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'Staggering' number of people believe unproven health claims

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Re: 'Staggering' number of people believe unproven health claims

#51

Post by LorenPechtel »

tonyarkles wrote: post #23
arjie wrote: post #15

It's hard to tell what the correct public health play is. Take the controversial mask issue. Anthony Fauci on why he didn't say that masks would be effective said: > Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short…

You absolutely nailed it. The way COVID-19 was handled by governments around the world has unequivocally eroded trust in public health as an institution. I'm not by any means a conspiracy theorist, but between the lies (like you've quoted), the denials[1], and the contradictory enforcement[2], I don't think the cat's ever going back in the bag. People will die because of it, because actual sound medical advice will b…

This is assuming "vaccine injury" is real.

Re: 'Staggering' number of people believe unproven health claims

#52

Post by aziaziazi »

GJim wrote: post #44
aziaziazi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s perfectly possible to have a calcium-less non-vegan diet and calcium-full vegan diet, or vice versa. We need nutrients, not a specific diet.

What an obtuse response! Both are difficult to achieve as you well know.

I’m sorry you took is as so, but as noted -if I understood correctly?- it’s hard to achieve perfect nutrient intake with any diet.

The idea I wanted to convey is more that children getting a plant based diet aren’t necessarily deprived of calcium.

Re: 'Staggering' number of people believe unproven health claims

#53

Post by Worf »

Staggering number of people believe in weird things. I'm not talking about someone claiming mask mandates were useful, useless or harmful - there's a lot of debate around it and without spending lots of time looking at studies, you might be misled. I don't even know about masks. I'm leaning towards "useful", but wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't.

I'm talking about superstitions, fortune tellers, homeopathy, anti-evolution, anti-vaxx (not specific arguments against a specific vaccine, but in general), magic, fake healers, obviously fake medical info (bleach, etc.) guardian angels, gods, karma, ESP, ghosts, spirits, quantum bullshit, bad energy, miracles, lizard people, telepathy and all that crap.

It makes me incredibly pessimistic about humans. Of course, most people don't believe in all of the above, but I've noticed people either believe in none of the above, or in several the above - rarely just 1 thing.

Unrelated, but on page 3 it mentions:

> 2023 - Many young people feel the average person can know as much as a doctor

Not as BFS knowledge, but as DFS about something specific - sure. I've caught many doctors not knowing basic things about something specific. They know more than me in general, but about that specific things they're read 5 papers over the last 2 years and I've read 20 over the past month. Even accounting for their ability to better extract valuable data from papers, it's still easy to know more than a doctor about that SPECIFIC thing. The inquisitive and humble doctors review the papers and agree with me or they point out what I'm missing or where I'm wrong. The ignorant and arrogant doctors outright tell me that I'm a layman, that I shouldn't roleplay as a doctor and that I should follow their advice blindly.

Finally, can some explain:

> I will believe a recommendation that contradicts my beliefs from a source I trust

with the options being:

- After I hear it one time

- After I hear it two or more times

- I will never believe it is true

I wouldn't trust a recommendation based only on the number of times I've heard it. I may be more inclined to consider it the more I hear it, of course, which can lead to more trust, but it's never a direct relationship between number of times I've heard something and how likely I'd be to trust it. And the "I will never believe it is true" option is wild - "never" ever? Who seriously chose that option? Were people tired as it was one of the last questions? Come to think of it, I've heard people say "I will never change my mind on this" no matter how I clarify with "even if you get really strong evidence?". So perhaps it's true. But that whole question makes no sense to me.

Re: 'Staggering' number of people believe unproven health claims

#54

Post by mathgladiator »

tonyarkles wrote: post #48
mathgladiator wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

exercise is beyond important which my wife and I do in spades, but the crazy thing is what happens when you fix the diet at a foundational level. For example, my wife has MS and due to carnivore alone (lion diet specifically), she is off both anti-depressants and generic adderal (common for MS patients). That alone is worth whatever silly risks are associated with lack of vegetables (and having gone over a year on th…

I was, for a long time, in the "follow the statistics" camp until about 5 years ago when I did an experiment because of an HN comment. My wife has had low-key GI problems for years. I read a random comment in a thread here about a specific L. Reuteri strain that BioGaia sells and how it had cured someone's IBS. I thought "why not, what's the worst that could happen?" and ordered a bottle. Two weeks into taking it dai…

Based on my wife's improvements, our neurologist is now recommending what we are doing. Im working with my wife on balance now since she has an asymmetric leg strength issue. Low and behold my dumb bro science thinking is working. We are about to do a brutal leg day together.

Re: 'Staggering' number of people believe unproven health claims

#55

Post by Worf »

aziaziazi wrote: post #37
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #36

The very first example that this study says is "false or unproven" uses ambiguous language at best: > Animal protein is healthier than plant-based protein. All commonly consumed sources of animal protein (meat, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, etc.) are complete proteins, meaning they provide all essential amino acids. This is not true for all sources of plant-based protein. In addition, "protein" as is often used to indi…

> complete proteins If I may nitpick: - Human amino acid requirements vary with age, physical condition, and physiological state. PDCAAS and DIAAS use a young child as reference pattern. - Amino acid proportion also varies across animal foods: eggs closely match the child pattern, while beef is slightly lower in tryptophan.[0] - Some plant proteins are considered complete above scoring systems: soy, quinoa, buckwheat…

And if you eat a somewhat varied vegan diet, you don't need to care about whether you consume complete or proteins or not, as they complement each other.

Just like if one type of food had the perfect proportion of fat, carbs and protein, it doesn't mean it's better than a varied diet of foods that are way off in that proportion, but in different directions. (Obviously a "perfect proportion" doesn't exist and varies from people to people, but I used it for the example.)

Re: 'Staggering' number of people believe unproven health claims

#56

Post by tonyarkles »

mathgladiator wrote: post #54
tonyarkles wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was, for a long time, in the "follow the statistics" camp until about 5 years ago when I did an experiment because of an HN comment. My wife has had low-key GI problems for years. I read a random comment in a thread here about a specific L. Reuteri strain that BioGaia sells and how it had cured someone's IBS. I thought "why not, what's the worst that could happen?" and ordered a bottle. Two weeks into taking it dai…

Based on my wife's improvements, our neurologist is now recommending what we are doing. Im working with my wife on balance now since she has an asymmetric leg strength issue. Low and behold my dumb bro science thinking is working. We are about to do a brutal leg day together.

I’m smiling, both because your wife is improving and because of the asymmetry thing.

After my second knee surgery, I asked the surgeon about physio. He didn’t really think it was necessary for the kind of surgery I had, but when I insisted he shrugged, said “sure”, and made a referral to the place on campus (surgery was through the university hospital). Physio folks did an assessment, basically said “you don’t really need anything”, gave me a few stretches and sent me on my way.

Soooooo ok. I could walk. I’d get gentle aching pain in my knee after less walking than I was ok with. I ended up putting together my own physio/rehab plan based largely on the concepts from Tim Ferris’s 4 Hour Body book. Before getting strength and endurance back, phase one was to assess and correct strength asymmetry.

Surgery was on my right knee. I’d been limping for a year before the surgery. I start doing “one-limbed” exercises to assess my strength and discovered that (not surprisingly) my left leg is much stronger than my right leg, but my right arm is much stronger than my left arm. I end up putting together a plan where I did:

- sets of 5-10 reps on the weak side, N/2 reps on the strong side. Once I can do 11 reps I increase the weight by 5lb.

- Every 10 days, do another asymmetry evaluation by doing each exercise to failure and tallying how many reps I did in each side. As soon as left and right match for a given exercise, start doing that exercise with both limbs at the same time instead of one at a time.

I do miss being in my 20s with the surging testosterone to help things. I went from limping constantly, to surgery, to getting sore after walking a few blocks, to running a 5km/3.1mi fun run in 24 minutes after 3 months of my homemade physio program, and still had lots of gas left in the tank.

Re: 'Staggering' number of people believe unproven health claims

#57

Post by tonyarkles »

stinkbeetle wrote: post #49
tonyarkles wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but the word "prevented" in this is way too subtle and nuanced: > whether people believed that the COVID vaccine prevented transmission of the virus Because the correct answer is "no, it didn't prevent transmission". It likely reduced transmission. Someone who'd been vaccinated twice and still caught the virus twice would very rightly say "no, this vaccine did not prevent me from being infected"

No it's not, in the context that people believed it. That's the point.

It's a disingenuous trick question though, specifically because of the nuance that most people won't think too much about. Did the vaccine "prevent transmission"? No, obviously not. Did it seriously curb the virus from ripping through seniors care homes and killing a bunch of people? Yes.

It's the kind of question that's phrased as a gotcha, not one that actually gets insight into population beliefs and behaviours beyond "oh look they fell for my trick"

Re: 'Staggering' number of people believe unproven health claims

#58

Post by throwawaypath »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #50
throwawaypath wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthcare professionals: "Gathering in large groups in causing a genocide of the old, infirm, and immunocompromised!" Healthcare professionals a week later: "Racism is a global health crisis and you must gather and protest in large groups to combat it. No, these specific gatherings won't spread COVID."

Big gatherings *indoors*: big risk. Big gatherings *outdoors*: low risk. Church is pretty dangerous, a protest is reasonably safe.

Except that's not what they said. Large gatherings anywhere were risky with people in close proximity. Outdoor events with many people in close proximity could become super spreader events. Unless the outdoor event was a politically aligned protest. In that case the rules didn't apply and there was no risk of it becoming a super spreader event.

Big outdoor gatherings *for right-wing causes*: big risk.

Big outdoor gatherings *for left-wing causes*: low risk.

Re: 'Staggering' number of people believe unproven health claims

#59

Post by mathgladiator »

tonyarkles wrote: post #56
mathgladiator wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on my wife's improvements, our neurologist is now recommending what we are doing. Im working with my wife on balance now since she has an asymmetric leg strength issue. Low and behold my dumb bro science thinking is working. We are about to do a brutal leg day together.

I’m smiling, both because your wife is improving and because of the asymmetry thing. After my second knee surgery, I asked the surgeon about physio. He didn’t really think it was necessary for the kind of surgery I had, but when I insisted he shrugged, said “sure”, and made a referral to the place on campus (surgery was through the university hospital). Physio folks did an assessment, basically said “you don’t really…

That's great.

I used to have this insane pain in my right quad. Urgent care and two different doctors kept me on a muscle relaxant that isn't exactly good.

I move and get a new doctor. He gives me two exercises after 3 days the pain was just gone.

I have countless stories like this from friends and families.

My wife and I just came back from the gym and doing a leg day. She did 50,000 pounds of volume. When she started, it was around 15k. I was at 75k and now im at 200k. It just feels so much better being stronger.

The sad thing is that you can't really hire a trainer that will push a wife like a demented husband. But her results are impressive and MS is a very humbling disease, but we are fighting like hell.

Re: 'Staggering' number of people believe unproven health claims

#60

Post by stinkbeetle »

tonyarkles wrote: post #57
stinkbeetle wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not, in the context that people believed it. That's the point.

It's a disingenuous trick question though, specifically because of the nuance that most people won't think too much about. Did the vaccine "prevent transmission"? No, obviously not. Did it seriously curb the virus from ripping through seniors care homes and killing a bunch of people? Yes. It's the kind of question that's phrased as a gotcha, not one that actually gets insight into population beliefs and behaviours be…

I don't think it is a disingenous trick question, I think it is a good one because it exactly matches the misinformation being spread by some antiscientific liars who repeated it without any of that "nuance" you are talking about.
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