4 ms·

You said. > Most people who eat a Standard American/Western Diet (SAD) are ill, as per the article here. You are proving that most who eat a "Standard America

You said. > Most people who eat a Standard American/Western Diet (SAD) are ill, as per the article here. You are proving that most who eat a "Standard American Diet" are sick based on an article specifying what percentage of Americans take a prescription medication but that is a useless metric because its poorly correlated with illness. The example I gave was someone who suffers from seasonal allergies. They would by this metric be classified as ill or sick depending on whether they chose to suffer or medicate and whether their preferred solution was OTC or prescription. Another good example is early detection of cancer. By your definition Americans who don't die of cancer but live more years would "prove" that people were less healthy by not dying. This isn't to say that people who eat the standard American diet aren't sick. They are because the standard American diet involves a shit ton of McDonald's, an absurd amount of salt and sugar, and more calories than needed for our sedentary lifestyle. It is broken in so many obvious ways that wondering if we should change the balance of vitamin A for most folks would be like wondering if a person with a gunshot wound to the forehead ought to do a few more push ups now and again. * Efficacy vs mechanics Fiber pretty definitively seems to ease constipation even if our analysis of the mechanism is imprecise or even wrong. Sadly this is not uncommon in medicine. Our understanding is still evolving * Folk wisdom vs actual wisdom The peanut thing is a known way to treat allergies but in particular its of very dubious benefit as it is very expensive and requires if I recall complex compliance that parents are liable to fuck up and you are still allergic to peanuts so you STILL have to practice the same behaviors. It's not clear on net that its worthwhile for most parents to use. > if allergies have "nothing whatsoever to do with diet" these shouldn't exist at all Any complex condition with substantially divergent outcomes between people is subject to people assigning causation to any irrelevant factor. If they blog about it and 100,000 people try it and 10,000 of them are expected to have substantial improvements if they did nothing you can get yourself 10,000 converts and a line of products. If I can digress for instance my wife has Rheumatoid arthritis a complex auto immune disorder where the body attacks itself especially the joints having little to do with the common osteoarthritis save for the concurrent effects of one on the other. A massive number of people know one weird trick the doctors don't want you to know about up to and including drinking your own pee. The truth is that we do know how to slow the progression of the disease but outcomes are wildly divergent between people or even in the same person at different times for reasons we don't understand well. If you convinced enough folks to drink their own pee you would have a certain number whose conditions improve it doesn't mean urine is medicine. > Yours is the "I exercise and eat kale and I'm healthy, so everyone who doesn't is just lazy and impulsive". I'm an asthmatic who doesn't get much exercise since I started working from home who drinks about 6-7 mugs of sugary coffee. I'm not fighting the battle of the bulge only because I have always had pretty great metabolism. I like most Americans know my diet and habits aren't very healthy. Instead of wondering whether I should follow this or that fad I really ought to like most folks do the obvious things.

jodrellblank 3y ago
> "A massive number of people know one weird trick the doctors don't want you to know about up to and including drinking your own pee. The truth is that we do know how to slow the progression of the disease but outcomes are wildly divergent between people or even in the same person at different times for reasons we don't understand well. If you convinced enough folks to drink their own pee you would have a certain number whose conditions improve it doesn't mean urine is medicine." Agreed, and then we get back to my original comment: we could assume that literally none of the weird tricks have any value to them. You say "Our understanding is still evolving" so perhaps you agree it could be possible that one of the weird tricks has a kernel of truth to it? If so, if it was obvious then the weird trick wouldn't be a weird trick, it would be well known. So it will not be a glaring light in the sky. If it's coming from a lay-person it probably is not the full understanding - like adding a randomised delay can 'cure' a race condition, that's not a good fix but it's sure in the right area of the problem. How would we identify that trick from the others? Can we, as lay people? Well, perhaps if it had mechanisms of action, explanations or plausible stories for common phenomena, relevant studies and citations? Do the "drink pee" people have studies and citations, proposed mechanisms of action, proposed tests, correlations from multiple angles, logical arguments, anecdotes? Because the anti Vitamin A people have, enough that piecemeal make up a case for Vitamin A being more harmful than is commonly believed - if not a glaring light in the sky. They also have kooky beliefs. But they have collectively more convincing hints and arguments than "drink pee". The first book here: https://ggenereux.blog/my-ebooks/ https://ggenereux.blog/my-ebooks/ e.g. page 125 (PDF page 139) has references for Vitamin A (retinol) being converted to retinoic acid in the body. The next page has a proposed way for retinoids to enter cells. And a way for them to trigger an immune response. It's 400 pages, skim read it - it's not "drink pee, the idea came to me in a dream", it's not the ravings of Gene Ray about four dimensional timecube. NB. the intro page warns "I was still quite unwell as I wrote this book, It is too long, rambling, and has many typos and grammatical errors. If you can get past that, there’s probably still some worthwhile information in it. It makes a very strong case that vitamin A is at the root cause of many of our chronic inflammatory diseases.". > "It is broken in so many obvious ways that wondering if we should change the balance of vitamin A for most folks would be like wondering if a person with a gunshot wound to the forehead ought to do a few more push ups now and again." Unless the extra body fat is a defensive storage mechanism against excess dietary vitamin A. Unless Vitamin A is damaging body cells and causing a lot of the type 2 diabetes epidemic. Unless Vitamin A is causing the lethargy and fatigue which is leading to people wanting to drive everywhere. Unless Vitamin A is causing the lowered concentration and motivation, and increasing the depression, leading to people taking the easier fast food option rather than planning a better meal. Are these in the crank territory or in the random-delay-for-race-condition territory or in the obvious-in-hindsight-in-100-years territory? How would we know? We know that acute vitamin A overdose can cause all of those things. Declared side effects of Vitamin A therapies can look like all those things. Is it impossible that eating Vitamin A can lead to a chronic increase in all those things?

jodrellblank 3y ago

> "A massive number of people know one weird trick the doctors don't want you to know about up to and including drinking your own pee. The truth is that we do know how to slow the progression of the disease but outcomes are wildly divergent between people or even in the same person at different times for reasons we don't understand well. If you convinced enough folks to drink their own pee you would have a certain number whose conditions improve it doesn't mean urine is medicine." Agreed, and then we get back to my original comment: we could assume that literally none of the weird tricks have any value to them. You say "Our understanding is still evolving" so perhaps you agree it could be possible that one of the weird tricks has a kernel of truth to it? If so, if it was obvious then the weird trick wouldn't be a weird trick, it would be well known. So it will not be a glaring light in the sky. If it's coming from a lay-person it probably is not the full understanding - like adding a randomised delay can 'cure' a race condition, that's not a good fix but it's sure in the right area of the problem. How would we identify that trick from the others? Can we, as lay people? Well, perhaps if it had mechanisms of action, explanations or plausible stories for common phenomena, relevant studies and citations? Do the "drink pee" people have studies and citations, proposed mechanisms of action, proposed tests, correlations from multiple angles, logical arguments, anecdotes? Because the anti Vitamin A people have, enough that piecemeal make up a case for Vitamin A being more harmful than is commonly believed - if not a glaring light in the sky. They also have kooky beliefs. But they have collectively more convincing hints and arguments than "drink pee". The first book here: https://ggenereux.blog/my-ebooks/ https://ggenereux.blog/my-ebooks/ e.g. page 125 (PDF page 139) has references for Vitamin A (retinol) being converted to retinoic acid in the body. The next page has a proposed way for retinoids to enter cells. And a way for them to trigger an immune response. It's 400 pages, skim read it - it's not "drink pee, the idea came to me in a dream", it's not the ravings of Gene Ray about four dimensional timecube. NB. the intro page warns "I was still quite unwell as I wrote this book, It is too long, rambling, and has many typos and grammatical errors. If you can get past that, there’s probably still some worthwhile information in it. It makes a very strong case that vitamin A is at the root cause of many of our chronic inflammatory diseases.". > "It is broken in so many obvious ways that wondering if we should change the balance of vitamin A for most folks would be like wondering if a person with a gunshot wound to the forehead ought to do a few more push ups now and again." Unless the extra body fat is a defensive storage mechanism against excess dietary vitamin A. Unless Vitamin A is damaging body cells and causing a lot of the type 2 diabetes epidemic. Unless Vitamin A is causing the lethargy and fatigue which is leading to people wanting to drive everywhere. Unless Vitamin A is causing the lowered concentration and motivation, and increasing the depression, leading to people taking the easier fast food option rather than planning a better meal. Are these in the crank territory or in the random-delay-for-race-condition territory or in the obvious-in-hindsight-in-100-years territory? How would we know? We know that acute vitamin A overdose can cause all of those things. Declared side effects of Vitamin A therapies can look like all those things. Is it impossible that eating Vitamin A can lead to a chronic increase in all those things?