8 ms·

Disagree. People genuinely enjoy those foods, because they're tasty and flavorful. And there's zero reason to believe that they're substantially unhealthy unles

Disagree. People genuinely enjoy those foods, because they're tasty and flavorful. And there's zero reason to believe that they're substantially unhealthy unless consumed to the point of sustained caloric surplus. We know this because we have hunter-gatherer populations who consume 50% of their diets in sugar (e.g. the Hadza) or fats (e.g. Intuit), and they have none of the diseases of abundance found in modern populations because they have near zero obesity. The problem is not the food. The problem is obesity. The food is only an issue because some people have overly strong appetites relative to the abundance of food. If we can cure obesity, then we can literally have our cake and eat it too. Humans obviously value tasty and flavorful food, and its existence adds joy to people's lives. That's why they'll pay hundreds of dollars per meal for the best restaurants. In sum total the development of GLP-1 agonists has maybe cost $20 billion in research at most. That's literally less than 0.1% of global GDP, hardly an "enormous waste of resources".

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Gatsky 4y ago
There are randomised controlled trials of diets (without caloric restriction). They show that some diets are better than others for real clinical endpoints, eg mediterranean vs low fat diet for secondary prevention of cardiac events [1]. The effect size in that example is not small, it is large, despite most participants already being on a statin. This data shows that diets are biologically active and significantly impact health. Therefore, the philosophy you espouse cannot be correct, or at least needs to be heavily modified. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)00122-2/abstract https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
- dcolkitt 4y ago
  You haven't controlled for body weight changes though. Nobody doubts that diets (if adhered to) can reduce weight. So if biomarkers improve relative to an alternative diet, the question is it because A) the Med diet is more effective at weight loss, or B) the Med diet has benefits outside weight loss. The research you linked is interesting, but confounded by weight loss. Research that has directly tried to control for this has generally found that the health benefits of the Med diet are mostly or wholly attributable to the mediating impact of weight/fat loss.[1] This is a critical question, because GLP-1 agonists like semaglutide are far more effective at weight loss (with much lower dropout rates) than any diet known to mankind. So if the benefit of the Med diet is mediated by weight loss, who cares in the age of GLP-1 agonists? It's like arguing about the fastest hot air balloon after the invention of the jet engine. [1]https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Obesity-Mediates-the-Association-between-Diet-and-Park-Zhang/9fcfb1a781d9fc83aa6949307949a226be3dd6dd https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Obesity-Mediates-the-A...
  - darkwater 4y ago
    You just forget that there might be side-effects showing up in the long-run that we simply don't know yet (and possibly), why the mediterrean diet has been tested for a few hundred years already (where "diet" means what we have access to and eat, and not a small subset of foods forced on us that relies on a lot of mental effort to follow)
    - dcolkitt 4y ago
      GLP-1 agonists were discovered in the 1980s, and there are already statistically significant population samples who have been using them to treat T2D for decades. Any serious common side effect would have been already discovered from the large-scale clinical trials that have been repeatedly conducted.
    - urthor 4y ago
      The real problem is that we spend hundreds of billions advertising food. If we spent 10% of what we spent on food advertising on large, well funded cohort studies, we'd be far better off as a species. Humanity's greatest crime is how little science we fund.
  - Gatsky 4y ago
    Incorrect. They controlled for changes in weight, it is not confounded by weight loss. RCT >> cross sectional analyses.
philjohn 4y ago
Does the type of sugar, or type of fat not play a part here? HFCS is notorious for the bad effects on the body, versus something like honey. Same for the Intuit, simpler animal fats vs hydrogenated "trans" fats? I feel like the key difference in their diets is it's not overly processed and full of things we've decided to put in there for cost reasons (corn subsidies making HFCS cheaper than cane sugar, and trans fats are cheaper than more expensive animal products).
- dcolkitt 4y ago
  Trans fats are indeed unhealthy, but 1) it's been nearly a decade since they were basically removed from fast food, and 2) they don't contribute to obesity. As for HFCS, there's basically zero evidence that they're a major contributor to obesity versus other types of sugar. (In fact, honey consumed by the Hazda has almost the same balance as sugar as HFCS). We have multiple points of evidence to counteract this. 1) Mexico uses substantially less HFCS compared to other types of sugar, but Mexican obesity rates are as high as the US. 2) HFCS, and sugar in general, consumption has declined over the past 20 years. Yet obesity continues to increase. 3) HFCS was widely consumed in the 1980s, when the obesity rate was de minims.
- spirit557 4y ago
  There is almost no difference between sugar and HFCS. Sugar is 50/50 glucose/fructose. HFCS is maybe 45/55 glucose/fructose. Fructose can only be metabolized by your liver into inflammatory fat cells in your belly. Glucose can be metabolized by every cell in the body. HFCS would only be worse because it has more fructose but it's barely any worse than sugar. The whole hysteria over HFCS is a joke because sugar is nearly just as bad.
joe_the_user 4y ago
I don't think it's half-plausible to compare Hadza or Intuit diets to a Big Mac and a soda. Neither transfats nor processed sugars are in the Hadza diet, just for example.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  We could absolutely decimate the Intuit by introducing free Pepsi coolers in every home.
- 8note 4y ago
  Isn't honey a processed sugar? The processing being done by a bee instead of a machine
  - joe_the_user 4y ago
    By this "reasoning", all food is processed amino acids and related elements. But despite such sophistry, there's a measurable difference between a human-machine-processed diet and an animal-processed diet. Good figure.
    - librish 4y ago
      What is the measurable difference after controlling for what the OP listed?
Aloha 4y ago
Peoples appetites are larger than their physical ability level provides for. We transitioned from a hunter gatherer, to an agrarian, to an industrial society - because most people needed to do much physical activity to survive, even when food was plentiful. The information age is much more sedentary, but people have evolved needs to eat a certain amount of volume to feel satiated. The fact that our foods are super nutritious/calorie dense makes matters worse.
rychco 4y ago
> And there's zero reason to believe that they're substantially unhealthy unless consumed to the point of sustained caloric surplus. I have a hard time believing this without some very strong evidence for this claim. There's already existing evidence for greatly varying health effects of differences in cooking method, oil-type, omega ratios in fats, amino-acid ratios in proteins, glycemic index of carbs, sodium content, etc etc. It's hard for me to reconcile the suggestion that the content of food does not affect whether it is "substantially unhealthy"...
- dcolkitt 4y ago
  Try to find any major research showing either diet has a significant health impact on either 1) non-overweight individuals who remain non-overweight; or 2) has a health impact after controlling for changes in weight/obesity/body fat. It's virtually non-existent. Perhaps there are small differences on the margin, but all dwarfed by the impact of obesity. Again this shouldn't shock us, because we know hunter-gatherers across the globe eat tremendously varied diets that come in all sorts of extremes. Yet, modern diseases of affluence (heart disease, diabetes, etc.) are virtually non-existent in these populations. The only thing they have in common is a lack of obesity and non-sedentary lifestyle.
  - CadmiumYellow 4y ago
    The point is that certain diets are more likely to prevent non-overweight individuals from remaining non-overweight. Example study where participants ate two different diets, one highly processed and one less processed, that were matched for macronutrient and calorie content: https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/pdf/S1550-4131(19)30248-7.pdf https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/pdf/S1550-4131(19)30248...
    - dcolkitt 4y ago
      So you agree, the overwhelming impact of diet on health is from reducing obesity? And surely you also agree with the science that we now have drugs that are far more effective at reducing obesity than any diet known to man.
mensetmanusman 4y ago
It’s not some people, it’s most people. We need to tax the ** out of high calorie foods to fund the extreme cost on health care/society that overeating is causing.
myshpa 4y ago
> ... there's zero reason to believe that they're substantially unhealthy unless consumed to the point of sustained caloric surplus. We know this ... Disagree. > who consume 50% of their diets in sugar (e.g. the Hadza) "Their diet is made up almost exclusively of food that they forage on the forest and includes fiber rich and highly nutritious berries, bananas and honey while any meat they eat is hunted and caught wild." (https://healthyfocus.org/the-hadza-diet-and-the-key-to-a-healthy-microbiome/ https://healthyfocus.org/the-hadza-diet-and-the-key-to-a-hea...) They don't eat sugar. Fruits & vegetables with lots of fiber, wild game. Nothing like westerners diet ... so not really comparable, imho. "... the Inuit's bodies have adapted to better handle the process of gluconeogenesis, in which the body turns fat and protein into useable glucose. The Inuit have larger livers and a larger volume of urine than the average human, which helps their bodies to process the byproducts of their diet." (https://oureverydaylife.com/486115-the-inuit-diet.html https://oureverydaylife.com/486115-the-inuit-diet.html) Also ... not applicable to a typical westerner. > The problem is not the food. The problem is obesity. The food is the problem. Eat whole foods, mostly plants, minumum fats & sugar, and obesity is problem no more. > the development of GLP-1 agonists has maybe cost $20 billion What's the total cost of obesity? The cost of diabetes ? It is an enormous waste of resources.
- GLGirty 4y ago
  > The food is the problem Quality of food is certainly declining, but we are also seeing weight increases in lab rats with extremely controlled diets, so food probably isn't the entire story. There's no accepted explanation for this, but good candidates that might apply to humans are: subtle toxicity by microplastics, and changes in gut microbiomes.
  - klabb3 4y ago
    I don’t think anyone claims that obesity is only achievable with modern processed food. At the end of the day it’s calories in, calories out. That said, there’s more to the story. For instance, type 2 diabetes in children did NOT EXIST before ~1980, even though there was plenty of abundance and environmental contaminants. This suggest that there is a major issue with the food itself. If you look at where there is the most obesity, within the US or in the world, you also find a strong correlation with processed food. For instance, the Pacific Islanders who suffered obesity epidemics which coincided with processed food replacing their traditional diets.
spaginal 4y ago
I disagree. Low quality processed foods, typically found in western diets, glysophates, high in industrial seed oils, processed sugars, and salts, are likely one of the biggest reasons for all the negative health effects we are seeing in the western diet, calorie numbers be damned. Any quantity of this food, long term, is likely the reason for the explosive amount of health issues in the population, including many cancers we now commonly deal with. One of the biggest changes to my health I ever noticed was a switch not in how I ate, but in WHAT I ate. When I switched my diet over to high quality foods, organic and garden grown, meat I purchased from a local hunter, it made a substantial impact on my health, helped to fix a lot of my cholesterol and blood sugar numbers, and my overall health shot through the roof. No pills required, just decent ingredients, garden grown food, high quality meat.
sschueller 4y ago
You know that if you cut all sugar for just 2 days things with very little sugar will taste very sweet? We do not need the excessive amount of sugar in our food to fully enjoy it. The general public is just totally numb to it because of over consumption and companies are literally competing on having the sweater product.
- nostrebored 4y ago
  This is an extreme hyperbole. While this does happen, it takes much more like 4-8w in my experience.
  - darkwater 4y ago
    It's an hyperbole but not an "extreme" one. It needs some weeks instead of 2 days, but not 2 years either.
  - lm28469 4y ago
    > it takes much more like 4-8w in my experience. Such a little price to pay to save your body from horrible side effects
mym1990 4y ago
Uhhh you're a little disillusioned to think that a very very small subset of humans paying hundred of dollars for a meal is a baseline for why "humans value tasty and flavorful food". Just because some people drive 160mph on a highway does not mean its a good idea. The fact that you're arguing a box of oreos is equally nutritious to a calorie equal amount of say protein and/or vegetables is actually baffling.
steve_adams_86 4y ago
> We know this because we have hunter-gatherer populations who consume 50% of their diets in sugar (e.g. the Hadza) or fats (e.g. Intuit), and they have none of the diseases of abundance found in modern populations because they have near zero obesity. The often-cited studies suggesting Inuit populations were protected from heart disease (Bang and Dyerberg, Feldman et al) comes from limited data which has since been refuted as unreliable and insufficient. The hypotheses they generated don't hold up to the greater balance of data we have, and despite attempts to confirm findings, it simply hasn't happened. Some studies have suggested to a lesser degree that Inuit populations have marginally smaller rates of coronary artery disease (and other cardiovascular complications), but far more have determined that rates are the same or in some cases/time frames even worse, and risk of stroke has generally trended higher as well. These are all incidents of mortality which have a very, very high correlation with diets which are high in animal fats (as well as salt, regarding strokes). Here is one very good look at this type of data, and if you look you can also find others: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25064579/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25064579/ I agree that obesity is a major issue (especially in the case of sugar; it appears less harmful to the body when the sugar is needed and thus used immediately, but harmful when it hangs around and gets turned into fat. This is the main cause of the surge in fatty liver disease, for example), but there is very little and often very poor evidence that obesity is what causes atherosclerosis to occur and become a mortal danger. It seems to be dangerous regardless of weight, and exercise doesn't appear to be wholly protective against it either. Inuits have actually served as a good example as to why this is true. Even when their obesity rates were lower, their lifestyles required more activity than average, and when studies accounted for BMI, their CAD rates were still on par with western populations according to most data.
civilized 4y ago
I think "people value tasty food" is an oversimplification. It feels good but we regret it when we get fat, our health deteriorates, and with our health goes our participation in and contribution to everything and everyone we love. For many people, junk food starts to feel more like an addiction than a choice in line with highest values. Sadly, this means it can be a problem when food tastes too good. The term of art is "hyperpalatable". Studies have shown that even lab animals gorge themselves and get fat and unhealthy when they get human junk food. I think many people would be grateful to have hyperpalatable food restricted or limited or less visible to them, so the temptation is removed or moderated. How we implement that in society, in a liberal or authoritarian way or somewhere in between, is a separate question.
- CadmiumYellow 4y ago
  Also there is plenty of tasty food that isn't hyperpalatable. Those foods are more difficult to overeat because they're very filling. The problem with hyperpalatable junk food is that it's both especially pleasurable to eat and especially good at overriding our natural satiety cues. There's a world of difference between eating 1,000 calories of cheetos and 1,000 calories of brie cheese: one of them will make you incredibly full and the other will make you feel like you could just keep on crunching forever.
yodsanklai 4y ago
> The problem is not the food. The problem is obesity. Junk food corporations make profit by selling food, and they are extremely good at this. They rely on intense advertising, making the food addictive, targeting children. As a side effect, people get obese since they consume more calories that what they need. I don't know about GLP-1, but my intuition tells me that no drug is going to make eating Mac Donald's and drink Coke healthy, even if it doesn't make you obese.
- dcolkitt 4y ago
  Non-obese people who eat McDonalds and drink Coke are unequivocally healthier than obese people who adhere to the healthiest diets. There's absolutely zero academic research that disputes that obesity (and exercise) by far is the largest risk factor for diabetes, heart disease, etc.
  - str1k3 4y ago
    Wow that's some impressive logical gymnastics. If these people adhere to the "healthiest diets" they will eventually no longer be obese. American food is shit. Most people have no clue what healthy food is, even if they intend to eat a healthy diet.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      This is not very impressive logically. Plenty of non-obese people eat exclusively shitty food.
    - amanj41 4y ago
      You're strawmanning here. Parent commenter clearly meant healthy as in containing only "healthy" foods. If you eat 4,000 calories of brown rice, chicken and broccoli a day you will get fat. Colloquially, though, their diet would be called healthy because of it's constituent foods. Edit: you will get fat assuming you are like most people and do not expend greater than 4k calories / day in total
    - michannne 4y ago
uhtred 4y ago
It seems like you are saying that it would be fine for someone to eat nothing but potato chips and candy bars, as long as they: a) don't eat so much they get obese, or b) take an anti-obesity drug so they don't get obese Which is ridiculous. They would still get sick and die early due to lack of nutrition.
tayo42 4y ago
> believe that they're substantially unhealthy unless consumed to the point of sustained caloric surplus. They are, im not fat (visible flexed abs) I did a blood test and found some issues. I cut out the saturated fats I was eating. Brownies, butter, slow cooked meats. tests were normal again.
csours 4y ago
This analysis lacks proper understanding of the role that hunger and food drive plays. Imagine that you are at the beach, and you can choose how deep you want to wade or how far you want to swim. If you like the water and the sun and the waves, this is very pleasant to imagine. Now imagine that you are dropped into the ocean at night 200 meters from shore and you can't see land, you can't see lights. This is very unpleasant to imagine. Our current food system is much like the second scenario. Instead of framing it as whether or not it is possible to be healthy in this system, ask if the system is consistent with the goals of being healthy. Is a candy bar and a bag of chips consistent with the goals of being healthy? If you are dropped in the ocean in the middle of the night, it is possible to swim to land. But it is also very likely that many people will not be able to swim to land in that scenario. > The food is only an issue because some people have overly strong appetites relative to the abundance of food. Then why is it advertised? Are food advertisements consistent with the goal of health?
- alar44 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - csours 4y ago
    And you know what they feel inside their bodies? Something can be true, satisfying, and incomplete. Why do they eat too much? Because of moral failing? Or because a system designed to maintain energy balance in only one direction is incomplete in our modern environment. Hunger is not a moral failing, it is a physiological system.
    - alar44 4y ago
      I didn't mention morality, you did.
      - csours 4y ago
        > bullshit > fucking eat way too much Those are morally loaded words.
ABCLAW 4y ago
I think the only way you can make this argument is to have a completely value agnostic perspective and believe that any individual value curve is good. Is Meth good because people clearly value it enough to destroy their lives to get more? No. It isn't - we know individual value assessment isn't always right. People genuinely enjoy those foods because they're closer to their bliss point than natural analogues. Increasing salt, fat and sugar content of processed foods doesn't mean they're better for consumers. They just mean they're more addictive. People consume more of them and are more likely to purchase them in the future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food) We have no issues identifying that restrictions on tobacco are acceptable from a public health standpoint - the same chemical reward hijacking is being done with food.
- steve_adams_86 4y ago
  It appears that limiting these bliss-factor ingredients would have a major impact on processed food sales, and as such, lobbying will continue to prevent governments from implementing and maintaining a meaningful reduction. Interestingly, a reduction in consumption of processed foods would also likely have a significant impact on the need for health interventions with drugs. We have massive industries propped up by people’s cravings for junk.
ddorian43 4y ago
> Disagree. People genuinely enjoy those foods, because they're tasty and flavorful. And there's zero reason to believe that they're substantially unhealthy unless consumed to the point of sustained caloric surplus. People enjoy drugs, I agree. Some get addicted and die though.
lm28469 4y ago
> Disagree. People genuinely enjoy those foods, because they're tasty and flavorful. And there's zero reason to believe that they're substantially unhealthy I mean, there are responsible/functioning heroin users, it doesn't mean heroin is safe for everyone > If we can cure obesity Or you know, practice self control, which is easily in the top 3 of good traits to have and practice. But that's only a part of the equation, the other being the food industry abusing our monkey brains by adding all kind of additives to their food to trigger the right pathways so that we keep consuming their products. I for one am happy that I escaped this hellish cycle and mostly consume fresh products, but I completely understand how people get tricked into eating heavily processed food and basically slowly sabotage their whole body > Humans obviously value tasty and flavorful food, and its existence adds joy to people's lives. We also enjoy all kind of things that cause harm to ourselves or others, this is an extremely weak argument, maybe the weakest of all concerning that topic
ffggvv 4y ago
the problem is you are limited in how many calories you can consume. so any unhealthy crap crowds out nutrient rich stuff
gsinclair 4y ago
The existence of (active) hunter-gatherer societies living heavily on (natural) fats and sugars seems completely irrelevant to the problem of obesity in sedentary societies eating many processed foods.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

Gatsky 4y ago

There are randomised controlled trials of diets (without caloric restriction). They show that some diets are better than others for real clinical endpoints, eg mediterranean vs low fat diet for secondary prevention of cardiac events [1]. The effect size in that example is not small, it is large, despite most participants already being on a statin. This data shows that diets are biologically active and significantly impact health. Therefore, the philosophy you espouse cannot be correct, or at least needs to be heavily modified. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)00122-2/abstract https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

dcolkitt 4y ago
You haven't controlled for body weight changes though. Nobody doubts that diets (if adhered to) can reduce weight. So if biomarkers improve relative to an alternative diet, the question is it because A) the Med diet is more effective at weight loss, or B) the Med diet has benefits outside weight loss. The research you linked is interesting, but confounded by weight loss. Research that has directly tried to control for this has generally found that the health benefits of the Med diet are mostly or wholly attributable to the mediating impact of weight/fat loss.[1] This is a critical question, because GLP-1 agonists like semaglutide are far more effective at weight loss (with much lower dropout rates) than any diet known to mankind. So if the benefit of the Med diet is mediated by weight loss, who cares in the age of GLP-1 agonists? It's like arguing about the fastest hot air balloon after the invention of the jet engine. [1]https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Obesity-Mediates-the-Association-between-Diet-and-Park-Zhang/9fcfb1a781d9fc83aa6949307949a226be3dd6dd https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Obesity-Mediates-the-A...
- darkwater 4y ago
  You just forget that there might be side-effects showing up in the long-run that we simply don't know yet (and possibly), why the mediterrean diet has been tested for a few hundred years already (where "diet" means what we have access to and eat, and not a small subset of foods forced on us that relies on a lot of mental effort to follow)
  - dcolkitt 4y ago
    GLP-1 agonists were discovered in the 1980s, and there are already statistically significant population samples who have been using them to treat T2D for decades. Any serious common side effect would have been already discovered from the large-scale clinical trials that have been repeatedly conducted.
  - urthor 4y ago
    The real problem is that we spend hundreds of billions advertising food. If we spent 10% of what we spent on food advertising on large, well funded cohort studies, we'd be far better off as a species. Humanity's greatest crime is how little science we fund.
- Gatsky 4y ago
  Incorrect. They controlled for changes in weight, it is not confounded by weight loss. RCT >> cross sectional analyses.

philjohn 4y ago

Does the type of sugar, or type of fat not play a part here? HFCS is notorious for the bad effects on the body, versus something like honey. Same for the Intuit, simpler animal fats vs hydrogenated "trans" fats? I feel like the key difference in their diets is it's not overly processed and full of things we've decided to put in there for cost reasons (corn subsidies making HFCS cheaper than cane sugar, and trans fats are cheaper than more expensive animal products).

dcolkitt 4y ago
Trans fats are indeed unhealthy, but 1) it's been nearly a decade since they were basically removed from fast food, and 2) they don't contribute to obesity. As for HFCS, there's basically zero evidence that they're a major contributor to obesity versus other types of sugar. (In fact, honey consumed by the Hazda has almost the same balance as sugar as HFCS). We have multiple points of evidence to counteract this. 1) Mexico uses substantially less HFCS compared to other types of sugar, but Mexican obesity rates are as high as the US. 2) HFCS, and sugar in general, consumption has declined over the past 20 years. Yet obesity continues to increase. 3) HFCS was widely consumed in the 1980s, when the obesity rate was de minims.
spirit557 4y ago
There is almost no difference between sugar and HFCS. Sugar is 50/50 glucose/fructose. HFCS is maybe 45/55 glucose/fructose. Fructose can only be metabolized by your liver into inflammatory fat cells in your belly. Glucose can be metabolized by every cell in the body. HFCS would only be worse because it has more fructose but it's barely any worse than sugar. The whole hysteria over HFCS is a joke because sugar is nearly just as bad.

joe_the_user 4y ago

I don't think it's half-plausible to compare Hadza or Intuit diets to a Big Mac and a soda. Neither transfats nor processed sugars are in the Hadza diet, just for example.

mensetmanusman 4y ago
We could absolutely decimate the Intuit by introducing free Pepsi coolers in every home.
8note 4y ago
Isn't honey a processed sugar? The processing being done by a bee instead of a machine
- joe_the_user 4y ago
  By this "reasoning", all food is processed amino acids and related elements. But despite such sophistry, there's a measurable difference between a human-machine-processed diet and an animal-processed diet. Good figure.
  - librish 4y ago
    What is the measurable difference after controlling for what the OP listed?

Aloha 4y ago

Peoples appetites are larger than their physical ability level provides for. We transitioned from a hunter gatherer, to an agrarian, to an industrial society - because most people needed to do much physical activity to survive, even when food was plentiful. The information age is much more sedentary, but people have evolved needs to eat a certain amount of volume to feel satiated. The fact that our foods are super nutritious/calorie dense makes matters worse.

rychco 4y ago

> And there's zero reason to believe that they're substantially unhealthy unless consumed to the point of sustained caloric surplus. I have a hard time believing this without some very strong evidence for this claim. There's already existing evidence for greatly varying health effects of differences in cooking method, oil-type, omega ratios in fats, amino-acid ratios in proteins, glycemic index of carbs, sodium content, etc etc. It's hard for me to reconcile the suggestion that the content of food does not affect whether it is "substantially unhealthy"...

dcolkitt 4y ago
Try to find any major research showing either diet has a significant health impact on either 1) non-overweight individuals who remain non-overweight; or 2) has a health impact after controlling for changes in weight/obesity/body fat. It's virtually non-existent. Perhaps there are small differences on the margin, but all dwarfed by the impact of obesity. Again this shouldn't shock us, because we know hunter-gatherers across the globe eat tremendously varied diets that come in all sorts of extremes. Yet, modern diseases of affluence (heart disease, diabetes, etc.) are virtually non-existent in these populations. The only thing they have in common is a lack of obesity and non-sedentary lifestyle.
- CadmiumYellow 4y ago
  The point is that certain diets are more likely to prevent non-overweight individuals from remaining non-overweight. Example study where participants ate two different diets, one highly processed and one less processed, that were matched for macronutrient and calorie content: https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/pdf/S1550-4131(19)30248-7.pdf https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/pdf/S1550-4131(19)30248...
  - dcolkitt 4y ago
    So you agree, the overwhelming impact of diet on health is from reducing obesity? And surely you also agree with the science that we now have drugs that are far more effective at reducing obesity than any diet known to man.

mensetmanusman 4y ago

It’s not some people, it’s most people. We need to tax the ** out of high calorie foods to fund the extreme cost on health care/society that overeating is causing.

myshpa 4y ago

> ... there's zero reason to believe that they're substantially unhealthy unless consumed to the point of sustained caloric surplus. We know this ... Disagree. > who consume 50% of their diets in sugar (e.g. the Hadza) "Their diet is made up almost exclusively of food that they forage on the forest and includes fiber rich and highly nutritious berries, bananas and honey while any meat they eat is hunted and caught wild." (https://healthyfocus.org/the-hadza-diet-and-the-key-to-a-healthy-microbiome/ https://healthyfocus.org/the-hadza-diet-and-the-key-to-a-hea...) They don't eat sugar. Fruits & vegetables with lots of fiber, wild game. Nothing like westerners diet ... so not really comparable, imho. "... the Inuit's bodies have adapted to better handle the process of gluconeogenesis, in which the body turns fat and protein into useable glucose. The Inuit have larger livers and a larger volume of urine than the average human, which helps their bodies to process the byproducts of their diet." (https://oureverydaylife.com/486115-the-inuit-diet.html https://oureverydaylife.com/486115-the-inuit-diet.html) Also ... not applicable to a typical westerner. > The problem is not the food. The problem is obesity. The food is the problem. Eat whole foods, mostly plants, minumum fats & sugar, and obesity is problem no more. > the development of GLP-1 agonists has maybe cost $20 billion What's the total cost of obesity? The cost of diabetes ? It is an enormous waste of resources.

GLGirty 4y ago
> The food is the problem Quality of food is certainly declining, but we are also seeing weight increases in lab rats with extremely controlled diets, so food probably isn't the entire story. There's no accepted explanation for this, but good candidates that might apply to humans are: subtle toxicity by microplastics, and changes in gut microbiomes.
- klabb3 4y ago
  I don’t think anyone claims that obesity is only achievable with modern processed food. At the end of the day it’s calories in, calories out. That said, there’s more to the story. For instance, type 2 diabetes in children did NOT EXIST before ~1980, even though there was plenty of abundance and environmental contaminants. This suggest that there is a major issue with the food itself. If you look at where there is the most obesity, within the US or in the world, you also find a strong correlation with processed food. For instance, the Pacific Islanders who suffered obesity epidemics which coincided with processed food replacing their traditional diets.

spaginal 4y ago

I disagree. Low quality processed foods, typically found in western diets, glysophates, high in industrial seed oils, processed sugars, and salts, are likely one of the biggest reasons for all the negative health effects we are seeing in the western diet, calorie numbers be damned. Any quantity of this food, long term, is likely the reason for the explosive amount of health issues in the population, including many cancers we now commonly deal with. One of the biggest changes to my health I ever noticed was a switch not in how I ate, but in WHAT I ate. When I switched my diet over to high quality foods, organic and garden grown, meat I purchased from a local hunter, it made a substantial impact on my health, helped to fix a lot of my cholesterol and blood sugar numbers, and my overall health shot through the roof. No pills required, just decent ingredients, garden grown food, high quality meat.

sschueller 4y ago

You know that if you cut all sugar for just 2 days things with very little sugar will taste very sweet? We do not need the excessive amount of sugar in our food to fully enjoy it. The general public is just totally numb to it because of over consumption and companies are literally competing on having the sweater product.

nostrebored 4y ago
This is an extreme hyperbole. While this does happen, it takes much more like 4-8w in my experience.
- darkwater 4y ago
  It's an hyperbole but not an "extreme" one. It needs some weeks instead of 2 days, but not 2 years either.
- lm28469 4y ago
  > it takes much more like 4-8w in my experience. Such a little price to pay to save your body from horrible side effects

mym1990 4y ago

Uhhh you're a little disillusioned to think that a very very small subset of humans paying hundred of dollars for a meal is a baseline for why "humans value tasty and flavorful food". Just because some people drive 160mph on a highway does not mean its a good idea. The fact that you're arguing a box of oreos is equally nutritious to a calorie equal amount of say protein and/or vegetables is actually baffling.

steve_adams_86 4y ago

> We know this because we have hunter-gatherer populations who consume 50% of their diets in sugar (e.g. the Hadza) or fats (e.g. Intuit), and they have none of the diseases of abundance found in modern populations because they have near zero obesity. The often-cited studies suggesting Inuit populations were protected from heart disease (Bang and Dyerberg, Feldman et al) comes from limited data which has since been refuted as unreliable and insufficient. The hypotheses they generated don't hold up to the greater balance of data we have, and despite attempts to confirm findings, it simply hasn't happened. Some studies have suggested to a lesser degree that Inuit populations have marginally smaller rates of coronary artery disease (and other cardiovascular complications), but far more have determined that rates are the same or in some cases/time frames even worse, and risk of stroke has generally trended higher as well. These are all incidents of mortality which have a very, very high correlation with diets which are high in animal fats (as well as salt, regarding strokes). Here is one very good look at this type of data, and if you look you can also find others: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25064579/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25064579/ I agree that obesity is a major issue (especially in the case of sugar; it appears less harmful to the body when the sugar is needed and thus used immediately, but harmful when it hangs around and gets turned into fat. This is the main cause of the surge in fatty liver disease, for example), but there is very little and often very poor evidence that obesity is what causes atherosclerosis to occur and become a mortal danger. It seems to be dangerous regardless of weight, and exercise doesn't appear to be wholly protective against it either. Inuits have actually served as a good example as to why this is true. Even when their obesity rates were lower, their lifestyles required more activity than average, and when studies accounted for BMI, their CAD rates were still on par with western populations according to most data.

civilized 4y ago

I think "people value tasty food" is an oversimplification. It feels good but we regret it when we get fat, our health deteriorates, and with our health goes our participation in and contribution to everything and everyone we love. For many people, junk food starts to feel more like an addiction than a choice in line with highest values. Sadly, this means it can be a problem when food tastes too good. The term of art is "hyperpalatable". Studies have shown that even lab animals gorge themselves and get fat and unhealthy when they get human junk food. I think many people would be grateful to have hyperpalatable food restricted or limited or less visible to them, so the temptation is removed or moderated. How we implement that in society, in a liberal or authoritarian way or somewhere in between, is a separate question.

CadmiumYellow 4y ago
Also there is plenty of tasty food that isn't hyperpalatable. Those foods are more difficult to overeat because they're very filling. The problem with hyperpalatable junk food is that it's both especially pleasurable to eat and especially good at overriding our natural satiety cues. There's a world of difference between eating 1,000 calories of cheetos and 1,000 calories of brie cheese: one of them will make you incredibly full and the other will make you feel like you could just keep on crunching forever.

yodsanklai 4y ago

> The problem is not the food. The problem is obesity. Junk food corporations make profit by selling food, and they are extremely good at this. They rely on intense advertising, making the food addictive, targeting children. As a side effect, people get obese since they consume more calories that what they need. I don't know about GLP-1, but my intuition tells me that no drug is going to make eating Mac Donald's and drink Coke healthy, even if it doesn't make you obese.

dcolkitt 4y ago
Non-obese people who eat McDonalds and drink Coke are unequivocally healthier than obese people who adhere to the healthiest diets. There's absolutely zero academic research that disputes that obesity (and exercise) by far is the largest risk factor for diabetes, heart disease, etc.
- str1k3 4y ago
  Wow that's some impressive logical gymnastics. If these people adhere to the "healthiest diets" they will eventually no longer be obese. American food is shit. Most people have no clue what healthy food is, even if they intend to eat a healthy diet.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    This is not very impressive logically. Plenty of non-obese people eat exclusively shitty food.
  - amanj41 4y ago
    You're strawmanning here. Parent commenter clearly meant healthy as in containing only "healthy" foods. If you eat 4,000 calories of brown rice, chicken and broccoli a day you will get fat. Colloquially, though, their diet would be called healthy because of it's constituent foods. Edit: you will get fat assuming you are like most people and do not expend greater than 4k calories / day in total
  - michannne 4y ago

uhtred 4y ago

It seems like you are saying that it would be fine for someone to eat nothing but potato chips and candy bars, as long as they: a) don't eat so much they get obese, or b) take an anti-obesity drug so they don't get obese Which is ridiculous. They would still get sick and die early due to lack of nutrition.

tayo42 4y ago

> believe that they're substantially unhealthy unless consumed to the point of sustained caloric surplus. They are, im not fat (visible flexed abs) I did a blood test and found some issues. I cut out the saturated fats I was eating. Brownies, butter, slow cooked meats. tests were normal again.

csours 4y ago

This analysis lacks proper understanding of the role that hunger and food drive plays. Imagine that you are at the beach, and you can choose how deep you want to wade or how far you want to swim. If you like the water and the sun and the waves, this is very pleasant to imagine. Now imagine that you are dropped into the ocean at night 200 meters from shore and you can't see land, you can't see lights. This is very unpleasant to imagine. Our current food system is much like the second scenario. Instead of framing it as whether or not it is possible to be healthy in this system, ask if the system is consistent with the goals of being healthy. Is a candy bar and a bag of chips consistent with the goals of being healthy? If you are dropped in the ocean in the middle of the night, it is possible to swim to land. But it is also very likely that many people will not be able to swim to land in that scenario. > The food is only an issue because some people have overly strong appetites relative to the abundance of food. Then why is it advertised? Are food advertisements consistent with the goal of health?

alar44 4y ago
[flagged]
- csours 4y ago
  And you know what they feel inside their bodies? Something can be true, satisfying, and incomplete. Why do they eat too much? Because of moral failing? Or because a system designed to maintain energy balance in only one direction is incomplete in our modern environment. Hunger is not a moral failing, it is a physiological system.
  - alar44 4y ago
    I didn't mention morality, you did.
    - csours 4y ago
      > bullshit > fucking eat way too much Those are morally loaded words.

ABCLAW 4y ago

I think the only way you can make this argument is to have a completely value agnostic perspective and believe that any individual value curve is good. Is Meth good because people clearly value it enough to destroy their lives to get more? No. It isn't - we know individual value assessment isn't always right. People genuinely enjoy those foods because they're closer to their bliss point than natural analogues. Increasing salt, fat and sugar content of processed foods doesn't mean they're better for consumers. They just mean they're more addictive. People consume more of them and are more likely to purchase them in the future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food) We have no issues identifying that restrictions on tobacco are acceptable from a public health standpoint - the same chemical reward hijacking is being done with food.

steve_adams_86 4y ago
It appears that limiting these bliss-factor ingredients would have a major impact on processed food sales, and as such, lobbying will continue to prevent governments from implementing and maintaining a meaningful reduction. Interestingly, a reduction in consumption of processed foods would also likely have a significant impact on the need for health interventions with drugs. We have massive industries propped up by people’s cravings for junk.

ddorian43 4y ago

> Disagree. People genuinely enjoy those foods, because they're tasty and flavorful. And there's zero reason to believe that they're substantially unhealthy unless consumed to the point of sustained caloric surplus. People enjoy drugs, I agree. Some get addicted and die though.

lm28469 4y ago

> Disagree. People genuinely enjoy those foods, because they're tasty and flavorful. And there's zero reason to believe that they're substantially unhealthy I mean, there are responsible/functioning heroin users, it doesn't mean heroin is safe for everyone > If we can cure obesity Or you know, practice self control, which is easily in the top 3 of good traits to have and practice. But that's only a part of the equation, the other being the food industry abusing our monkey brains by adding all kind of additives to their food to trigger the right pathways so that we keep consuming their products. I for one am happy that I escaped this hellish cycle and mostly consume fresh products, but I completely understand how people get tricked into eating heavily processed food and basically slowly sabotage their whole body > Humans obviously value tasty and flavorful food, and its existence adds joy to people's lives. We also enjoy all kind of things that cause harm to ourselves or others, this is an extremely weak argument, maybe the weakest of all concerning that topic

ffggvv 4y ago

the problem is you are limited in how many calories you can consume. so any unhealthy crap crowds out nutrient rich stuff

gsinclair 4y ago

The existence of (active) hunter-gatherer societies living heavily on (natural) fats and sugars seems completely irrelevant to the problem of obesity in sedentary societies eating many processed foods.