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One of my first successful start-ups was software that helps make sense of the 35,000+ medical studies that are published each year. (The software helps find d
by Shooter 19y ago
One of my first successful start-ups was software that helps make sense of the 35,000+ medical studies that are published each year. (The software helps find design flaws, does cohort analysis, helps summarize results, etc.) During that experience, I became very interested in nutrition research as a hobby. I basically learned that things I grew up eating were unbelievably bad for me. (I grew up drinking milk, eating meals centered around meat, with lots of refined, fried and sugary ingredients. Good old Southern cooking and Standard American Diet.) I also learned that much of what we are taught ("Milk for strong bones") is complete bullshit when you actually read the studies. Milk is really for osteoporosis and breast cancer.
We sold that company, and I stopped seriously reading on the subject. Recently, illnesses in my family (cancer and autoimmune diseases) have caused me to get into the subject again to an even greater degree. I've also experimented with my own diet for the last several years and I've arrived at a very different conclusion than this fellow.
There are tons of people that have an almost religious agenda about pushing specific diets. They are usually well-intentioned...they just really want to believe they are right. They publish pseudo-scientific articles like this one that have just enough logic in them to seduce people into believing them. The media is also horrible about publishing sensational (but poorly analyzed) nutrition research. They flip-flop their headlines so much ("Coffee Can Cure X", then "Coffee Causes X Cancer") that people finally just give up on trying to understand nutrition and they just continue eating the crap that they have always eaten. Which is amazingly sad, because proper nutrition is really the best medicine on earth.
I LOOOOOOOVE steak and ice cream, but a vegetarian/vegan diet has been shown in almost every study to be a more healthful diet in every respect. And the studies that fail to show that are usually flawed and/or underwritten by industry trade groups. There is no "perfect diet" for everyone...there will always be corner cases. Some people with specific genetic predispositions SHOULD avoid grains altogether. Apart from gluten sensitivity, there is the issue of molecular mimicry and genetic autoimmune issues, etc.
Modern people are dying of heart disease, cancer and strokes, though. Those illnesses are linked to higher consumption of meat (Paleo-coronary, anyone?), dairy, sugar, cooking oil, and refined foods. We are NOT dying of starvation, hypothermia, or tooth loss - which were probably some of the more pressing concerns in the paleolithic era. We are also living 2-4 times longer than our ancestors, on average, so we have entirely different concerns.
This is really a fascinating area of research...I've noticed that tons of computer hackers are also very interested in nutrition and body/diet hacks.
- kingkongrevenge 19y ago> a vegetarian/vegan diet has been shown in almost every study to be a more healthful diet in every respect Vegetarians have a higher death rate than meat eaters of the same socio-economic class at all ages. Every study that looks at actual disease and death rates, and not assumed correlates like cholesterol, has found health benefits from high animal fat intake. > heart disease, cancer and strokes, though. Those illnesses are linked to higher consumption of meat (Paleo-coronary, anyone?), dairy Population studies show decreasing rates of heart disease and cancer with increased dairy and meat consumption. Look at post-war Europe and Japan.
- Shooter 19y agoUm...citations? I'm curious if you got these ideas from a certain organization that was started by a long-dead dentist? Your use of the phrase "assumed correlates like cholesterol" made me wonder. I guess you discount the Framingham study (or the few thousand follow-up studies that were published and peer-reviewed) that DO show a strong correlation between dietary cholesterol and heart disease? I don't have time to post a few thousand citations that contradict your viewpoint right now, so I'll just start by mentioning the Cornell China Study: The Cornell China Study is considered the most comprehensive study of health and nutrition ever conducted. It is a joint research program between Cornell, Oxford, and the Chinese Academy of Preventative Medicine. The data was from twenty plus years of research in 65 Chinese counties. It is often cited because of its size, scope, and the fact that there was such a wide range of diet data represented (high meat consumption populations on down to populations with little or no meat consumption, for example.) It found a strong correlation between increasing meat consumption and increasing disease and mortality. It is an interesting study. You should check it out. American men eat a great deal more meat (10 to 20X in urban areas) than Chinese men, on average. American men also die of heart disease at almost 17 times the rate of Chinese men. This trend holds true, in the aggregate, no matter where or what time period you study. The countries with the highest meat and dairy consumption have the highest rates of cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Even in post-war Europe and Japan. Even accounting for genetic differences. I don't want to come off as a TOTAL pompous ass, so I'll only cite more studies if you're actually interested or still want to argue with me. I spend between 15 and 20 hours researching nutrition each week, so it is a pet peeve of mine when I hear total BS passed off as truth. Like I said, proper nutrition is the best medicine on earth...even though eating properly is NOT necessarily simple, easy or fun. Wanting steaks and ice cream to be healthy does not make them so.