Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

US government to withdraw longstanding warnings about cholesterol (2015)

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 269 posts

Re: US government to withdraw longstanding warnings about cholesterol (2015)

#101

Post by dcosson »

badsock wrote: post #54
clarkmoody wrote: post #17

Wouldn't it be nice if there were more government warnings and less restrictions / regulations? Imagine if the FDA, instead of blocking new drugs for 10 years and $1B, it simply withheld its endorsement until satisfied by the clinical trials. Consumers could then take the government's recommendations into consideration when making a decision and drugs could get to market much faster. The history of medical reversals…

Just as an example: 9% of the cases of Idiosyncratic Drug-induced Liver Injury is self-harm caused by people taking non-regulated dietary supplements: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18955056 You have a theory that the average person will wisely assume the responsibility to vet the health effects of what they consume, but empirical reality disagrees with your theory. Right now people are injuring themselves with…

I've been thinking recently about government regulations like this and about where it should end.

Why are we so sure that we can't trust people to make an educated decision about an experimental drug or any of the many other things we regulate, many of which only impact themselves and don't put the general public at risk in any way. Yet one of our most deeply held values is trusting them to make an educated decision about who should run the country. It's certainly not any less complex of a topic when you consider all of the policy areas that there are to evaluate politicians across.

Re: US government to withdraw longstanding warnings about cholesterol (2015)

#102

Post by generj »

jedmeyers wrote: post #67
mikepurvis wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do not want. See the role of Moodys and S&P in the 2009 meltdown for what a profit motive does to the ability to "endorse" anything that has the potential to harm.

Why aren't you blaming the SEC (FDA counterpart in this analogy) for 2009 events as well?

The SEC failed to enforce some of it's regulations and didn't see the upcoming crisis. Multiple other federal agencies did the same thing. Not a single government official from any country (remember that a similar housing boom unfolded in multiple other countries) foresaw the upcoming trauma. Note that it it was likely politically infeasible for them to have more rigorously enforced much of their regulation during most of the time period it could have helped. The new securities which caused the crisis were very complex and partially were structured specifically to dodge government oversight.

The ratings agencies actively marked bonds as AA which they knew darn well were in reality B or worse. They committed fraud at the behest of the banks.

There is a massive difference between inaction and fraud. That's why the SEC doesn't get a lot of blame.

Re: US government to withdraw longstanding warnings about cholesterol (2015)

#103

Post by [deleted] »

wyager wrote: post #86
mkautzm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The science behind nutrition health is extremely complicated and expecting it to remain constant represent a total misunderstanding of how nutrition research is done and how results are determined. > The history of medical reversals -- and in this case, nutrition reversal -- shows that the government isn't magic. What it shows is that nutrition science is hardly 'solved' and you'd be hard pressed to find a researcher…

If nutrition science "isn't solved", the government shouldn't be making laws and regulations based on it.

[deleted]

Re: US government to withdraw longstanding warnings about cholesterol (2015)

#104

Post by kazinator »

> The greater danger in this regard, these experts believe, lies not in products such as eggs, shrimp or lobster, which are high in cholesterol, but in too many servings of foods heavy with saturated fats, such as fatty meats, whole milk, and butter.

Translation: the lobbyists for various polyunsaturated "edible plastics" are currently in the lead.

Re: US government to withdraw longstanding warnings about cholesterol (2015)

#105

Post by delecti »

wyager wrote: post #86
mkautzm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The science behind nutrition health is extremely complicated and expecting it to remain constant represent a total misunderstanding of how nutrition research is done and how results are determined. > The history of medical reversals -- and in this case, nutrition reversal -- shows that the government isn't magic. What it shows is that nutrition science is hardly 'solved' and you'd be hard pressed to find a researcher…

If nutrition science "isn't solved", the government shouldn't be making laws and regulations based on it.

Morality isn't "solved" either, but we still outlaw murder. We can't not try to protect ourselves.

Re: US government to withdraw longstanding warnings about cholesterol (2015)

#106

Post by epmaybe »

pdq wrote: post #10

Let me know when the government wakes up and inverts the food pyramid, so that breads and grains and carbs are scarce, rather than fats.

The food pyramid hasn't existed for a number of years, thanks to a number of individuals including Michelle Obama.

Choosemyplate.gov is a great first step to changing the dietary habits of children.

Re: US government to withdraw longstanding warnings about cholesterol (2015)

#107

Post by mastazi »

jdminhbg wrote: post #39
mkautzm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbohydrates are not a bad thing and are indeed an important part of health. The current suggested diet doesn't say, 'bread'. It specifically calls out Whole Grains, which a great deal of evidence suggests are a Good Thing. Suggesting that grains, or even carbs, are somehow worse than literal fat is misleading at best, and delusional at it's worst.

The phrase "literal fat" shows just how successful the misguided low-fat crusade was: they don't even need any modifiers to show that they're "bad." At any rate, it's very easy to design a diet for humans without grains in it that's healthy and that you can thrive on, but impossible to design one without fat. So in that respect at least, literal fat is better than grains.

It is however hardly possible to design a human diet without carbs where the planet doesn't suffer from a large scale ecological disaster[1] (assuming most of the world's population would adopt that diet), unless unconventional animal food sources, such as insects or krill, become mainstream. I don't see that happening any time soon.

[1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919211...

Re: US government to withdraw longstanding warnings about cholesterol (2015)

#108

Post by [deleted] »

kuschku wrote: post #94
pdq wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm referring to the original 1992 food pyramid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_pyramid_(nutrition)#/medi... > Fats, oils, sweets: sparingly > Bread, cereal, rice & pasta: 6-11 servings Yes I am in the camp that believe fats and proteins are both much healthier than carbs, and especially refined sugars. The latest nutrition supports low carb diets, as can be seen with Atkins and Keto diets.

> The latest nutrition supports low carb diets, as can be seen with Atkins and Keto diets. That statement is not supported by any reliable studies. The latest nutrition supports a healthy mix of carbs and fats, specifically whole grain and unsaturated fats. Not a monodiet of fat, nor a monodiet of carbs, nor processed carbs, nor saturated fats. Focusing too much on a fat-based diet causes massive kidney issues, just…

[deleted]

Re: US government to withdraw longstanding warnings about cholesterol (2015)

#109

Post by blhack »

kuschku wrote: post #94
pdq wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm referring to the original 1992 food pyramid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_pyramid_(nutrition)#/medi... > Fats, oils, sweets: sparingly > Bread, cereal, rice & pasta: 6-11 servings Yes I am in the camp that believe fats and proteins are both much healthier than carbs, and especially refined sugars. The latest nutrition supports low carb diets, as can be seen with Atkins and Keto diets.

> The latest nutrition supports low carb diets, as can be seen with Atkins and Keto diets. That statement is not supported by any reliable studies. The latest nutrition supports a healthy mix of carbs and fats, specifically whole grain and unsaturated fats. Not a monodiet of fat, nor a monodiet of carbs, nor processed carbs, nor saturated fats. Focusing too much on a fat-based diet causes massive kidney issues, just…

Source on the kidney thing? I haven't read that (except for that a LCHF diet can trigger issues on people who have an existing kidney disease)

Re: US government to withdraw longstanding warnings about cholesterol (2015)

#110

Post by lkbm »

credit_guy wrote: post #78
andy_ppp wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." - Michael Pollan

Right. And what do you do if you are hungry after you eat "not too much" ?

Use different food.

If your diet is complex carbs with lots of fiber, you probably won't be hungry after ingesting a decent amount of calories. Most people don't do that (myself included), so instead I add in a lot of protein, which also fills me up reasonably quickly on a per-calorie basis.

It's not simply calories that fill you up, so choose the right calories. I can eat a thousand Calories of chocolate chip cookies and still be hungry, but a thousand calories of protein bars or broccoli will usually fill me up reasonably well.

(Actually, I've never managed a couple thousand Calories of just broccoli. I usually do 200-300 Calories of broccoli, but that alone does as much as all those cookies for satiety, so I can then eat a filling-but-sane second dinner and be full+healthy.)

Post reply on HN