Comment by robchez | Hacker News Reader

Comment by robchez | Hacker News Reader

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This ignores all research already done on the brain and nutrition, and also common sense.

On Common Sense:

The human brain/body evolved to run on minimal glucose. Of the past 2million years of human evolution, only 10,000(from the agrarian revolution) of those years have we consumed excess carbohydrates in the forms of grains etc. Prior to that we were hunter gatherers and ate copious amounts of fat and meat with some vegetables (very low in carbohydrates) and every now and then fruits when they were in season.

We also didnt have the luxury of eating as soon as we woke up, we had to hunt for our food, so missing breakfast would have happened more times than not. Again our bodies adapted to that.

On All Research:

As mentioned in comments below our bodies run perfectly well in states of ketosis. With ketone-bodies providing a much more efficient longer energy burn than carbohydrates. (Think of carbohydrates as kindling and ketones as the logs). Many athletes (particularly the CrossFit athletes) run on ketogenic diets and get better performance. Here are some papers/articles etc. I dug up quickly, but there are many more.

[1] Your brain on ketones

[2] Weston price Foundation, Lots of references

[3] Ketogenic Diets and Physical Performance

[4] The metabolic effects of low-carbohydrate diets and incorporation into a biochemistry course

[5] Report picking apart the latest dietry guidelines.

[1] http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.com/2010/08/your-brai...

[2] http://www.westonaprice.org/

[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC524027/

[4] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bmb.2005.49403302...

[5] http://www.nutritionjrnl.com/article/PIIS0899900710002893/fu...

edit: formatting

This is a great comment and I appreciate the links.

But the caveman explanation for health and nutrition always leaves me cold. Yeah ok we can pretty much gauge what proto-humans ate and why it was good for them, but what if it made them miserable? It's romantic to think that early humans lived in the garden of lo-carb eden, but what if it really fucking sucked? What if they were just plain hugnry all the time, it was miserable and only the strong survived?

Don't get me wrong I think most of the conclusions are right, but I prefer evidence collected from modern people to justify those conclusions. Appealing to evolutionary biology is only valid for survival and reproduction. It doesn't say anything about happiness, fulfillment, etc.

I seem to recall some crackpot theory that low-calorie diets (ie., borderline starvation) increase your lifespan. That would certainly jive with the caveman hypothesis, but does it sound like fun? How miserable are we willing to make ourselves for a few extra years in a nursing home? That's probably a false dichotomy, but you get the point.

What if they were just plain hugnry all the time, it was miserable and only the strong survived?

I think the point is that regardles of being miserable, hungry or happy, the bodies adapted to the circumstances. Now what happens if you take the body that is best adapted to being hungry for periods of time and place it in the limitless food environment? Chances are that you will get a very happy and a very overweight person, with a shortened lifespan.

That would certainly jive with the caveman hypothesis, but does it sound like fun? How miserable are we willing to make ourselves for a few extra years in a nursing home?

I think that's a good point and not quite a false dichotomy. There probably are not enough studies to confidently state that "reducing calories by X% lengthens lifespan by Y%" but if the choice is "eat everything that will make me happy" and "be alive from my 80th to 85th birthday", different people would make different choices.

We became optimized for the environment we were in. Thats not the same thing as saying that that environment is optimal for us. We adapted to being cold and wet but chucking out your clothes and umbrella wont make you healthier.

Always remember - poison ivy is natural, pants aren't.

Okay, I see the point. It is quite obvious with the pants - "pants keep me warm and protect from poison ivy, therefore they are good for me". With food, not so obvious. "Chips and pizza with coke are tasty and make me happy, therefore they are good for me". Doesn't work the same way. In fact, I can't easily think of any artificial food that is definitely good for humans.

Thats not what I was saying at all. My point is that just because we are adapted to a certain diet doesn't make that diet optimal. Much modern food is undeniably unhealthy but starving yourself because our ancestors were hungry too is scientifically questionable. Nutrition is complicated but there is no reason we can't do better than our ancestors.

> I seem to recall some crackpot theory that low-calorie diets increase your lifespan

Not sure the 'crackpot theory' pejorative is appropriate. Calorie restriction (with adequate nutrition) has been documented to increase both median and maximum lifespan across a number of species. I believe primate studies are in progress now.

I agree that perpetually hungry (and cold) sounds like an unpleasant way to go through life, but that doesn't make the adherents crackpots.

Calorie restricted diets are known to increase the lifespan of rats by up to 20%. In Japan there is even a philosophy around this: "Hara Hachi Bu – eat until you are 80% full" http://fooddemocracy.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/hara-hachi-bu-...

> but I prefer evidence collected from modern people to justify those conclusions.

No you don't. You want to reconfirm your bias. (I assume by "Evidence" you mean something that lives up to scientific standards. If it doesn't, I have no idea what you are talking about).

> It doesn't say anything about happiness, fulfillment, etc.

Science almost never has anything to say about these (or anything else which is this subjective).

> I seem to recall some crackpot theory that low-calorie diets (ie., borderline starvation) increase your lifespan.

But that is very well supported by science (on mice and fruit flies; not on humans YET). If you were interested in evidence, you wouldn't call it "crackpot", especially not considering ...

> does it sound like fun? How miserable are we willing to make ourselves for a few extra years in a nursing home?

By this standard, you should be doing booze and drugs all day. I've heard they're really fun (and they cut off those long years of old age!)

I really can't understand people whose thought process can emit things like:

> That's probably a false dichotomy, but you get the point.

"I can't find an example that supports my point. So I'm making one up that is probably wrong. That's totally legit, and we should continue the discussion assuming my made-up example is fact"

I've dropped about 16 lbs and feel great on a diet like this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1884270

Very interesting. However, the time frame doesn't work in this example, those studies showed reduced performance for a week, and then back to baseline or slightly above.

You are right, for the first week or two, your do feel like crap. As your body switches to using ketone bodies as energy, you go through a real down phase. However when you come out, you feel great.

Anecdotally (I hate anecdotes about health, but argh) I used to need to eat constantly to keep my energy up. I'd have breakfast, and by the time lunch came around I had to eat, or face passing out. These days I can skip breakfast (or just have a coffee with lots of cream) and that will keep my going until 2-3pm where I will have a lunch. You have no idea how liberating it is not to always be thinking about food.

So I've read 1,4, and 5 now, and found them wildly interesting. One begins to get a picture of a protein and fat focused paleo diet, providing great endurance, and our modern and reccommended carb focused diet as a serious kludge.

It really is an eye opener. I was blown away when I started reading about it all. Some good resources if you're interested.

[1] Marks Daily Apple (Website and forum a wealth of information)

[2] Nora Gedgautis Book Primal Body Primal Mind

[3] Robb Wolfs The Paleo Solution Book

[4] PaleoNu - A doctor who pushes a paleo style diet.

[1] http://www.marksdailyapple.com/primal-blueprint-101/

[2] http://www.primalbody-primalmind.com/

[3] http://www.robbwolf.com

[4] http://www.paleonu.com/

It really is an eye opener. I was blown away when I started reading about it all. Some good resources if you're interested.

I totally agree to that. Those sources changed the way I was thinking about human health and nutrition completely. To be quite honest, I was not thinking about these topics very much before. I would also add a source that kind of got me started:

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/

Stephan appears to be a very knowledgeable guy, he is probably the least "radical" in his approaches, writes on a variety of topics and is not afraid to change his opinions when faced with contradicting evidence.

Also, blog of Dr. Mike Eades http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/ and Hyperlipid http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/

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