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> Consider an arbitrary SuperGiant classification that says that SuperGiant foods are harmful. SuperGiant foods are defined as any food you can buy in a superma

> Consider an arbitrary SuperGiant classification that says that SuperGiant foods are harmful. SuperGiant foods are defined as any food you can buy in a supermarket plus also Polonium. You can easily produce a wide range of statistics to show harms caused by things classed as SuperGiant foods. That's very true, but you've intentionally made SuperGiant foods to have two distinct categories. Scientists only considering SuperGiant foods might show harm, but quite quickly a study could be done to show that specifically, Polonium is the relevant item. If that couldn't be shown, then avoiding SuperGiant foods would be a sensible precaution, even if you suspect there's something specific causing harm that isn't in all SuperGiant foods - with the obvious caveat that you've defined SuperGiant foods to more or less impossible to actually avoid. Currently UPF is not similar to this, in that nobody has yet shown that UPFs are a category containing something else which is bad for you. That probably is the case, but until the parallel of Polonium is found, being cautious around UPFs seems like a sensible idea.

Lerc 1y ago
Well I cannot address the accuracy of your statement on UPFs unless I assume the term UPF is synonymous with the Nova Classification, which is much of the problem. If it is synonymous then the term is bound to a classification system and that system can dictate what is meant by UPFs leading to the inability for others to refine the term for more accuracy. This is where we are headed with UPF being an evocative term that does not represent the scientific opinion of what is good for you. The Siga Index seems to be better suited to aiming for positive outcomes but associating it with the term UPF then enables people to conflate findings regarding Nova results with Siga results. >Currently UPF is not similar to this, in that nobody has yet shown that UPFs are a category containing something else which is bad for you. There are two aspect to this, firstly it is not that there is containing something 'else'. By definition if it meets the criteria of the definition it is not an 'else' but a part of the criteria. To phrase that a different way is to say it all fits within in the criteria but the criteria itself is not homogenous. And that's the second problem with your statement. The Nova classification _is_ similar to this. From Wikipedia A number of studies show that although UPFs in general are associated with higher health risks, there exists a large heterogeneity among UPF subgroups. For example, although bread and cereals are classified as UPFs, a large 2023 study published in The Lancet finds them inversely associated with cancer and cardiometabolic diseases in the European population (hazard ratio 0.97). The study found that animal-based products (HR = 1.09) and artificially and sugar-sweetened beverages (HR = 1.09) are most strongly associated with diseases among UPFs. They did find a parallel of Polonium, sweeteners (and another one with animal products)

Lerc 1y ago

Well I cannot address the accuracy of your statement on UPFs unless I assume the term UPF is synonymous with the Nova Classification, which is much of the problem. If it is synonymous then the term is bound to a classification system and that system can dictate what is meant by UPFs leading to the inability for others to refine the term for more accuracy. This is where we are headed with UPF being an evocative term that does not represent the scientific opinion of what is good for you. The Siga Index seems to be better suited to aiming for positive outcomes but associating it with the term UPF then enables people to conflate findings regarding Nova results with Siga results. >Currently UPF is not similar to this, in that nobody has yet shown that UPFs are a category containing something else which is bad for you. There are two aspect to this, firstly it is not that there is containing something 'else'. By definition if it meets the criteria of the definition it is not an 'else' but a part of the criteria. To phrase that a different way is to say it all fits within in the criteria but the criteria itself is not homogenous. And that's the second problem with your statement. The Nova classification _is_ similar to this. From Wikipedia A number of studies show that although UPFs in general are associated with higher health risks, there exists a large heterogeneity among UPF subgroups. For example, although bread and cereals are classified as UPFs, a large 2023 study published in The Lancet finds them inversely associated with cancer and cardiometabolic diseases in the European population (hazard ratio 0.97). The study found that animal-based products (HR = 1.09) and artificially and sugar-sweetened beverages (HR = 1.09) are most strongly associated with diseases among UPFs. They did find a parallel of Polonium, sweeteners (and another one with animal products)