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Eating chocolate is associated with improved brain function

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Eating chocolate is associated with improved brain function

#81

Post by alexchamberlain »

leoedin wrote: post #55
alexchamberlain wrote: post #43

There is a radio program in the UK called More or Less, who''s (whom's?) motto is "Correlation is not causation". Admittedly, I have neither read the paper, nor did I fully understand the section on proving the direction of influence, but I can't help but feel this research makes pretty poor use of statistics and logic, however much I wish to believe the result. Is all nutritional research this bad?

You haven't read the original paper, don't even understand the methodology they used to reach their conclusions and yet you "can't help but feel this research makes pretty poor use of statistics and logic"? It seems something is bad here, but I don't think it's the nutritional research. If you can't be bothered to actually read the paper, why do you think you're able to critique it?

That wasn't quite what I said. I read and understood the first part, but I didn't understand how they tried to justify it in the second half without a causal link.

Re: Eating chocolate is associated with improved brain function

#82

Post by kotach »

astrange wrote: post #56
kotach wrote: post #50

All food is healthy. Diets can be unhealthy. It really is interesting that the whole science is concentrating on a single ingredient.

> All food is healthy. Except for the food with cyanide in it.

Yeah, that's exactly the food I was thinking of.

Cheeseburger + chocolate milk shake. Quinoa with kale.

What would you say is more healthy? The comparison is idiotic.

If a person suffers anorexia their whole diet is unhealthy and has to become healthy. Their relationship with food is also unhealthy.

The former is much more suitable meal for someone having difficulties meeting their caloric needs. If they have it couple of times a day every day, then we know the diet is unhealthy.

The latter can be a nice addition to a healthy diet.

The amount of downvotes on my first comment means that quite a lot of community here have an unhealthy relationship with food.

https://atheismfaq.quora.com/Is-this-food-healthy

Checkout the link above. I hope it'll improve your relationship with food.

Re: Eating chocolate is associated with improved brain function

#83

Post by driverdan »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #38

Food companies distort nutrition science by funding studies. That's why we have very specific titles like "Concord grape juice, cognitive function, and driving performance," or, "Walnut ingestion in adults at risk for diabetes." Usually the results are positive. http://www.vox.com/2016/3/3/11148422/food-science-nutrition-...

That has absolutely nothing to do with this study.

Re: Eating chocolate is associated with improved brain function

#85

Post by wobbleblob »

briHass wrote: post #72
wobbleblob wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this current obsession with stevia? It has a very strong, pretty much unpalatable taste that even strong espresso can't mask.

There seems to be a genetic component to how we perceive the taste of some of these artificial sweeteners [1]. Personally, I also think stevia is gross -- bitter and metallic aftertaste. The best AS for me is sucralose (Splenda). I can't tell it apart from sugar. I've also never seen any results about it that would concern me, and it's been studied more than almost anything else we eat. [1] http://news.psu.edu/story/…

It may also be a matter of getting used to it.

Oddly enough, after so many years, I don't like the taste of sugar any more, it seems 'off'. Aspartame is fine.

Re: Eating chocolate is associated with improved brain function

#86

Post by autokad »

Adabenflaben wrote: post #29
Gatsky wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The study is still 'correlation-digging'. Bonferroni won't fix the problem that these kinds of studies will throw up statistically significant associations that provide no insight into anything meaningful, due to confounders, biases, poor design etc. There is no equivalent xkcd however.

There's more to it than just the things you mentioned, and I'd argue that it's an even bigger problem. The fact studies are adaptively chosen and performed based on the results of past studies on the same (or related) data leads to increased instances of false discovery. This is something that is directly addressed in some very recent recent work (not uncoincidentally making reference to this exact XKCD comic): http:…

very true. more specifically, you generally find what you are looking for. much like trying to google if you have some sort of rare disease.

people should pay attention to how they feel 30 minutes after eating a particular food more than any research study that has ever been published.

Re: Eating chocolate is associated with improved brain function

#88

Post by noir_lord »

kotach wrote: post #82
astrange wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All food is healthy. Except for the food with cyanide in it.

Yeah, that's exactly the food I was thinking of. Cheeseburger + chocolate milk shake. Quinoa with kale. What would you say is more healthy? The comparison is idiotic. If a person suffers anorexia their whole diet is unhealthy and has to become healthy. Their relationship with food is also unhealthy. The former is much more suitable meal for someone having difficulties meeting their caloric needs. If they have it coup…

Everything in moderation, I read a report a while back about the people who provide food for post operative care (iirc it was mostly eldery people) where they threw out the normal diet guidelines and went for "stodge", pasta, custard, pies, cake - basically anything that was easy to digest and high in calories as they found that gave the best outcome post surgery.

It wouldn't be the diet you'd eat in other circumstances but context matters.

Re: Eating chocolate is associated with improved brain function

#89

Post by wapapaloobop »

PeterWhittaker wrote: post #71
wapapaloobop wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cos it doesn't work with an explanation. Science is about explaining things.

Hmm, yes, that is true. But "science" doesn't pull explanations from the air (that would be religion or superstition, ya know). Science first finds unlikely or unexpected correlations, unlikely or unexpected measurements, and seeks to understand from whence they came. Are they artifacts of the observation process? Tainting of the measurement process? Or spurious correlations, such as the one between height and spelli…

If you go outside with a measuring tape and a stopwatch you'll discover there's an unlimited number of measurements you can make. So that can't be how scientists operate. They are guided by prior theories.

>[science] doesn't pull explanations from the air

Well, people think about problems and then ideas sometimes pop into their heads. No one understands how yet. So explanations do come out of the air, metaphorically speaking! That doesn't make them false. It's what happens afterwards that counts. Most ideas are rejected by criticism and a few go on to be tested.

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