbiome radically reshapes itself within a matter of days in response to major diet changes.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
"unsupported" sounds more like not truthful, but unknown make it seems like it's unexplored.
causi 4y ago
I'm always baffled at how China is largely lactose-intolerant while also being ground-zero for weird milk drinks.

silicon2401 4y ago

> So if you are not lactose intolerant and get off lactose for 6-9 months, don't expect that your belly will react well to a glass of milk in a year. I've quit all dairy for years in the past and had no issues when chugging a glass of milk or having something with cheese in it later. It's very case by case

dayvid 4y ago

I’ve found that a lot of people who advocate alternative diets have weird genetic circumstances where that’s the only diet they can function normally on. They promote it to people not in their situation, the other people adopt it and now they have to eat a specialized diet because they sensitized their body.

tomjen3 4y ago

I would agree with this, except that there are actually some good long term suggestion that if you put large groups people on nearly/entirely only potatoes you do end up with remarkably healthy people. This is noted in, of all things, Adam Smiths the Wealth of Nations when he compares the diet of the poor in England (mostly wheat), in Scotland (Barley?) and, of course, Ireland (Potatoes). He notes that, of these groups, it is not the relatively well-of poor in England who are the healthiests, but the poorest of the all, the Irish. The poor in Ireland would not be able to afford more than the cheapest food, which would be whatever greens were in season and potatoes.