Hacker News Reader

Comment by kzrdude | Hacker News Reader

I see a lot about autoimmune disease on Hacker News. I guess that it's a wide medical area, that many can relate to?

It's a set of conditions where most doctors' best answers are "beats me", where conditions are extremely variable from individual to individual, and where lifestyle changes can have drastic differences in outcome.

It is the ideal playground for the lifestyle hacker.

Wow, great summary as to why people are interested. Seriously.

I also think the autoimmune system contributes largely to the overall system. To understand the autoimmune system is to do things like “beat” cancer, aids, possibly some brain disorders, and so on. I personally suspect even life extension could be affected with a full understanding- ie maybe we’d be able to genetically engineer an organism that would repair our telomeres or clean our brains of damage as a symbiosis. It sounds crazy, but I got the idea after hearing about fungi providing nutrients to tree roots in a symbiotic relationship. But first we’d have to find a way for our immune systems to allow it.

I would prefer taking a snapshot of our DNA and then making a retrovirus to go in and restore it, and then get flushed out.

>most doctors' best answers are "beats me"

i take your "beats me" doctors and raise you the gastroenterologist i saw recently - he said straight out, end of discussion, "our infectionist doesn't believe in candida in the gut"

As we have that saying in Russia - "the duty to save the drowning person lies solely with the drowning person" ("spasenie utopayuschih delo ruk samih utopayuschih")

My nephew gave a stool sample your gastrointerologist’s infectionist might want to have a look at.

because the symptoms of the disease come and go with frustrating unpredictability, it’s easy to imagine that lifestyle changes can have drastic differences in outcome, and easy to sell desperately sick people on that idea, just like praying to the gods for rain.

>sick peopLe praying to gods...

You may be on to something. Many religions in times of prayer also have fasting and special diets. Such a large change in diet would influence gut bacteria and the person would attribute the change to their god.

That and probably most people with autoimmune diseases have been surprised how little is known about these diseases. Just getting diagnosed with one often takes months if not years and multiple specialists all telling you that it's "all in your head".

Also hearing that there's nothing that can be done except watch your body deteriorate is a slap in the face to any one. What you're left with is trying the "unconventional".

I think it depends on the type of autoimmune disease. Some are fairly obvious, such as alopecia areata.

>multiple specialists all telling you that it's "all in your head"

This has been my experience since I started having systemic inflammatory symptoms since the age of 12.

It has wrecked my life in as literal and as figurative a way as one can imagine.

A lot of doctors blur the lines between their own hypotheses and facts. It's always "all in your head" until it isn't, but few ever admit they were wrong even after the facts come out.

Many also have such an ego that they prefer to concoct convoluted and implausible explanations for irregular test results and obvious symptoms rather than to concede that their prior implications about the patient's character (as being one who makes up symptoms) were unacceptable.

Not to get off topic but when science (i.e., doctors) act this way it undermines the broader faith in Science.

It would be more accurate to say, "We're not sure. We're sorry. We can't help you at this time." But instead they blame you? The person who brought them opportunity?

Science could stand a heavy dose of humility. No one trusts an egotistical bully.

Note: I'm not a Luddite. I think the scientific method is a great tool. It's enabled us to do wonderful things. But humans being human do make mistakes, there a false flags, etc. My rub, despite history, is there's a (false) belief that Science can do not wrong.

That disconnect - and the ongoing insistence it doesn't exit - only undermines Brand Science (if you will).

The irony is, there's plenty of Science to show how such denial is a mistake. It's as if Science won't listen to itself. But blames us for not listening? Huh?

I know of several hackers that have gone through YC have autoimmune conditions, and I would say there is a larger population of people that have autoimmune conditions then our parents generation. I myself have ankylosing spondylitis, and live with chronic pain, back and neck problems. Probably just really interesting to people like us, who want to hack our way out of problems that medicine doesn't have good answers for yet.

I don't think I'd be any kind of "hacker" if it weren't for undiagnosed celiac disease. If I wasn't been too sick to go out and do my normal activities, I never would have sat at home learning to program.

It's incidence also, anecdotally, seems to be increasing.

Isn't untreated Celiac disease also associated with foggy cognition and poor memory?

Yes. That was a bad time in my life.

I've got the same thing - my neck and shoulders are wrecked, with two slipped discs and severe degeneration, more than should be for my age. The two things that worked to remove nearly all of my pain:

* Whole 30 anti-inflammation diet

* Mysore-style Ashtanga Yoga

If both are done diligently together every day, after 2 weeks you will likely see drastic improvement.

It's not a cure - if I stop, after 2 days I'm back in excruciating pain. But when I do these regularly, I can go through the day forgetting that I have neck problems.

I'm currently on the "low-lectin" diet which seems to be the most extreme of the anti-inflammation diets.

Even though the doctor (Gundry) provides mostly anecdotal evidence in his book The Plant Paradox - you might want to try cutting out cashews and nightshade vegetables which are approved on Whole 30. I felt a difference when I cut those two things out.

Is there any authoritative source on nightshades and inflammation/digestive issues?

After extensive testing, I believe they cause serious issues for me (fatigue, bowel issues, etc)

But when I search for info, I just find sites from sort of woo-woo sources. (Chiropractors, naturopaths, etc)

I'd like to read something more definitive. Both for my own purposes, and also to point people to, as the category itself makes people skeptical.

Spicy food, sure, people get that. But potatoes? That's a weird one for most.

Nope. The only studies are in mice/rats. I was disappointed that The Plant Paradox "references" linked to articles on the web like this: https://www.dietvsdisease.org/nightshade-vegetables/

I see. What's your personal view on eliminating them? I'm trying to rule out the possibility that I've given myself a nocebo effect.

(I've had enough cases where I didn't realize something was a nightshade and I had a bad effect from it that I don't think I'm merely fooling myself, but the quality of articles about it is disturbing).

What did the rodent studies find?

Could you elaborate a little bit on how you got started with Ashtanga Yoga ?

Any book or yogashaala recommendation ?

A coworker introduced me. I was already looking for a place to practice yoga so when a recommendation came in I latched onto it quickly.

Ideal book for the Whole 30 diet? Tia

Autoimmune diseases used to be very rare a century or two ago. For a long time they were doubling in prevalence every decade or two. But that will not happen again, because over half the population now has at least one (eczema.) Doctors obviously haven't had much to offer during this debacle.

It’s an extremely interesting field where decieses act in extraordinarily ways. An ex boyfriend of my best friend got an autoimmune response and went from perfectly healthy to lying in a respirator close to death in one week, only to be fully out of the hospital two weeks later. And as it went on the doctors seemed to have next to no clue about what was happening just saying that he needed to “ride it out”. Another close friend had an autoimmune condition where she woke up one day partially blind on one eye. It looked like her body was attacking her own eye. But today there is no issue anymore. I think that for anyone who’s come across the subject it’s just intensely interesting.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com