“Green smoothie cleanse” causing acute oxalate nephropathy • Hacker News Board

Re: “Green smoothie cleanse” causing acute oxalate nephropathy

#121

Post by jader201 » Fri, Aug 18, 2023, 4:43 AM UTC

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #119

jader201 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who drink vegetable smoothies … destroyed the fiber Do you have a source on this? Because I did a quick check, and at a glance it seems this is not true (and in fact blending can actually release fibers for some fruits) [1]. My understanding has always been that blending doesn’t make fruits/vegetables less healthy than their whole counterparts. [1] https://nutritiondaily.com/does-blending-destroy-fiber-nutri…

Blending and juicing are different things. Juicers typically remove the fiber which is then discarded as a waste product. It's very possible that blending is still worse than eating whole though because the juice is now immediately available in the gut without the whole food needing to be slowly broken down even if you also still consume the fiber. Rate of absorption makes a huge difference in nutrition. Obviously th…

> Blending and juicing are different things. Juicers typically remove the fiber which is then discarded as a waste product.

Yeah, I get that. And makes sense. But I keep seeing (even in this thread) that blending is almost/just as bad.

> It's very possible that blending is still worse than eating whole though because the juice is now immediately available in the gut without the whole food needing to be slowly broken down even if you also still consume the fiber. Rate of absorption makes a huge difference in nutrition. Obviously the real secret is chewing as little as possible and instead swallowing large chunks.

In theory, but is there anything to back this up? Because it seems like there isn’t much in the way of science or studies. But yet I see plenty of claims of it.

Re: “Green smoothie cleanse” causing acute oxalate nephropathy

#122

Post by CoastalCoder » Fri, Aug 18, 2023, 5:40 AM UTC

selimthegrim wrote: post #95

nullc wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs had an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, a rare type of pancreatic cancer. He decided to delay surgical treatment in favor of dietary treatment presumably because at the time there was little evidence for the effectiveness of surgical treatment (and obviously plenty of risk connected to it). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4924574/

This gets mentioned in the angriest (rightly so) obituary-cum-book review I have ever seen written about anyone ever. https://www.reuters.com/article/idUK144083343120120222 (the biopsy line was originally after the quote from the wife abut not opening his body yet)

Good grief, you're right. Any idea why the author was so harsh?

Re: “Green smoothie cleanse” causing acute oxalate nephropathy

#123

Post by Obscurity4340 » Fri, Aug 18, 2023, 5:49 AM UTC

gardenfelder wrote: post #2

>Given the increasing popularity of juice cleanses, it is important that both patients and physicians have greater awareness of the potential for acute oxalate nephropathy in susceptible individuals with risk factors such as chronic kidney disease, gastric bypass, and antibiotic use.

These people seem to have a profound misunderstanding about how and what cleans up toxins in the body and that there's something you can "take/drink/eat" that will somehow supercede your liver and kidneys to make them pure or something. Its bizarre. In their quest to become "less full of shit" they have become maximally full of shit

Re: “Green smoothie cleanse” causing acute oxalate nephropathy

#124

Post by Obscurity4340 » Fri, Aug 18, 2023, 5:52 AM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #46

atarian wrote: post #4

This is why I tell people to go easy on the spinach when they’re making smoothies.

I offer, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, this lecture: Don't eat plants; they're trying to kill you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1cqNDDG4aA I usually forward it to friends that rant about meat being bad for your health.

Is there a good overview of anti-nutrients? I feel like this is an elephant in the room among all the even basically nutritionally/biochemically literate in any forum discussing health foods and diet. People act like because plants have seeds that they want you to eat and propogate them that they forget they might have other defenses to deter from consuming them that might be overlooked.

Re: “Green smoothie cleanse” causing acute oxalate nephropathy

#125

Post by sharts » Fri, Aug 18, 2023, 5:55 AM UTC

That's cool.

It's probably still better than knocking down several diet sodies per day (e.g.: https://www.tiktok.com/@tlctv/video/7023764315417120006?lang...).

Even if you're going heavy on juicing or what not, it's important to diversify instead of drinking the same thing for days or weeks at a time. Generally people who run into these problems are the ones taking shortcuts --the same type that'd be doing steroids instead of spending 6-7 years in the gym on a regular basis.

Re: “Green smoothie cleanse” causing acute oxalate nephropathy

#126

Post by 1lint » Fri, Aug 18, 2023, 6:19 AM UTC

On a more general note, a human eating a vegetable is a predatorial relationship, and like any prey, the vegetable will evolve defenses against such predation. Obviously the vegetable can't run away, so it produces compounds that are harmful against its human predators. Artificial selection through farming may reduce the harmful compounds, but constitutes a small fraction of their relevant evolutionary history.

On the other hand, we have the opposite relationship with fruits. When our ancestors ate fruits, they played a pivotal role in facilitating the plant's reproductive fitness by dispersing the seeds, at times with the excellent complimentary fertilizer that is human excrement. In this case, the plant has an evolutionary incentive to produce more nutritious fruits to encourage such human consumption.

There are a lot of "vegetables" that are actually botanical fruits such cucumbers, zucchini, tomato, etc. (note they all contain seeds). They are much better alternatives than true vegetables (spinach/kale) for juicing if you are trying to avoid sugar or somehow don't like sweet juice.

It also doesn't sound right to me to refer to liquified vegetables as "juice", when I've long thought the term refers to the liquid produced from squeezing a fruit (not to mention liquified spinach/kale sounds a bit nasty)

Re: “Green smoothie cleanse” causing acute oxalate nephropathy

#127

Post by IIsi50MHz » Fri, Aug 18, 2023, 6:38 AM UTC

zingababba wrote: post #6

atarian wrote: post #4

This is why I tell people to go easy on the spinach when they’re making smoothies.

Yeah, throwing a bunch of greens into a blender is not a great way to consume them. Boiling/steaming is the way to go. The vast majority of vegetables I personally eat are well cooked and mushy.

Steaming retains more nutrients. Not only does boiling leach nutrients into water that is often discarded, it's easy and common to boil for longer than is necessary to make the item digestible.

Note that some things must be boiled to become safe; pokeweed greens can be boiled (and the water discarded) to reduce alkalinity. The berries, however, are never safe for human consumption.

Re: “Green smoothie cleanse” causing acute oxalate nephropathy

#128

Post by zer8k » Fri, Aug 18, 2023, 7:01 AM UTC

jader201 wrote: post #121

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blending and juicing are different things. Juicers typically remove the fiber which is then discarded as a waste product. It's very possible that blending is still worse than eating whole though because the juice is now immediately available in the gut without the whole food needing to be slowly broken down even if you also still consume the fiber. Rate of absorption makes a huge difference in nutrition. Obviously th…

> Blending and juicing are different things. Juicers typically remove the fiber which is then discarded as a waste product. Yeah, I get that. And makes sense. But I keep seeing (even in this thread) that blending is almost/just as bad. > It's very possible that blending is still worse than eating whole though because the juice is now immediately available in the gut without the whole food needing to be slowly broken…

I guess I conflated juicing with blending. Seems to be an old wives tale.

Re: “Green smoothie cleanse” causing acute oxalate nephropathy

#129

Post by idontwantthis » Fri, Aug 18, 2023, 8:09 AM UTC

sockaddr wrote: post #120

chihuahua wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, the video title could be "A man consumed 2 gallons of kale juice. This is what happened to his thyroid." The channel is curious in that Dr Bernard seems to hire actors to produce what looks like stock footage to illustrate the story.

Yeah I’ve thought that too. He seems to have very good editorial control and access to decent no-name actors. His channel is really great.

I’ve assumed they were his friends, but I have no evidence.

Re: “Green smoothie cleanse” causing acute oxalate nephropathy

#130

Post by soultrees » Fri, Aug 18, 2023, 8:33 AM UTC

cellularmitosis wrote: post #51

reilly3000 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RIP Steve Jobs. It was likely his Apple-only diet that did him in. He would go to these orchards in NorCal and disappear for weeks on end, eating only apples the whole time. He tried eating apples aggressively to cure his colon cancer and it appears to have exacerbated it.

The lesson from Jobs is not "don't eat too much fruit", it's "listen to your doctors when they tell you to treat your cancer".

I don’t think that’s a fair judgement. Sure, from the outside the decision to ignore medical advice seems crazy, but in the end it was his decision and he paid for it. Would a billion rounds of chemo have saved him? Maybe, but it’s also likely he would have ended up in the same spot anyways. We are all human, and doctors are just humans that are more well informed about the subject than others but are still human, and in the end it’s all just an experiment to see if this works better than that or that. So I think the lesson should be, if you get cancer then you should be able to finish your days, in your own way if you decide.