6 ms·

> Why? Do you think your ancestors were especially healthy? It's the null hypothesis. For me personally, it's more a bet against the modern microbiome than it

by dlss 12y ago

> Why? Do you think your ancestors were especially healthy? It's the null hypothesis. For me personally, it's more a bet against the modern microbiome than it is a bet for the ancestral one. See also paleo vs margarine, no fat, no cholesterol, no carbs, enough poly-saturated fat, enough omega 3. Really paleo vs any nutrition advice that's more than 10 years old (so the science had a chance to check the claims) IMO we don't currently know enough about nutrition or the microbiome to make a better choice than "whatever our great-great-great grandparents did" > Do you think they all had the same microbiome? They didn't, but they had way more diversity and significantly different strains than moderns do. Check out my above link to the american gut project's founder or http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0106833 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

msandford 12y ago
I think it's bananas that you're advocating for historical eating and getting downvoted. The only reason we're here at all is that it worked well enough to keep people alive. Maybe it's not "optimal" but considering that obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc rates have all been climbing like crazy for the last 50 years and the diet has changed a lot in the last 50 years, it's not outside the realm of possibility that the change in diet is causative towards these outcomes rather than simply correlated. And considering how long it's going to take to sort it out definitively, you might have to go most of your life making decisions based on a hunch rather than with proven science. It sucks, but that's life.
- genofon 12y ago
  >heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc rates have all been climbing like crazy for the last 50 years I'm not sure about that, in the past the diagnosis were really different from now so you can't really compare them. Also the lifespan was much shorted at that time, so people had less changes to get these illnesses.
  - will_work4tears 12y ago
    So are you arguing that obesity in children is happening because we are living longer?
    - DanBC 12y ago
      It's not controversial to say that cancer is a disease of old age, and that rates of cancer are higher now because people are living longer. That makes a lot more sense than a lot of the nutrition bullshit that gets posted to HN.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - will_work4tears 12y ago
        I agree with that, but if one of those things are right (the cancer part, maybe) but diabetes sure isn't one of those.
      - tokenadult 12y ago
        Dan, I know you like to check your facts. Age-adjusted rates of cancer have been going steadily down throughout our lifetimes. That information has been posted to Hacker News before. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8827382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8827382 Yes, the absolute number of cancer cases experienced by an individual over the course of life will increase if the individual lives longer by surviving other causes of death, as cancer is mostly a disease that takes a long time to develop. But at a given age, individuals in the developed world are at less risk than ever before to have a case of cancer, and cancer cases are less likely to have fatal outcomes than ever before.
    - nsxwolf 12y ago
      We're not really living much longer. More people are reaching old age, pushing average life expectancy up. Remember that whenever you hear a curious claim like "But back then, 40 was considered elderly!" Never was.
    - 12y ago
- tokenadult 12y ago
  Maybe it's not "optimal" but considering that obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc rates have all been climbing like crazy for the last 50 years The statement you make here is a commonly made statement here on Hacker News, and I believe you are making it honestly based on the latest information you heard. Nevertheless, the statement is incorrect in large part. You are correct that rates of obesity are going up. But age-adjusted rates of heart disease, cancer, and several other diseases are steadily going down and have been going down for my whole lifetime (more than fifty years).[1] That's why the greatest increase in life expectancy in recent years in developed countries is actually coming from reduced death rates at OLD ages--the infant mortality rates in developed countries have already been very low for most of my lifetime. See an article in a series on Slate, "Why Are You Not Dead Yet? Life expectancy doubled in past 150 years. Here’s why"[2] for more background information. [1] http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box/scientificamerican0912-54_BX1.html http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box... [2] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_longevity/2013/09/life_expectancy_history_public_health_and_medical_advances_that_lead_to.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_...

by dlss 12y ago

msandford 12y ago

I think it's bananas that you're advocating for historical eating and getting downvoted. The only reason we're here at all is that it worked well enough to keep people alive. Maybe it's not "optimal" but considering that obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc rates have all been climbing like crazy for the last 50 years and the diet has changed a lot in the last 50 years, it's not outside the realm of possibility that the change in diet is causative towards these outcomes rather than simply correlated. And considering how long it's going to take to sort it out definitively, you might have to go most of your life making decisions based on a hunch rather than with proven science. It sucks, but that's life.

genofon 12y ago
>heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc rates have all been climbing like crazy for the last 50 years I'm not sure about that, in the past the diagnosis were really different from now so you can't really compare them. Also the lifespan was much shorted at that time, so people had less changes to get these illnesses.
- will_work4tears 12y ago
  So are you arguing that obesity in children is happening because we are living longer?
  - DanBC 12y ago
    It's not controversial to say that cancer is a disease of old age, and that rates of cancer are higher now because people are living longer. That makes a lot more sense than a lot of the nutrition bullshit that gets posted to HN.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - will_work4tears 12y ago
      I agree with that, but if one of those things are right (the cancer part, maybe) but diabetes sure isn't one of those.
    - tokenadult 12y ago
      Dan, I know you like to check your facts. Age-adjusted rates of cancer have been going steadily down throughout our lifetimes. That information has been posted to Hacker News before. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8827382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8827382 Yes, the absolute number of cancer cases experienced by an individual over the course of life will increase if the individual lives longer by surviving other causes of death, as cancer is mostly a disease that takes a long time to develop. But at a given age, individuals in the developed world are at less risk than ever before to have a case of cancer, and cancer cases are less likely to have fatal outcomes than ever before.
  - nsxwolf 12y ago
    We're not really living much longer. More people are reaching old age, pushing average life expectancy up. Remember that whenever you hear a curious claim like "But back then, 40 was considered elderly!" Never was.
  - 12y ago
tokenadult 12y ago
Maybe it's not "optimal" but considering that obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc rates have all been climbing like crazy for the last 50 years The statement you make here is a commonly made statement here on Hacker News, and I believe you are making it honestly based on the latest information you heard. Nevertheless, the statement is incorrect in large part. You are correct that rates of obesity are going up. But age-adjusted rates of heart disease, cancer, and several other diseases are steadily going down and have been going down for my whole lifetime (more than fifty years).[1] That's why the greatest increase in life expectancy in recent years in developed countries is actually coming from reduced death rates at OLD ages--the infant mortality rates in developed countries have already been very low for most of my lifetime. See an article in a series on Slate, "Why Are You Not Dead Yet? Life expectancy doubled in past 150 years. Here’s why"[2] for more background information. [1] http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box/scientificamerican0912-54_BX1.html http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box... [2] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_longevity/2013/09/life_expectancy_history_public_health_and_medical_advances_that_lead_to.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_...