Oh man, this thread is gonna show in on n-gate for sure.
Acne Vulgaris: A Disease of Western Civilization (2002)
121–130 of 170 posts
Re: Acne Vulgaris: A Disease of Western Civilization (2002)
#122I'm always amused/horrified by Hacker News comments on anything health-related. Herein lie a group of incredibly smart individuals sharing anecdotal evidence and folk remedies without a lick of irony.
The idea of "hey, this strange thing worked for me, and I don't wholly understand all parts of the system but it seems to have some results" is pretty much the core of what "hacking" is, right?
Your analogy is close but flawed in a major way.
The underlying assumption when hacking is that if you don't understand the internals of something that's ok, but you can rely on understanding the interface, and your manipulation of the interface is skilled enough that you can get the results you need.
In this case, we don't even remotely understand the interface or manipulating it.
Re: Acne Vulgaris: A Disease of Western Civilization (2002)
#123Coffee is the source of my acne - but I'm not able/willing to give it up.
Black no sugar, as it comes?
Re: Acne Vulgaris: A Disease of Western Civilization (2002)
#124They decided to choose a closed, often tribal cultures for comparison. We can assume they behave as most of us do, mate within the group mostly. So the genes pool/variation differences must be huge between them and Western population (whatever Western means in this context - let's say United States.) On what premises they excluded genetic factor, then?
Re: Acne Vulgaris: A Disease of Western Civilization (2002)
#125Given that all humans share a remarkably high % of genome, and race is a social construct, I'm struggling with the 'this is not genetic' part. Either its a truism, or its backed by strong evidence of no genetic linkage. Because this 'its not your race' thing, applies to almost anything. For instance the supposed Asian intolerance to unmodified milk proteins which has been changing as diet shifts. Is that also now not…
Human and pig genomics are also very similar. It's not the 98% that make or break these things. Lactose intolerance is inherited and as a result of LCT gene not expressing due to downregulation by another gene MCM6.
Re: Acne Vulgaris: A Disease of Western Civilization (2002)
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
The paper also only observes two groups: "the Kitavan Islanders of Papua New Guinea and the Aché hunter-gatherers of Paraguay." That's not anywhere close to all non-Western populations!
I guess that those two groups haven't had genetic contact with "Western" races. It's highly misleading, because my Taiwanese girlfriend has acne (worse than mine, and she's over age 30). She probably has some Dutch blood in her from 400 years ago (her mum is from Tainan, and the light brown hair, double eyelids, and larger cleavage are probably a result of that too). What the article is suggesting is that if that con…
Does your girlfriend eat a Western diet?
My wife is a registered dietitian and has a PhD in nutrition and in her experience acne is incredibly influenced by diet.
Re: Acne Vulgaris: A Disease of Western Civilization (2002)
#127I'm always amused/horrified by Hacker News comments on anything health-related. Herein lie a group of incredibly smart individuals sharing anecdotal evidence and folk remedies without a lick of irony.
Smart people often fall prey to "I'm smart and an expert in 'X', how hard could 'Y' be?"
Re: Acne Vulgaris: A Disease of Western Civilization (2002)
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess that those two groups haven't had genetic contact with "Western" races. It's highly misleading, because my Taiwanese girlfriend has acne (worse than mine, and she's over age 30). She probably has some Dutch blood in her from 400 years ago (her mum is from Tainan, and the light brown hair, double eyelids, and larger cleavage are probably a result of that too). What the article is suggesting is that if that con…
Does your girlfriend eat a Western diet? My wife is a registered dietitian and has a PhD in nutrition and in her experience acne is incredibly influenced by diet.
Many Chinese that I knew in Beijing had bad bouts with acne with little western food in their diets. I bet it has more to do with pollution than diet in their cases.
Re: Acne Vulgaris: A Disease of Western Civilization (2002)
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess that those two groups haven't had genetic contact with "Western" races. It's highly misleading, because my Taiwanese girlfriend has acne (worse than mine, and she's over age 30). She probably has some Dutch blood in her from 400 years ago (her mum is from Tainan, and the light brown hair, double eyelids, and larger cleavage are probably a result of that too). What the article is suggesting is that if that con…
Does your girlfriend eat a Western diet? My wife is a registered dietitian and has a PhD in nutrition and in her experience acne is incredibly influenced by diet.
She eats a meat bun for breakfast, a Taiwanese-style biandang 便當 lunchbox, and noodles or dumplings in the evening. She's seen doctors about her acne, and still sometimes visits when there's particularly big or painful zits.
It got much better when she was in Australia on Working Holiday, when she worked outside on a farm and was eating a more Western diet, she was less stressed, and the air was less polluted. Our agreed plan is to try to move to another country (probably New Zealand or Australia, perhaps Canada) anyway, which should solve my nationality issues and her health issues.
In the meantime, I don't mind spending romantic moments popping her zits, haha. I think it's kind of cute.
Re: Acne Vulgaris: A Disease of Western Civilization (2002)
#130This title "Acne vulgaris is virtually nonexistent in non-Western populations" is not supported by the article. HN policy is not to change the title which is "Acne Vulgaris - A Disease of Western Civilization"
Thanks, we've reverted the title.