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Comment by wireprotocol | Hacker News Reader

Double blind dietary study? It would be quite hard to fool someone into thinking they are eating cupcakes when they are really eating a bowl of unsweetened oatmeal.

Dietary studies are very hard. There is no conspiracy preventing rigorous studies, they are just really hard. You need a large enough sample, you need to control the subjects very tightly (people don't self-report accurately), and you need to do it for long enough to see if the effects are lasting or illusory.

If you want real science here, we need to change our expectations and think in terms of $10B not $10M. Probably still a good investment in health, comparable to cancer research.

Until that time, what are you using to make your dietary decisions, given there's not much real science behind any of it?

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I completely agree that it would be very difficult to perform such studies, if not impossible, but that doesn't make me desire them any less. Instead I've become very skeptical of everything and – if you'll pardon the pun – follow my gut instincts.

I find maintaining a high level of skepticism tends to dissipate any longterm benefits of the placebo effect. So sometimes I'll try a fad, or a lifestyle change, but hold my judgement until months later and most of the time I'm left disappointed in the overall results.

Other than that, I follow the golden rule of health and nutrition: "everything in moderation".

Skepticism is fine. But that doesn't mean you can't take someone's advice and just try it. Sometimes it works out, some times it does not. But it's just optimizing what works for "you". This is something you'll never find in a clinical study no matter how good.

> Sometimes it works out, some times it does not

Actually, it almost always works out, at least initially. The problem is, the benefits go away; that's how placebo works. I'm just wary of getting my hopes up these days so I'm very careful about what drastic lifestyle changes I make now. Beyond that, I'm also tired of people guilt-tripping everyone else every time they make one of these lifestyle changes. Everyone rushes from one fad to the next and along the way we all feel a little worse about ourselves.

"Everything in moderation" is just a tautology. "Moderation" for kale is different from "moderation" for sugar is different from "moderation" for opiates. "Everything in moderation" means "the right amount of everything," which is just begging the question of what the right amount is in the first place.

Ah, thank you for articulating the problem I have with that statement that I could never quite put my finger on.

Also thank you for using "begging the question" correctly.

I would not agree it means "the right amount of everything". That would be "everything in the right amount". I take "everything in moderation" to mean not too much of anything, using your best judgement of what too much is. It's subjective and based on intuition, to be sure, but I think everyone has a decent understanding about when they are having too much of something. And I fully admit it's not a great tautology. But in lieu of better science, at least it's something.

"It would be quite hard to fool someone into thinking they are eating cupcakes when they are really eating a bowl of unsweetened oatmeal."

I would be willing to be fed slurry through a tube, if it provided good information.

This does assume the form factor and visual re-enforcements don't contribute to the effect. You can call this "placebo" if you want, but the perception is real and might not have a clear "alternative placebo".

I wouldn't count those chickens anytime soon.

But wouldn't you give the control and test groups the same looking / tasting slurry?

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