3 ms·
The only way to run an experiment that could determine optimal BMI would be to lock up groups of randomly selected people in a jail-style environment for decade
by drcode 17y ago
The only way to run an experiment that could determine optimal BMI would be to lock up groups of randomly selected people in a jail-style environment for decades, where their diet could be accurately controlled. In other words, we'll never know the answer to this question for humans, despite what this article claims.
We've done these experiments in animals and those experiments suggest an extreme starvation diet leads to the longest lifespan.
- tokenadult 17y agoI appreciate you mentioning the issue of experiment design in your reply. I enjoy posting in HN comments a link to Peter Norvig's article about that issue http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html which mentions some of the trade-offs involved in different forms of study designs. The history of the prescribed drug Rimonabant (Acomplia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimonabant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimonabant illustrates some of the problems with using animal studies to establish safety of interventions for human beings. The animal studies have to be done, and they are generally very helpful, but some aspects of human behavior are sufficiently complicated and not analogous to animal behavior that what looks safe and effective for animals turns out not to be beneficial for human beings.
- drcode 17y agoThanks for the great Norvig link