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

Blood sugar level follows perceived time rather than actual time in diabetics

pnas.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 90 posts

Re: Blood sugar level follows perceived time rather than actual time in diabetics

#31

Post by jpp »

jjeaff wrote: post #14
LukeShu wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You build up tolerance to hot stuff pretty quickly (and lose it pretty quickly). And most commonly-available salsas (even labeled "hot") top out at not-actually-very-hot. If your boss was only gradually adding more and more of the hot stuff, I absolutely believe that he could have just built up your tolerance such that you didn't notice; regardless of suggestion.

But is there a biological mechanism for "building up a tolerance"? Seems possible that building up a tolerance is merely a mental exercise as well. Perhaps in the subconscious part of the brain at least.

Yup! There’s a neurotransmitter for registering the compounds that trigger that hot sensation, and that neurotransmitter gets depleted over time, based on exposure. I don’t know the exact timeframes, but it’s on the order of days/weeks.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substance_P

Re: Blood sugar level follows perceived time rather than actual time in diabetics

#32

Post by jpp »

phonypc wrote: post #16
1cvmask wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your story "proves" all the studies with sommeliers where they duped them into rating white wines (with red food coloring) as fancy red wines. All the sommeliers failed the blind tests. In fact all those studies showed was that the taste of wine stemmed primarily from the perception of the bottle rather than the actual taste.

Might want to refresh your reading on this. AFAIK this is reference to one (unpublished) study where undergrad wine science students tended to choose from a list of descriptive terms usually associated with red wine to refer to dyed white wine, most of the time . It's certainly true that suggestion can change ones perception of wine (or any flavor), but I don't think it's clear that it's the primary factor.

Yes, this is correct —- it’s actually a fascinating study, but the translation from French was done poorly and then the English-speaking media ran with the clickbait version.

The original study finds that the terms we use for flavor (partly) encode the tuple of flavor and color. That is, given two identical smelling / tasting liquids, subjects will pick different vocabulary to describe the flavor when the liquid is red vs clear.

Re: Blood sugar level follows perceived time rather than actual time in diabetics

#34

Post by swayvil »

Suggestion-induced physiological phenomena like this are impressive and noteworthy, for sure.

But consider the effects of suggestion upon the more malleable parts of a person. Your mind and opinion.

Consider the powers of authority, conformity, marketing, indoctrination.

Black is white. Up is down.

Re: Blood sugar level follows perceived time rather than actual time in diabetics

#35

Post by DiffEq »

lngnmn2 wrote: post #20

There is no such thing as time in this context. It is an abstraction superimposed and assumed by an external observer. Molecular biology does not have notion of time, only phases of other cyclical processes which is a completely different "mechanical" notion.

Time…is motion. A clock is just a standard measure of motion, not time itself.

https://www.motionmountain.net/

Re: Blood sugar level follows perceived time rather than actual time in diabetics

#40

Post by ipaddr »

tudorw wrote: post #28
mc32 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gordon Ramsay did some food shows in India. In one of them there is a hot pepper eating contest. He tests and bows out. A woman won by eating the most in a given time (maybe a minute), she beat the other contestants but not the record; so to up it, she rubbed the peppers into her eyes to win a bonus prize. WTF!! The audience seemed to “appreciate” it.

Great, so you enjoy people hurting themselves for a financial incentive, charming.

The rubbing a pepper in her eyes seems foolish. That could blind someone.
Post reply on HN