Comment by nmaley | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nmaley | Hacker News Reader

I knew a guy once with a milder version of what appears to be a similar syndrome. We worked together, and he would go out for lunch and wolf down a whole large pizza. Afterwards, he would get very hot and sweaty. He was not particularly tall and skinny as a rake. He wasn't an athlete, had a sedentary job, yet he was eating 2-3 times normal calorie intake, maybe 5-6K calories/day at least. In all other respects he seemed a normal guy, who to my knowledge did not eat toddlers. There was clearly some medical reason for what was going on, but since he seemed normal in other respects as far as I know he never went to the doctor about it. I'm not medical and have no idea what his syndrome was, but I wonder if it could have had something to do with his mitochondrial functions. See https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/shilling-for-big-mitoc... I'm not suggesting Tarrare was taking a drug that hadn't been invented yet, but that possibly he naturally had a natural version of the mitochondrial permeability syndrome that DNP induces.

DNP is a common drug used by bodybuilders to drop fat extremely quickly. Like 20 pounds in 2 weeks quickly. It basically turns your metabolism up to 125% of normal. They describe themselves as being hot and sweaty at all times…though they do also say it destroys their appetite. Fun fact…it was originally developed as an explosive in WW1 and it was observed the workers in the munitions factories were losing tons of weight (and dying). Turns out DNP is a poison. Who would have guessed.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/dnp-the-deadly-internet-diet-d...

For the body hackers reading this, DNP is not something to be trifled with. Cataracts are a common side effect, and overdose is uniformly fatal.

But, you'll die a ripped corpse ;) Flex!

I would never suggest anyone use DNP but my understanding is that the cataract side effect is predominantly limited to women. I know dozens of men who have used it for years (from my time in the strength and bodybuilding sports) and not a single one had accelerated cataract development. Of the 5 women I knew who used it, 4 have developed cataracts before 50!

I am looking for the paper on this but there’s a preprint I reviewed when I was a referee for a journal that was a meta-analysis on DNP side effects papers. The authors never resubmitted it but a lot of the data was solid. If I can find it I’ll share.

That's wild, but it sounds incredibly dangerous. Even if it were possible to safely dose something like this, getting pure and well-measured quantities has to be really, really hard, right? We're talking tens or hundreds of milligrams between 'safe' doses and unsafe ones. (200-300 seems to be 'recommended' starting dose; 350 is the lowest recorded fatal dose)

I'd love to be beautiful as much as the next guy but man, seems risky.

David Sinclair at Harvard is working on making this molecule safe. Back in the day it was FDA approved it was wildly popular, but the "idiot takes 10x the dosage and cooks their insides" is too much of a risk for a 2020+ general population especially given the extremely slow half time.

I wish that we'd care less about said edge cases. It's one thing to have an obscure, nonobvious death sentence, but "don't overdose on meds" should be common sense enough to avoid tiptoeing about it.

It's a weird double ... I wish someone had a nice word for this.

In modern America, with allopathic medicine being the norm, its difficult to obtain some things that are likely safe at a 3 sigma confidence interval. Yet conversely, and reminder we share healthcare costs partially as a society through Medicare and Medicaid, you're free to pour McDonalds into yourself and add $X00k of cost onto the healthcare system, and "infringing on that right" and heaven forbid enacting a tax on sugar products is somehow unacceptable.

I can shorten my life expectancy by 15 years in so many ways. But to buy XYZ drug without a giant multi-day process which on average is positive, and even at ABC confidence level is not negative, nahhhh we don't trust you as a society to do that.

Super frustrating in a borderline libertarian rant.

> getting pure and well-measured quantities has to be really, really hard, right?

Accurate scales are very affordable nowadays. A $50 Gemini-20 can accurately measure in the milligram range with very little tolerance. The danger is probably more of people not keeping to the right dosages.

In case you are wondering why oc suspected mitochondria, it's because many people believe (though science can't say for certain) that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

> though science can't say for certain

What, really? I’ve always heard the mitochondria’s role in energy production described as established fact.

"Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell" is a common meme for being one of the few random (and possibly useless) facts one remembers from school.

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/mitochondria-is-the-powerhous...

Poe's Law strikes again

This ACx article is priceless

> As far as I know, DNP is the only substance to be banned by both the FDA and the Department of Homeland Security for unrelated reasons.

It does still make victims https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00414-016-1378-...

I came to the same thought immediately upon reading the article. Like a memory leak, but with calories instead of bytes.

One might call it a, "leak."

> Like a memory leak, but with calories instead of bytes.

What a missed opportunity!

I knew a tiny Slovak algebra postdoc who had the same ability(?). After eating a meal, her hands and cheeks would get really hot.

She was about 100 lb and unable to gain weight by any means.

Is there a chance this was his only meal of the day? For example I knew someone who ate once a day at an all you can eat buffet.

Gee, whenever I have pizza, I eat a whole large one. It that so unusual?

I do too, and yes it's unusual.

My roommate in college was 120# when soaking wet, we would split the "dinner for 4" special. He would have one slice and a few cheese sticks. I ate the rest.

I don't know what "120# when soaking wet" means, but he sounds like the weird one!

"When soaking wet" is just a phrase used imply that is the high end of the estimate. Many things, such as clothes, are much heavier when wet.

Also, # = pound = lb

ohh ok thanks! I thought maybe it was fahrenheit hehe.

Fascinating - I don't remember ever seeing that usage, didn't know it's used for pounds/weight, although I knew "pound sign" is one name for #. Seems the sign evolved from "lb" with a horizontal line through it.

"When # is after a number, it is read as "pound" or "pounds", meaning the unit of weight. ...rare outside North America."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_sign#Names

Reading that page, I learnt the word "octothorpe" was likely invented at Bell Labs in 1968! haha. Gee I thought it was a centuries-old name.

Sorry to go even more OT, but were you familiar with the "soaking wet" part? Your profile says Australia and I'm curious if that's an idiom there as well.

:-) A very fair question. No, I'd also never heard that expression.

My roommate in college was 120# when soaking wet -> My roommate was 8 stone 7 at the most.

Honestly, outside of America it's quite unusual, yes.

It's normal in Italy where pizza was born. Sizes are normal here though.

Italian pizza and American pizza aren't really comparable, in my experience.

I enjoy both (well, Italian pizza as in a US restaurant making "Neapolitan" pizza, so idk) but yes they are greatly different foods.

As an italian i find nothing unusual, even kids do. But in US sizes vary much more.

Never understood why in US you make it so much bigger and sell slices, at that point why have it round at all, just make it rectangular.

Pizzas are typically shared here is my best guess; I would hope it plays at least a role but shrug.

What's the size of a large pizza?

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