Comment by tejohnso | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tejohnso | Hacker News Reader

Hey here's the secret they found. Get more exercise, get more sleep, and get a good breakfast in you. Genius!

> “We have known for some time that a diet high in sugar is harmful to sleep, not to mention being toxic for the cells in your brain and body,” Walker added.

Okay, I'm glad to see another mention about how harmful sugar is at least.

> “However, what we have discovered is that, beyond these harmful effects on sleep, consuming high amounts of sugar in your breakfast, and having a spike in blood sugar following any type of breakfast meal, markedly blunts your brain’s ability to return to waking consciousness following sleep.”

> “A breakfast rich in carbohydrates can increase alertness, so long as your body is healthy and capable of efficiently disposing of the glucose from that meal, preventing a sustained spike in blood sugar that otherwise blunts your brain’s alertness,” Vallat said

> A standardized breakfast, with moderate amounts of fat and carbohydrates, was compared to a high protein (muffins plus a milkshake), high carbohydrate or high sugar (glucose drink) breakfast.

So they presented several breakfast options. Including one high sugar, and one high carb, which as we know is going to end up as sugar. What they did not do is include an option that involves not having a meal at all until several hours after waking.

> The researchers also discovered that a healthy controlled blood glucose response after eating breakfast is key to waking up more effectively.

Well, no they didn't "discover" that, and if they're not checking against the option of not eating breakfast at all, then they can't know that it is key to waking up more effectively.

I particularly love the idea that TMI and Chernobyl, not failures of nuclear regulatory bodies or human factors.. nope. Actually, the workers were just unable to shake off sleepiness! They should have gotten a better breakfast, and then Chernobyl would be fine!

It's a bizarre puff article.

Yeah. They also missed the espresso and a cigarette breakfast option...

You missed the third part of that routine, which is the immediate bowel flushing.

For best results, chug a liter/quart of water before that espresso.

Lol. Usually the cigarette and the bowel flushing are simultaneously executed. That was until She complained about the smell in Her bathroom.

Accompanied, of course, by a scroll through HN at the same time.

> A standardized breakfast, with moderate amounts of fat and carbohydrates, was compared to a high protein (muffins plus a milkshake), high carbohydrate or high sugar (glucose drink) breakfast.

a muffin and a milkshake is likely 800-1000 calories!!! and there's almost no protein in that unless they specifically add protein powder. Lacking strength in nutrition basics in this study.

I lost 30 pounds by switching to black coffee at breakfast and not eating my first meal until 12pm-2pm. They should include research into eating only high-protein/high-fat (i.e. bacon and eggs/keto option) and fasting.

I personally feel much better while fasting until the afternoon than eating.

Same. I've been on a 7hr feeding window for two years now. I don't eat until noon. It's something else that I just decided to try on a whim for fun, but then decided to make it a permanent part of my life because of how well it seemed to fit.

I switched to this habit as well and reduced my meals to only 2 per day. I also learned to not fill up to the brim by waiting to see if I'm really hungry. Another habit that I adopted is chewing my food thoroughly.

> chewing my food thoroughly.

I've been trying to work on that. For better digestion and slower speed. For some reason, I've always been a fast eater and I'll end up eating more than is needed because I was faster than my body's feedback loop.

Same. I think there's something about having been a public school student in the past 10-20 years that's to blame. We'd only get half an hour sometimes to eat lunch, and that's the only break between classes, so I grew up with the negative incentive to wolf down/inhale my shitty pizza/chicken sandwich as fast as possible so I could rid myself of the lunch tray and go play with my friends, study, or sulk in a corner.

My grade school daughter’s actual time to eat lunch, at a public high school in an affluent area, after lines/outdoor time/etc (I have not been able to ascertain what eats up so much of the ~30 minutes lunch period allocation) varies between 3 and 7 minutes. She always has a packed lunch, so none of her time is spent waiting in line for actual food. This is staggering to me. I didn’t go to school in the US, but my wife did and says it was not like that in her day at a public school. Needless to say, she doesn’t have time to eat her lunch, so it inevitably comes home every day in its entirety except for quickly consumed items like yogurt and hummus. I have been considering experiments to try to figure out what’s going on, because the school administration denies this is the case but other parents confirm that their kids report the same thing. Any ideas for a good investigative method?

I've tried but failed to consume that tasty high carbonhydrates and sugar breakfast before waking up more alert than without having that breakfast first.

You know it’s going to be this good when the headline starts with “Scientists discover secret to”.

> if they're not checking against the option of not eating breakfast at all, then they can't know that it is key to waking up more effectively.

They did, kind of. The factor "waketime to breakfast" [Fig 3] has a beta of .14, which is by far the strongest modifiable factor. This may suggest that not eating breakfast at all may be even better than eating a bowl of sugar.

I really do not understand how the authors fail to even mention this result in the paper.

How is a muffin and milkshake the high protein option? Why not just eggs?

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