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Comment by spodek | Hacker News Reader

Let's also consider the other direction -- how fresh vegetables and fruit, plus whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds, and herbs improve mood, behavior, resilience. Throw in some vigorous exercise, and for most people, drugs can't do better, without the drugs' side effects and cost.

For many people, switching from a standard American diet to largely those ingredients would register as changing who they are.

I just finished reading a chapter on it in Dr. Michael Greger's How Not to Die -- the chapter is "How Not to Die From Suicidal Depression" with plenty of footnotes to primary sources.

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If you look at health outcomes, this is sort of obviously not true. I don't mean the health benefits of the things you mention, I mean the "for most people" part.

Of course I realize that you are engaged in advocacy. I think it probably isn't good advocacy, people should be thinking about (and talking to their doctor about) the best way to approach their current health status, not imagining that they are going to eat well and get lots of vigorous exercise.

Are you really trying to say that promoting a nutritious diet supported by physical activity doesn't work for "most people"? You call that engaged advocacy?

What he claimed is true and backed by multiple studies. Doing a healthy dose of physical activity with a healthy diet can only be beneficial, no downside whatsoever. It's quite underrated I guess. Too many humans wish for a magic pill, they delude themselves into thinking that it must be better than healthy living habits, since it's more modern. People are looking for the lazy fix.

What he said is imagining you will start eating well and exercising is rather far from eating well and exercising. I know of no intentional changes that are less successful than trying to eat healthy for the rest of life. Even smokers have better luck with quitting. (Talking long term here - eating better for six months isn’t that useful).

Yes, that's the point, people don't do the whole good lifestyle thing and in many cases will be better off taking a drug vs not taking it.

I would say my comment is criticism of the advocacy in the other post, not really advocacy itself.

> this is sort of obviously not true... I mean the "for most people" part.

> I think it probably isn't good advocacy

That's pretty strong, can you at least explain why you think that?

> Throw in some vigorous exercise, and for most people, drugs can't do better, without the drugs' side effects and cost.

This is a dangerous generalization. I fully agree that exercise is more beneficial than most people realize for general health, but it's not good to treat exercise vs. drugs as a false dichotomy. They both have their place.

The key is to work with doctors who aren't afraid to recommend exercise and behavior changes when necessary. It's also important to signal to your doctors that you're willing to make lifestyle changes before jumping to drugs, if possible.

In my experience, doctors would always prefer to prescribe exercise, diet, and lifestyle changes before medications, but they're hesitant to do so in this world of patient satisfaction scores and demanding patients who self-diagnose their medication needs before they schedule the appointment.

This sounds more like diet marketing. People have such varying success with different diets that one set of foods simply cannot fit all.

Exercise is a different story. The most likely to bring about the improvements you describe.

It's hard to believe you made such a comment without including more doubts in your claim. I will leave one link, I hope it changes your mind and people mind if they agree with your comment. But there's more science supporting that a good nutrition help the brain: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/nutritional-psychiatry-y...

You could argue that any kind of self-improvement, therapy, dealing with depression and other issues, changes who you are.

The big question is: do they change you for the better or for worse? If they make you happier, more balanced, more in control of your behaviour, then I'd argue that's a good think. If they make you angry, uncontrolled, a slave to your impulses, then that's bad.

A lot of the stuff we put in our bodies subtly or not-so-subtly influences our behaviour. I wonder if at some point we'll understand these processes well enough to allow us to influence our own behaviour in the direction we want.

What if you are happier but become a sex pest (phrase I learned from TFA)?

This is a biased conclusion.

The most logical answer is this: Anything we ingest can change our personality. Whether it's for the better or worse is an opinion.

The causative nature of how ingesting A causes a personality change of type B, must be investigated experimentally. You cannot just say eating veggies improves mood. Where is your data and what do you mean by "improve"?

You're advocating between drugs and the alternative you listed.

The problem is the alternative you've listed are usually for prevention not as a cure. At least all the papers I've seen are observational and retrospective. Drugs on the other hand are design experiment, clinical and casual.

You don't cure cancer with exercise and good diet.

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