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The complications of nutrition science

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Re: The complications of nutrition science

#21

Post by Gibbon1 »

MCRed wrote: post #11

The only proof I have is an anecdote but it is consistent with my research-- and I've lost 100 pounds in 8 months as a result. The biggest problem is we have rejected science from food to begin with. We have government spending billions pushing a diet designed to create obesity (which is very high in carbs, effectively sugar, and low in fat.) Likely there are at least two types of people biochemically- those who are…

I think it's accepted now also that insulin blocks the effects of leptin (satiety hormone) on the brain. So a diet with an excess of carbs interferes with both fat regulation regulation but also intake.

Also I tried looking this up and failed. But I'm sure that leptin wasn't discovered until the war on fat was well underway. And the first instinct when it was discovered was to try to use it as a drug target (all these failed badly).

Re: The complications of nutrition science

#23

Post by skybrian »

jernfrost wrote: post #14

Learning about diets and food is also terribly difficult because the internet and books are so full of people who are so dead certain about their pseudo science. There is so much emotion attached to food that getting an objective rational opinion on anything food related is next to impossible. Personally I like the Soylent creators take on it. He seems extremely focused on figuring out the objective truths and ignore…

It would be pretty interesting to do A/B testing starting out with a group of people who regularly drink a lot of Soylent. I haven't heard of anyone doing that sort of testing, though.

The experimentation that the Soylent folks are doing themselves looks like the fairly uncontrolled do-it-yourself kind, not like a real scientific study. It seems like it would be difficult to do properly because the formula of Soylent changes quite often.

Re: The complications of nutrition science

#24

Post by yesco »

rebelidealist wrote: post #20
MCRed wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low carb for 8 months, so I think I'm beyond the short term measure. My bloodwork is better now than before. I can't imagine what nutrition I'm being deficient in, and the things that are potential issues I already take supplements (and since there's not a lot of risk in vitamins I take more than I probably need and for more types of vitamins than I need.) Of course this is anecdote and it gets to the key problem the…

If low carb is working so well for you, why are you adding more carbs? Seems like people rave about ketonic diets but don't want to be on it for the long term.

Losing weight doesn't mean you are eating well.

Re: The complications of nutrition science

#25

Post by danieltillett »

themagician wrote: post #2

I just wish people would stop acting like food was "designed" for us.

Actually it is more the other way around. The last 6-8000 years or so we have been genetically adapting to our historically poor diet. The average peasant has been eating nothing much more than a very limited range of grains and most of us have become pretty well adapted to this diet. This is one of the ironies of the palo diet craze.

Re: The complications of nutrition science

#26

Post by danblick »

This article seems to suggest science is hopeless when we can't conduct randomized controlled trials. I don't think that's fair: the methods used in econometrics for learning from quasi-experiments (e.g. natural experiments, regression discontinuity) seem like they would be perfectly good for studying nutrition too.

Re: The complications of nutrition science

#27

Post by martinpw »

Interesting that the cure for scurvy is used as the example of the first clinical trial. The story is an instructive one, since the real reason for the cure was not understood, leading to the cure being lost for ~150 years, due to a variety of bad assumptions, eg that it was the acidity of the fruit that was preventing scurvy. This lead to lemons being replaced with limes (that had far less vitamin C but were more acidic) because they could be sourced from within the British Empire rather than outside.

Long article here:

http://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm

and shorter summary of above here:

https://lonechemist.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/82/

Re: The complications of nutrition science

#29

Post by oilywater »

jernfrost wrote: post #14

Learning about diets and food is also terribly difficult because the internet and books are so full of people who are so dead certain about their pseudo science. There is so much emotion attached to food that getting an objective rational opinion on anything food related is next to impossible. Personally I like the Soylent creators take on it. He seems extremely focused on figuring out the objective truths and ignore…

Yep, since November 2014 all of the versions of Soylent are vegan. So, we'll see how that turns out. It would be really interesting if some results are reported.
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