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

The Role of Diet on the Gut Microbiome, Mood and Happiness

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 218 posts

Re: The Role of Diet on the Gut Microbiome, Mood and Happiness

#81

Post by Quarrel »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #75
hombre_fatal wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's vague considering my second paragraph. Eat whole foods. Avoid the Coca-Cola and cake and packaged goods that most people are referring to when they demonize carbs. Fruit and vegetables, go ahead. I just lightly pan fried some potato cubes and tossed in random veg for breakfast. I don't want to do a whole diet breakdown every time I scrawl something about nutrition on HN. But more HNers should subsc…

Whole fruit is probably fine. Fruit juices are more similar to that can of coke and should probably be avoided.

Step one of almost all diets should be "Don't drink calories".

Become a HydroHomie today.

Re: The Role of Diet on the Gut Microbiome, Mood and Happiness

#82

Post by philote »

Loughla wrote: post #66
hombre_fatal wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing out. Here's Internet Shaquille's video on how to prepare them as a snack in 5 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EU76q3Vf3Q Highly recommend you try it. Get the Del Monte canned garbanzos if you live in North America.

Garbanzo beans have the texture of old ear wax, is sort of my problem with them. I have never been able to tell if I even like how they taste, because the texture is just so very off-putting.

Do you like hummus?

Re: The Role of Diet on the Gut Microbiome, Mood and Happiness

#83

Post by EFreethought »

runlaszlorun wrote: post #23
blakesterz wrote: post #13

"After the diet change, we observed significant changes in measures of anxiety, well-being and happiness, and without changes in gut microbiome diversity. We found strong correlations between greater consumption of fat and protein to lower anxiety and depression, while consuming higher percentages of carbohydrates was associated with increased stress, anxiety, and depression." I think most of us would agree that make…

> I think most of us would agree that makes sense? Eat like crap, feel like crap? I’m just an average joe trying to figure out how to improve a diet, but I haven’t found much of a consensus regarding fats vs proteins vs carbohydrates.

There are different types of carbs. Generally simple carbs (usually called "sugars") are more likely to get converted to fat if you do not use them for energy right away.

A few decades ago food companies came out with "low fat" versions of snacks that had a lot of sugar in them. They still made people fat because people are more of them, since they thought the low fat versions were better for them.

And now there are a lot of people pushing low-carb or no-carb diets saying all carbs are bad. Your body does not process whole wheat bread the same way as a ho-ho. I knew a dietician who said being on a ketosis diet is as good for you as being on a cirrhosis diet. On the other hand, there are some breads that have high fructose corn syrup added, so you need to look out for that.

The same principle applies to fats. Omega-3 fatty acids are good for you, and other types of fats are not. There are saturated fats (aka trans fats, generally bad), polyunsaturated, monounsaturated (not as bad). Your body does not process these in exactly the same ways, so saying you are eating more or less fat than before is not really as useful of a statement as it seems.

So you cannot say that all fats are equally bad or all carbs are equally good.

I do not think the same principle applies to the other two macros. I think you can say alcohol is bad and protein is good and leave it at that.

Re: The Role of Diet on the Gut Microbiome, Mood and Happiness

#84

Post by hombre_fatal »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #73
hombre_fatal wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minimize saturated fat (by replacing it with unsaturated fat). Get enough protein. Eat healthy carbs*. * On HN and other social media, "carbs" is a euphemism for sugar and cake rather than beans and vegetables, so people will talk about how carbs made them fat when you know they're not talking about slamming back-to-back cans of garbanzos. And don't take any nutrition advice seriously that doesn't break fat apart int…

As far as I can tell the best research is that saturated fat is pretty neutral. Earlier research blaming saturated fat was flawed.

There is a whole mountain of evidence that saturated fat increases LDL cholesterol and better markers like Apo B. Placebo controlled, double-blind interventions. You can even run the experiment on yourself with monthly blood panels.

Are you contesting that?

That's pretty settled science. Low-carb influencers don't even deny that, so they instead try to hand-wave that high LDL/ApoB aren't a problem. Usually with some quackery over how atherosclerosis works, usually claiming that lipids only pass through the arterial endothelium when it's inflamed (false, they pass through anyways).

The balance of evidence showing that LDL cholesterol and better markers like Apo B cause CVD and atherosclerosis is so huge I'm not sure where I'd start if I wanted to deny it.

What research do you think is so convincing that it supersedes this balance of evidence?

Re: The Role of Diet on the Gut Microbiome, Mood and Happiness

#87

Post by JumpCrisscross »

algoatecorn wrote: post #71

Last year, I started an experiment with my diet. It started with the idea of eating as cheaply as possible with nutrient dense foods, but I started off with an elimination diet. I chose 2-3 "meals" that I could easily prep and only cost $2-4 each. Mostly eggs, ground beef, white rice, potatoes. I quickly added bell peppers and onions. I tracked macros, and filled in the micros with new additions. Calories as well of…

> I chose 2-3 "meals" that I could easily prep and only cost $2-4 each. Mostly eggs, ground beef, white rice, potatoes. I quickly added bell peppers and onions

I do this for home lunches. The gustatory and health benefits of a varied diet are too much to ignore. But the efficiency gains, and comfort in the familiar, are also appealing.

So one of eggs or salmon; brown rice or farro; and combinations of bell peppers, alliums (usually onions, scallions and garlic), cherry tomatoes and any other junk I have in the vegetable drawer. Bonus points for cooked in a wok, because cook time is like thirty seconds and you keep crisp yet still sweetened veggies.

> figured out what I digest most easily. As an athlete, I can't really afford to have days where I'm "bathroom dependent"

Would note that most of our guts are super adaptable. Avoiding foods that upset your stomach is reasonable. But doing this too much can sensitize the gut.

Re: The Role of Diet on the Gut Microbiome, Mood and Happiness

#88

Post by jononomo »

coding123 wrote: post #31

My wife has to eat protein (in her case meat) with carbs. If she eats carbs with no protein she has anxiety. It's so awesome that we are finally studying things like this.

I have eliminated all plants from my diet, and it is indescribable how positively it affects your mental and physical health. It is like accessing an entirely new dimension of well-being. You can't even imagine how good it is possible to feel until you've ditched all plant-based calories.

Re: The Role of Diet on the Gut Microbiome, Mood and Happiness

#89

Post by TylerLives »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #78
TylerLives wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A different take on PUFAs - https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/unsaturatedfats.shtml

A different take in the same way an astrologist's blog gives us a different take on the planet Saturn. If anything Ray Peat, a quack, says is true, then why do things like PUFAs improve human health outcomes in the literature? He says PUFAs cause atherosclerosis and SFA protects against it, so why does human outcome data show the opposite? And how many animal studies is he going to bring up? Ray Peat is a good exampl…

Great questions. I'm busy right now, but I promise to go through the article in the next few days and respond. I'm open to having my mind changed, though I must admit I started feeling better when I started following Ray Peat's advice. I wonder if it could be that different people respond differently to different diets. Have you tried sharing your article on raypeatforum? You say that he's a "quack", but I've never seen him arguing in bad faith and people there are usually friendly and try to be objective and open to new ideas.

Re: The Role of Diet on the Gut Microbiome, Mood and Happiness

#90

Post by ca_tech »

adriand wrote: post #59
hombre_fatal wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minimize saturated fat (by replacing it with unsaturated fat). Get enough protein. Eat healthy carbs*. * On HN and other social media, "carbs" is a euphemism for sugar and cake rather than beans and vegetables, so people will talk about how carbs made them fat when you know they're not talking about slamming back-to-back cans of garbanzos. And don't take any nutrition advice seriously that doesn't break fat apart int…

I think "healthy carbs" might be a bit too vague. There are simple and complex carbohydrates, and the latter can be further broken down between starchy carbohydrates like grains and fibrous carbohydrates like vegetables. There is nothing inherently unhealthy about any of these types of carbohydrates: simple carbs (e.g. fructose) are in fruit, complex carbs in whole grains, etc. I think it is probably more helpful to…

Agreed. I have found it very helpful to not think about how "healthy" something is. Rather think about how the body will use that food as fuel. Andy Galpin has a good video going through the physiology of how the body processes carbohydrates. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdMOsnILT00 Once I had an understanding of how macro nutrients are processed in the body and how they are used as fuel I could better match meals to intended outcomes.
Post reply on HN