Secret to longevity may lie in the microbiome and the gut • Hacker News Board

Re: Secret to longevity may lie in the microbiome and the gut

#41

Post by Elrac » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 12:49 PM UTC

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #30

unicornporn wrote: post #3

In a few years we might look back at this period and think: oh, it was at the time when we thought gut bacteria was the solution to every health problem known to mankind. Remember when it was vitamin D?

I think this is very different in that it's something we previously completely disregarded in health outcomes. We consume various things that we know wreak havoc on our gut biome including antibiotics and various residual herbicides, but it was felt that this was mostly harmless as the gut biome did not play a critical role in our physiological condition. Now it's seeming that it may indeed be quite a critical system…

As far as I know, the US is the only prosperous country where life expectancies are going down. Makes one sit back and think, no?

A lot of factors are probably involved as you say, but if I had to guess at the elephant-in-the-room dominant factor I'd say it's the US's model of what's euphemistically called "health care" and "health insurance." It's a complete no-brainer that people who can't afford medical treatment are dying earlier.

Re: Secret to longevity may lie in the microbiome and the gut

#42

Post by nonbel » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 12:54 PM UTC

avip wrote: post #34

3eto wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interested in learning more if you have time to expand. Cheers

Sure. I see 3 recurring issues with "nutritional research" I'm exposed to: 1. Wayyyyy too much industry involvement, much of it not properly disclosed (OP here is a classical and representative example). 2. Lots of research from relatively small and "less known" institutes, done by researchers with hard to verify credentials. 3. Low scientific standards. That'd include: - Refusal to share data - Refusal to share data…

This sounds like standard biomed to me:

  - Refusal to share data
  - Refusal to share data analysis methods
  - Not keeping the basics of a double-blinded test
  - No reproduction, and not even the possibility of independent reproducibility, as the methods are described so vaguely.

Can you link to a recent paper that doesnt run afoul of at least one of your criteria. Especially the last...

Re: Secret to longevity may lie in the microbiome and the gut

#43

Post by betageek » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 12:58 PM UTC

neuronic wrote: post #38

ianai wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You identified the problem. What’s the solution?

The solution is identification of bad methods and subsequent ignorance. If only we had a metric for credible science that takes authors, institutions, publisher and funding sources into account....

This seems like a great idea - is there some reason this doesn't exist?

Re: Secret to longevity may lie in the microbiome and the gut

#44

Post by TangoTrotFox » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

Elrac wrote: post #41

TangoTrotFox wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is very different in that it's something we previously completely disregarded in health outcomes. We consume various things that we know wreak havoc on our gut biome including antibiotics and various residual herbicides, but it was felt that this was mostly harmless as the gut biome did not play a critical role in our physiological condition. Now it's seeming that it may indeed be quite a critical system…

As far as I know, the US is the only prosperous country where life expectancies are going down . Makes one sit back and think, no? A lot of factors are probably involved as you say, but if I had to guess at the elephant-in-the-room dominant factor I'd say it's the US's model of what's euphemistically called "health care" and "health insurance." It's a complete no-brainer that people who can't afford medical treatment…

Look at the reasons that people are dying. It's been blamed on things like the opioid crisis but the numbers in no way support such 'hypothesis', which don't even really qualify as such.

Cardiovascular disease, heart failure, stroke, diabetic complications, etc are where the big increases are coming from. And nearly all the major causes of death that are increasing are strongly linked with obesity, which is skyrocketing out of control. This is what I was alluding to early when suggesting that this change is, in turn, blamed on lethargic lifestyles, the internet, etc yet such changes are also happening in other nations yet they are not experiencing such radical shifts in lack of healthfulness.

Re: Secret to longevity may lie in the microbiome and the gut

#45

Post by ianai » Mon, Jun 04, 2018, 2:25 PM UTC

betageek wrote: post #43

neuronic wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is identification of bad methods and subsequent ignorance. If only we had a metric for credible science that takes authors, institutions, publisher and funding sources into account....

This seems like a great idea - is there some reason this doesn't exist?

Something that takes only authors, publishers, and institutions into account sounds counterproductive.

I think it’d be better to have an agreement that only reporducible papers are credible. Ie data the paper is reported on (to include “cleaned” data) and any tools developed (software tools) must always be included. As well as funding for everything disclosed.

Ultimately though I think we may just be seeing the obsolescence of current statistical theory. Science needs hypotheses to be testable in “trustable” metrics. But there are too many loop holes if things like p-hacking are possible.

Re: Secret to longevity may lie in the microbiome and the gut

#46

Post by chmike » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 6:13 PM UTC

krageon wrote: post #39

chmike wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would´t trust my nose to detect fishiness. These expermients simply need to be reproduced independently to be verified. Until then, it's anti-scientific to assume anything about fishiness. The reported facts do NOT PROVE that the results were forged.

Nobody is claiming that it does. They are indicating possible economic investment in the results and some questionable statistics. It is perfectly scientific to take these pieces of evidence and adjust the possibility of this study being fishy upwards.

Claiming the presented result as fishy based on the given argument is equivalent to claiming the data has been forged, the scientists are dishonnest and have unethical behavior. Unless the results are proven wrong, such claims of fishyness is defamatory. This is what I call judging by its nose. It's not because such behavior has become common place that it is correct and acceptable.

It would make a huge difference if the OP simply called to be cautious for the given reason. This preserves the status of unknown to the validity of the reported fact without taking position one way or the other.

It is very disapointing that people can't make the difference and I maintain that such behavior is anti-scientific. Claiming the opposit doesn't make your point true.

People who make claims like this fishyness are people who have a very high opinion on their ability to distinguish true from false facts just by guessing. That's monkey science.

Re: Secret to longevity may lie in the microbiome and the gut

#47

Post by gojomo » Fri, Jun 15, 2018, 6:46 PM UTC

chmike wrote: post #46

krageon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody is claiming that it does. They are indicating possible economic investment in the results and some questionable statistics. It is perfectly scientific to take these pieces of evidence and adjust the possibility of this study being fishy upwards.

Claiming the presented result as fishy based on the given argument is equivalent to claiming the data has been forged, the scientists are dishonnest and have unethical behavior. Unless the results are proven wrong, such claims of fishyness is defamatory. This is what I call judging by its nose. It's not because such behavior has become common place that it is correct and acceptable. It would make a huge difference if…

'Fishy' doesn't mean 'forged', just 'suspicious'.

The factors I mention – fast patenting/profit-seeking, odd axes/combinations to get a result, unclear blinding, inconsistency with other expected fly lifetimes – are all the kinds of things correlated with flimsy results. It's usually wishful thinking, not conscious forgery, that leads such authors to overlook the weaknesses in their setup when they get a publishable/profitable result.

I do have a high opinion of my ability to detect flimsy results from the details (or missing details!) of a scientific paper, from decades of reading and watching which results hold up, and which don't.

You're practicing scientism – sacralizing certain procedures, titles, or outlets – rather than science here. Science requires a high standard of proof, and recognizing patterns of misreporting. There's even a strong case to be made that "most published research findings are false":

http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou...