Biohacking Lite • Hacker News Board

Re: Biohacking Lite

#281

Post by tom_mellior » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 8:12 AM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #92

nxc18 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't need to be extreme, taxes are proven to be effective and are quite simple. They solve the problem of unhealthy food being too easily available by raising the price to reflect the true cost to society (the externalities, like obesity). Junk food is only cheaper than healthy food because our society has made that choice, and it can just as easily choose to change that.

That's great news though I'm a little suspicious, where have taxes caused a significant change in body weight? > Junk food is only cheaper than healthy food because our society has made that choice, and it can just as easily choose to change that. Junk food is cheaper because it's easier to make junk food. If you want to make food more palatable cheaply, make it denser, fattier, and sweeter. i.e. turn it into junk fo…

> That's great news though I'm a little suspicious, where have taxes caused a significant change in body weight?

You could check https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax as a starting point. From a skim it doesn't look to me like a small tax is some kind of miracle cure for anything in this regard. Though I don't think anyone claimed that it would be the one factor that fixes everything. There is no one factor, and having the tax as part of a toolbox seems reasonable.

Re: Biohacking Lite

#282

Post by phs318u » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 8:19 AM UTC

gdebel wrote: post #51

I'm French (and incidentally a doctor,and my post is not judgemental in any way, this is not the point). Everytime I travel to the USA, I'm puzzled by how difficult it is to "eat normally" (= by my own standards). You can find really good junk food everywhere, or pay a really high price to eat in high-level Italian restaurants for example, but it is very difficult to eat standard meat-with-vegetable-without-sugar-add…

Irrespective of ingredient choices, another thing that differentiates commercial food (non home-cooked) in the USA vs just about everywhere else, is portion sizes. Your portions are huge.

Re: Biohacking Lite

#283

Post by swinglock » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 8:29 AM UTC

mettamage wrote: post #80

gdebel wrote: post #51

I'm French (and incidentally a doctor,and my post is not judgemental in any way, this is not the point). Everytime I travel to the USA, I'm puzzled by how difficult it is to "eat normally" (= by my own standards). You can find really good junk food everywhere, or pay a really high price to eat in high-level Italian restaurants for example, but it is very difficult to eat standard meat-with-vegetable-without-sugar-add…

Ah, the Americans... ;-) As a Dutch person living in Amsterdam, I completely agree. I noticed when I visited SF a few times (and California in general) that: - Vegetables are more expensive - Bread is sweetened (there goes my breakdfast) - Bread sucks (yep, I said it, basic bread should be thrown into the thrash can) - Basic cheese in the US is a new species, and I am afraid of it I went around these 2 issues by buyi…

As a lifelong consumer of oatmeal but only ever making it one way, now I'm interested, what did you learn about oatmeal?

Re: Biohacking Lite

#284

Post by mdomans » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 8:31 AM UTC

balnaphone wrote: post #255

ryeguy wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insulin is not required for fat storage. Insulin spikes do not create energy out of nowhere and don't suddenly make the same number of input calories multiply. Also, insulin spikes are nearly unpredictable anyway. Carbs aren't necessarily the trigger, protein and fat can be too. Sometimes foods are synergistic and spike insulin together more than eaten separately. Insulin spikiness is also determined by food in your…

The linked-to discussion of insulin has a major error logical error. The title is "Insulin: An Undeserved Bad Reputation", but then the body of the article says for example "Carbs are not alone in being responsible for insulin secretion. Protein can cause just as much, if not more, insulin secretion as carbs". This is a straw man, because the point that is trying to be refused is that "insulin is bad", not "carbs are…

Insulin is mostly (in humans, not rats) a hormone signalling energy availability. That's why many humans secret insulin when we smell or taste food, way before it hits GI tract.

> Maintaining the insulin/glucagon cycle is important in maintenance of a healthy metabolism.

No point in focusing on hormones so much. I somehow don't see people fretting over their ACTH or progesterone.

> Insulin mediates glucose transport and promotes absorption of blood glucose into the liver, fat and muscle cells.

If you look at data from humans - insulin IS NOT needed for glucose absorption. Studies on diabetic people clearly show that glucose gradient into the cell is higher, not lower, despite them being incredibly insulin resistant. 1st role of insulin in humans that's critical is shutting down liver glucogenesis and gluconeogenesis.

The problem with insulin/glucose narration is omitting the role of FFA. Intracellular FFA levels drive down the glucose absorption gradient. If the glucose absorption gradient is low and we still have glucose - that will stimulate more insulin release to drive that glucose level to normal.

Problem is that as more insulin is present cells eventually start being resistant to insulin requiring more insulin for the same job. Which makes for a problem because if insulin is there to shut down liver glucogenesis and cells are now more resistant to insulin - bad news, we need more insulin to get blood glucose to same levels with a meal that used to be no problem.

Adipose tissue is simply the number #1 a-hole here because it's usually the least resistant to insulin and the least resistant to nutrient storage since it's its primary role. It will just pack more in.

P.S. Isn't Fung a quack? E.g. https://www.myoleanfitness.com/evidence-caloric-restriction/

Re: Biohacking Lite

#285

Post by tom_mellior » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 8:36 AM UTC

metrokoi wrote: post #165

GordonS wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bread is sweetened > Bread sucks I spent some months working in Houston a while back, and this drove me crazy! I mean, why on earth would you sweeten bread?! Another thing that struck me was how many ingredients everything seemed to have - you could pick up just about any item in a grocery store, and it was pretty much guaranteed to contain 10-30 ingredients. Even the bread. > Basic cheese in the US This too - most…

It's expensive to make good bread. Not in terms of raw materials, but in terms of labor. A machine cannot make a quality loaf of bread, you must gently knead it and let it ride with human hands. There is also a large cost in the right-on-time delivery of "good" bread. There is still quality bread sold at my grocery store, but that kind of bread isn't a staple because people don't want to go to the grocery store every…

> A machine cannot make a quality loaf of bread, you must gently knead it and let it ride with human hands.

Nonsense. There is nothing wrong with machine kneading, many European countries (but not all!) manage to produce quality loaves at an industrial scale. Can a good baker produce even better bread in small batches? Almost certainly yes. But even there I'm not convinced that it's the kneading specifically, as opposed to general attention to the whole process.

Re: Biohacking Lite

#286

Post by mdomans » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 8:37 AM UTC

balnaphone wrote: post #263

ryeguy wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a straw man, because the point that is trying to be refused is that "insulin is bad", not "carbs are bad". I don't see how this is a strawman. Click through to the source article, that bullet point in particular is refuting the common belief that carbs alone are what spike insulin. Most insulin-centric discussion on fitness forums (which is where this was posted) tends to mention insulin spikes in the conte…

The linked-to "Part 1" includes the "myth" that his discussion is referring to, and so is much less misleading. However, personally, I'm not aware of anyone interested in this kind of thing who holds those myths to be true; it's very common knowledge that if you ingest any calories, or taste something sweet, etc, it will trigger the release of insulin. (However, I'm confident that you and the Part 1 author know your…

> I didn't understand that the main point was "debunking the idea that insulin is what makes us fat", since I don't know anyone who believes that. Chronic poor nutrition can make you fat, sure, and rising basal insulin levels tend to occur as a result of that, but saying "insulin is what makes us fat" sounds a lot like "yellow fingertips cause lung cancer". Nobody I know believes that is true. I have to keep up on these things for my work, in drug development.

Insane amount of people believes and promotes that. As in INSANE. Just check any sports/diet related magazine :)

Re: Biohacking Lite

#287

Post by tom_mellior » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 9:01 AM UTC

gen220 wrote: post #240

fudged71 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with daily measurements is it can lead to frustration. The daily number may change constantly but it's the moving average that matters. Few people can track a number without asking themselves what that number means for them. I want a scale without a screen and a measuring tape without numbers. Track often but only see the trend when you ask for it.

This is a super interesting idea, that maybe hasn't been explored deeply enough. Of course, for some people, the obsession with precise, day-to-day numbers is an almost-unmitigated inspiration. In my experience, the trick with body weight is that you actually do have almost perfect control over the day to day. Assuming you take it in the morning before breakfast and after the bathroom, it's almost a pure function of…

> If you control your caloric balance with diet and exercise, you can predict your 1-2lb swings (aka constant swings) pretty accurately.

The featured article tried and failed to do exactly this. As in, not just the magnitude but even the direction of the swing was often estimated incorrectly. My guess is that you would need to be very careful about accounting for water.

Re: Biohacking Lite

#288

Post by tom_mellior » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 9:28 AM UTC

jacobedawson wrote: post #277

ryeguy wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insulin does not lead to increased weight gain. If this approach does work, it's because it's a roundabout way of eating lower calorie foods and thus lowering daily caloric intake.

Afaiu insulin in combination with elevated blood glucose levels specifically does lead directly to weight gain - it's like a vicious cycle in that high blood sugar = increased insulin levels = excess glucose is stored as fat.

> high blood sugar = increased insulin levels = excess glucose is stored as fat.

As opposed to? What would happen to excess glucose otherwise? Your body won't just excrete it, will it?

Re: Biohacking Lite

#289

Post by agumonkey » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 9:28 AM UTC

tonystubblebine wrote: post #37

If people are looking for alternative approaches to weight loss, I would consider simply buying a blood glucose monitor. They cost about $100 on Amazon or less and test strips less than $0.50. The thing that makes it alternative is that it sets you up to be reactive rather than prescriptive. A lot of people end up rebelling against prescriptive rules for eating and then fall off the wagon in frustration. The Blood Gl…

For some reason, pharmacy nearby threw out a bunch of glucose monitors for diabete (we assumed it was some legal obligation to replace stock every N years). Would these work in theory ?

Re: Biohacking Lite

#290

Post by esperent » Sat, Jun 13, 2020, 9:47 AM UTC

chubot wrote: post #98

gdebel wrote: post #51

I'm French (and incidentally a doctor,and my post is not judgemental in any way, this is not the point). Everytime I travel to the USA, I'm puzzled by how difficult it is to "eat normally" (= by my own standards). You can find really good junk food everywhere, or pay a really high price to eat in high-level Italian restaurants for example, but it is very difficult to eat standard meat-with-vegetable-without-sugar-add…

As a Chinese person born in America, you're absolutely right. If you don't cook, it's difficult to eat reasonably / "normally" in this country, even if you have money. You kind of have to pick your poison: salt, sugar, unnatural fats, etc. At least I grew up on the east coast and my parents cooked. Anecdotally, I'm shocked by what my acquaintances from the midwest eat, and the consequences really start to show up whe…

The chemical food additives industry has been around for a long time now - certainly since the times of our great-great-grandparents. The difference is that now we have both more variety, and much more rigorous testing.

There's a reason every country has an equivalent to the FDA that has to approve food additives. These agencies were not formed in advance - they were formed as a reaction to dangerous unregulated food additives, supplements, medicines, and so on. The FDA was formed in 1906. Michael Pollan saying that our grandparents only ate real food is an example of the golden age fallacy.