Comment by ihsw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ihsw | Hacker News Reader

TLDR: more exercise, dramatically less junk food consumption (fast food, soda, snacks, etc), dramatically increased nutritional education

More importantly I find the focus on low-fat fast food menu items highly suspect -- significantly reducing carbohydrate consumption has been shown, empirically and anecdotally the world over, to have a greater impact (if not the greatest impact) on weight and health management.

The low-fat diet craze has hurt more than helped the fight against obesity.

The problem with restricting carbohydrate intake is that it's everywhere and it hurts the bottom line of pretty much all of the prepared food and drink industry.

That said, I'm not at all advocating that we all start eating sticks of butter, but a balance must be maintained -- 30/30/25/10 with 30% protein, 30% fat, 25% carbohydrates, and 10% dietary fiber.

This is back of the hand math but I think it works out. Most people trade out protein for carbs (because protein is expensive) and fat for carbs (because fat is apparently bad for you), which results in weight gain and diabetes risk.

Generally it can be assumed that the most common form of carbohydrate substituted is a sugar or grain, which usually have very high-glycemic indexes. This spikes the blood-sugar and beta-endorphin levels, the latter encouraging addictive habits (feeling good after eating high-glycemic food, going into withdrawal when not consuming frequently enough, etc).

You can't really prescribe one macronutrient ratio for everyone. Someone who is morbidly obese might do best on a diet almost completely absent in carbohydrates, while someone who is lean will do better on a diet that is relatively high in carbohydrates. Additionally, activity level makes a big difference in optimal carbohydrate intake.

For instance, I'm _very_ lean and active, and I thrive on a diet that is almost fat free (I get my essential fats from eggs and fish oil).

Yeah I know exactly what you mean, at that point I'm hoping people will research nutrition and exercise enough to find out what is optimal for them.

You are correct, given a person's current health and activity level, their nutrient requirements can vary greatly.

You can get both essential ω-3 and ω-6 short chain polyunsaturated fatty acids from flaxseed, without the baggage of eggs (high cholesterol) and fish oil (high levels of persistent organic pollutants).

http://examine.com/faq/will-eating-eggs-increase-my-choleste...

Many of the studies referenced on that site are funded or carried out by egg lobbying groups. One study literally compares eggs' effects on cholesterol levels compared to a diet of sausage and cheese. It's important to be critical of biased research! This is not good science.

And a tiny glimpse at your post history shows that you are a rabid advocate of a vegan diet. Not exactly unbiased yourself.

Please reply to my comment based on its scientific merit without resorting to an ad hominem attack.

There was no scientific merit in your comment. You mentioned that some studies out of a list of many that disagreed with your opinion had potential for bias in their conclusions due to external motives. I merely pointed out the same potential for bias in your conclusions.

I don't have a financial incentive to promote healthy food, whereas the studies I've criticized do have a serious conflict of interest. It isn't difficult to see the difference.

You're right...there is a substantial difference. Financial motives generally tend to be much weaker than religious or philosophical motives because financial stakes are much easier to trade, liquidate, or abandon. If the evidence ever becomes overwhelming that eggs are bad for you, proponents of egg consumption can easily become a proponents of kale consumption. Veganism, being a fundamentalist philosophical extension of more pragmatic vegetarian diets, does not share the same strength of motive; evidence to the contrary is a refutation of the validity of the entire belief system. It will always be much harder to move away from a belief system than it is to move away from money.

I'm sorry, but I really think you are just trolling and I won't have any of it. You see, veganism is based on scientific fact and nutritional research, not conjured beliefs. If you have reason to think there is significant scientific research to dispute my claims, please cite those as I've asked, rather than appealing to another attack on my character. By the way, the evidence is already overwhelming to implicate eggs as damaging to your health. One just has to be reasonable and willing to seek out the information to make own unbiased conclusions.

I'm sorry, but the one absolute metric we do have in terms of nutritional quality (athletic performance) shows that intelligent inclusion of animal products provides better results than a vegan diet. In terms of longevity, basically all the "blue zone" diets do include animal products in moderation. You might be able to push your cholesterol numbers down slightly with a vegan diet, but note that some cholesterol is necessary for optimal health, so there is no reason to play "how low can you go".

Furthermore, you can't make blanket claims like "eggs are damaging to your health", because there are tons scenarios where that is untrue. Are eggs a bad dietary choice for someone who already consumes a high saturated fat, low fiber diet? Probably. On the other hand, eggs are an integral part of my diet and I would be much less healthy without them.

You should at least be honest about your motivations as a vegan. I don't care if you want to take a stand against subjugation of animals, that's fine, but don't try and sell the diet to people who don't share your feelings in that regard with health scare tactics. That's just plain lame.

> the one absolute metric we do have in terms of nutritional quality (athletic performance) shows that intelligent inclusion of animal products provides better results than a vegan diet

Please cite any references which support this claim.

Well controlled studies on elite athletes are pretty hard to come by, because nobody wants to go off a routine that is working for them and potentially be set back several months for the sake of science. The people near the top are hyper-competitive and will do whatever it takes to win.

That being said, in addition to the anecdotal evidence that vegans are VASTLY under-represented in the upper echelons of strength and power sports compared with their relative abundance in the general population, there are some good studies comparing muscle protein synthesis following ingestion of whey vs soy protein:

http://jap.physiology.org/content/107/3/987.short http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/86/2/373.short http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1743-7075-9-57.pdf

There is also some data suggesting vegans have slightly lower free testosterone and free IGF-1 than omnivores too, though at the highest levels rampant steroid use probably makes this a moot point.

The first two studies were done by the same author from the same "McMaster University" and were directly funded by dairy lobbying boards, whereas the third study was funded by the US Dairy Research Institute - not exactly fair and unbiased. Still, none of these data support your earlier claim, "intelligent inclusion of animal products provides better results than a vegan diet". And your anecdotal evidence is not relevant to this discussion anymore than one's anecdotal evidence of a 100-year old, allegedly healthy grandmother eating bacon every morning should lead one to conclude it's okay to eat in that way.

> There is also some data suggesting vegans have slightly lower free testosterone and free IGF-1 than omnivores too, though at the highest levels rampant steroid use probably makes this a moot point.

Again, you are using conjecture over peer reviewed research. Take a look at http://nutritionfacts.org/2013/02/12/less-cancer-in-vegan-me... if you're interested in actually learning the facts.

Finally, the down votes just serve my point. People rather bury their heads in the sand and pretend animal products have some magical effect on human health, especially in athletes, which is a true ode to powerful industry lobbying.

Because my diet is so low fat, I actually want the cholesterol. Low fat/high fiber diets basically shut down the genes responsible for endogenous cholesterol synthesis (via SREBP2), I'm pretty sure if I didn't eat lots of eggs my testosterone would be in the toilet (among other things).

Additionally, eggs are very high in arachidonic acid, which is the thing your body actually needs (linoleic acid is only essential as a precursor to arachidonic acid production), and the eggs I buy also contain very high levels of vitamin D, vitamin E and iodine.

As for the fish oil, I buy a high quality supplement that claims to be extremely high purity (though of course this being supplements, that could mean anything). The rational for fish oil over flax is that it contains EPA/DHA, which are the fatty acids that are actually responsible for most of the beneficial effects; your body is pretty poor at metabolizing alpha-linolenic acid to EPA/DHA.

If you're concerned with the metabolization of shorter chain omega-3’s found in flaxseeds, you can take an algae-based DHA supplement and still avoid toxic industrial pollutants found in fish oil. Still, flaxseed is amazing stuff.

For a vegan diet, I'd prefer chia seed over flaxseed.

Its greatest advantage is that the seed does not need to be milled (exposing the oils inside to light and oxygen) to be digested. Second, it has more of that mucilaginous fiber coating than flax, making beverages such as chia fresca possible. Third, I just like the flavor better. The disadvantage is cost per kg. Chia still costs more than flax.

But one need not pick just one or the other; they're both excellent foods.

Non-vegans can go lower on the food chain than fish oil by eating krill oil. Krill are only one step up from algae. In theory, krill-based foods could be farmed more sustainably than fish, but in practice, most of the wild krill catch is fed to fish farms. If krill were more popular as a direct-to-human food, there might be more financial incentive to farm it rather than catch it wild.

Flaxseed oil contains mostly the omega-3 called alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), whereas fish oil has a more balanced profile of omega-3s, specifically EPA and DHA. Many people can convert ALA into other omega-3s just fine, but some people have deficiencies in diet or genetics (e.g. MTHFR mutation) that prevent efficient conversion.

Also, flaxseed oil goes rancid rather quickly in comparison to other oils, and polymerizes into semisolid or solid forms. This process begins as soon as the seed hull is cracked. If you're trying to change the diet of an entire city, it is probably better to promote unmilled chia seed and whole oily fish or krill. Unlike flax seed, chia seed can be digested without milling.

There's also something to be said for algae and algae oil, but it isn't likely to be useful until someone works out how to change its flavor to be more palatable.

>That said, I'm not at all advocating that we all start eating sticks of butter

Iowa is way ahead of you: http://www.eater.com/2011/8/10/6663841/a-deep-fried-stick-of...

What you're saying is scientifically untenable. For one, dietary fiber is not a macronutrient, so including that in your ratio is just incorrect. Secondly, carbohydrates are the preferred source of energy for your brain and body - the majority (80%+) of a healthy diet should consist of carbs - whole wheat like pasta, veggies, fruit, legumes, etc. Finally, even WHO recommends only 5% of caloric intake from protein. May I ask where you're sourcing your information? Every respectable medical and nutritional journal I've read recommends a whole plant-based diet, low in protein and fat, and high in carbohydrates, for optimal human health.

Probably from the /r/keto echo chamber. Don't waste your time arguing with fanatics.

I find low protein and fat and high carb diets troublesome for myself. The opposite, high fat/high protein has proven significantly better from a health perspective. I'm skeptical of what any organization tells me, especially when the majority of food companies benefit with high carb consumption. One could argue that portion size is the culprit, after all, carbs are not as satiating as fat or protein. As obesity becomes the no. 1 cost for insurance companies, I am sure they will invest in a solution to be rid of it.

How are you determining it to be "significantly better from a health perspective"? What is your blood pressure? How do you know you don't have elevated low-density lipoprotein cholesterol serum? What are you eating in a high carb diet - is it whole plant-based foods, or refined and processed junk? Portion size is not the culprit; can you find a case study of an overweight plant-based vegan who does not portion control?

Anyone who eats above their TDEE for an extended period will become obese, which is trivially possible on a vegan diet of french fries topped with sugar and olive oil. What does this have to do with a vegan diet?

Since you're asking personal medical questions, my blood pressure/blood tests are all nominal, my RHR is ~55, and I eat a high-protein vegetarian diet, with the primary protein sources being skim greek yogurt, whey powder, eggs, tofu, edamame, and seitan. Besides that I mostly eat vegetables and noodles.

That's why I've said "plant-based vegan diet" and not "vegan diet of french fries topped with sugar and olive oil".

Please post the actual numbers, as "nominal" levels in a society where it is normal to die from cardiovascular disease, for example, are not a good representation of optimal health.

Did potatoes, sugar cane, and olives stop being plants...?

A potato is not a french fry, sugar cane is not sucrose syrup, nor are olives equal to olive oil. This is why I keep saying, whole plant-based foods, i.e., unprocessed and unrefined ones.

> Anyone who eats above their TDEE for an extended period will become obese

Well, they'll gain weight; whether that's muscle or fat -- and thus whether it contributes to obesity by the more significant adiposity-based standards rather than the less-meaningful BMI-based standards -- depends on other factors than whether they are consuming more calories than their TDEE.

Sorry, you're totally correct - this assumes someone that isn't performing strength-based exercise!

Just a few nit-picks:

Dietary fiber (at least fermentable poly/oligosaccharides), while technically a form of carbohydrate, is fermented to short chain fatty acids by the bacteria in your gut. These short chain fatty acids have some fairly special physiological effects that you can't get from other macronutrients. For this reason, from a health perspective it does make sense to treat fermentable fibers as a separate category of nutrient, and set an intake target for it.

Also, lactate is the preferred fuel for your brain; it has been shown that if lactate is available glucose uptake by the brain is _greatly_ diminished. In fact, a major role of astrocytes in the brain is the metabolism of glucose to lactate for primary neurons.

As for the 5% protein number, for starters that is meaningless without knowing the number of calories being consumed. If someone was somehow active enough to burn 10K calories a day 5% protein might be a reasonable amount. For your typical 2K cal/day diet, however, that number is woefully inadequate. 0.8g/Kg/day is the minimum anyone should reasonably be getting, and even non-exercising populations will tend to be leaner and feel better around 1.2g/Kg/day, not to mention athletes who will do best around 1.7g/Kg/day.

> The low-fat diet craze has hurt more than helped the fight against obesity

Absolutely. The one big component we have forgotten is appetite. In theory weight loss is simple. Eat less. But a lack of appetite control gets in the way of that. Carboydrates are immediately stored away and trigger hunger pangs again.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com