Comment by arikr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by arikr | Hacker News Reader

This might be a good YC "request for startups."

Virta Health is one I've seen.

And the Robert Johnson Wood Foundation is working on this cause: https://www.rwjf.org/en/our-focus-areas/topics/childhood-obe...

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Diet seems crucial.

Obesity isn't really helped by exercise. (https://www.vox.com/2018/1/3/16845438/exercise-weight-loss-m...)

"Significant weight loss was observed with any low-carbohydrate or low-fat diet. Weight loss differences between individual named diets were small. This supports the practice of recommending any diet that a patient will adhere to in order to lose weight." (Many diets work. Most important is optimizing for one that will be continued long term / rest of their life)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25182101

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Overweight-obesity is also a top 3 preventable cause of death for US people (and many other nations).

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/smoking-hig...

About 1 in 12 of total deaths each year in the US can be attributed to the person being overweight or obese.

~7x more Americans die each year due to obesity/overweight than due to opioids. (Though opioid deaths are rising much faster.) https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o...

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What causes obesity?

The "greatest contributor to weight gain" is eating more calories than are burned. (https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/obesity/conditioninf...)

It seems that food types do play into this - in part because eating 1000 calories of sugar will leave you much hungrier than eating 1000 calories of fat, so while in theory you've eaten the same amount of calories, in reality the sugar eating person will probably eat more the rest of the day.

I did a small investment in a food oriented start-up and I really hope they will succeed in their dream of feeding people healthy stuff. Many companies claim to want to 'change the world for the better' when actually they are just looking to make bank. These guys are driven because of their ideals, they're super nice and have a good idea + track record. Time will tell if it works out.

Nice! What's the link/name?

They are still in closed beta, see https://www.velafoods.com/, they are US based. I've seen their whole product evolution up close and decided that I believe as much in the founders as I believe in the product which made investing in them a relatively easy decision.

Its not about eating healthy food, obesity is about the over consumption of food. You can maintain a healthy weight eating hamburgers and fries every day. The problem is portion size.

It's a combination of:

- food quantity

- genetics

- physical activity or lack thereof

- food quality and make-up (plant / animal for instance)

- and an addictive element thrown in for some individuals

I'm curious, what makes you say genetics is an important factor? And what would make our genes change en masse in the last 50 years?

Our genes did not change but some people are simply more predisposed to obesity than others on account of their genetic heritage.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2787002/

maybe it's also

- microbiome activities

- epigenetics

- what you eat at a young age

You might be able to maintain the correct weight, but you sure as hell won't be healthy. Vegetables are indispenable for good health.

FWIW, there are a handful of human populations that eat essentially no plants of any kind.

I've done keto diet while eating bacon, lettuce wrapped hamburgers and other high fat foods. I had full blood panel blood work done and everything was fine.

On mouse models, these high fat high protein diets have improved brain functionality. http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(17)3...

Biggest issue effecting health is obesity which puts strains on your internal organs.

Diet is more complicated than that. I lost a significant amount by being on a low-carb diet. I didn't really try to control the portion size - though that may have happened naturally. What you eat does matter.

High fat and high protein provides high satiation which prevents the over consumption of calories. I've also lost significant weight on a keto diet. I've also done it with intermittent fasting and eating anything but keeping my calories below my required calorie intake.

You can't extrapolate to the population at large based on what works for you.

Sure, but you will be hungry and tired a lot of time.

The human body is not a pneumatic system that you push food through. It has a nervous system attached to it which changes your mood in ways that affect both the intake (hunger vs. satiety) and expenditure (laziness vs. feeling energetic) sides of the energy equation.

If you listen to people who have had success with low-carb and/or keto diets, their comments almost always discuss how the way they feel about food changed. They weren't hungry and they felt more energetic. Just about 0 of them mention spending time tracking calories consumed or measuring calories expended.

I don't disagree with what you've written, but regarding your brief point on exercise... On my journey to lose 100 pounds I came across a meta-analysis of studies on weight loss* which indicated that, while exercise wasn't a significant contributor to short-term weight loss, exercise was correlated to successful long-term weight loss (a much less likely occurrence, since the vast majority of people who lose weight regain it within a decade).

*I read this analysis a decade ago, so I can't really find it to share.

We applied and interviewed twice with Bitesnap/Bite AI but got feedback that they weren't sure if the market was big enough. Blame probably falls more on us and our ability to sell the vision though.

Also this article seems promising, if only I could read it without a paywall... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-fix-the-ob... (Side note: Is anyone working on "Amazon Prime for Web Paywalls" - e.g. $x/mo, and you get access to >90% of commonly hit web paywalls - see also https://stratechery.com/2015/aggregation-theory/)

For specific articles you can make requests on r/scholar

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