Hacker News Reader

Comment by james4k | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, it is frustrating. I'm no expert, either.

Part of the problem with nutrition is it's hard to get quality data, like how do you get long-term studies where you can control every aspect of each participant's diet and lifestyle? The best data we have is all over relatively short periods.

Saturated fat is one thing there is strong consensus on.

https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-s...

https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/41/8/1732

I'll point out that regarding "healthy" fats, what you see in most recommendations is that replacing unhealthy fats with healthy fats improves heart health, not that adding healthy fats improves heart health.

Eating less meat helps, too.

https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/110/1/24/5494812

(surprisingly, in this particular study, white meat was about as bad as red meat)

View on HN

I've made similar comments before, but this is a neutered attitude. Needing some studies before you agree or disagree with something as fundamental as healthful eating. You can do your own scientific studies by changing your diet and feeling the results.

Nutrition "science" is, like all science these days, inherently untrustworthy.

"The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness."

Richard Horton, current editor of The Lancet.

When it comes to nutritional studies, which are basically impossibly to ethically control, and are most often funded by large agribusiness concerns, and with a huge problem of only publishing studies that agree with a certain incentive set, you not only CAN but SHOULD ignore it all.

And finally, anything that winds up saying meat is bad for you should raise huge amounts of skepticism. Our entire history as a species indicates that we were built for healthy meat. (Obviously notwithstanding garbage, factory-farmed tortured flesh.)

If you're of the mind that you can't make decisions about your health without a bunch of highly-motivated sophists telling you what's right, you should probably take a step back and rethink.

I'm not being absolutist. Eat your meat now and then. But if you're interested in longevity, cardiovascular disease is the #1 cause of death. So, I personally make diet decisions with that in mind.

There are a lot of bunk studies, but that doesn't mean you should ignore all scientific studies altogether. If you have multiple randomized controlled trials with good sample sizes saying certain things, and funded by public health institutions, I want to pay attention to those.

You're right about the agricultural industry and its influence. The beef, chicken, and dairy industries are chief among them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com