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Comment by icegreentea2 | Hacker News Reader

Prevention through life style changes is difficult to implement on a population scale - money doesn't quite have anything to do with it. See how successful we are at treating obesity/diabetes through "lifestyle intervention" on a population level, despite the much much clearer connections.

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Do we try to treat/prevent diabetes?

The CDC doesn’t tell people about any link or to lose weight if they are obese.

I know multiple people being treated for type 2 diabetes. Few of their doctors have talked with them about weight or obesity being linked.

The general solution in the US is to be regular on diet so your insulin done can be regular.

I do know one person who was recommended to change their diet and weight. In a matter of months he was no longer a diabetic. I told other diabetics about it and they didn’t believe me.

We, as a society, try to keep people on regular insulin and monitoring instead of trying to cure or minimize type 2 diabetes.

Virta Health has been able to put type-2 diabetes into remission for many patients through dietary interventions.

https://www.virtahealth.com/reversediabetes

One of the biggest problems is that such talk about "lifestyle interventions" usually comes with a motivation killing lack of empathy and the treatment model clearly doesn't work for everyone, be it because they can't starve off hunger with it or it simply doesn't work despite adherence. It doesn't really matter, the diet failure rate speaks for itself.

I've experimented a lot with my diet and slowly figured out which food combinations work and do not work for me. And it is much less intuitive than anyone would assume. I used to eat a certain kind of junk food that is on the "definitely bad for you" list and I would always lose weight on it. I know it's still bad in other ways, but it made me question why I was trying so hard and still failing, while some junk food made it effortless.

It's something that the "calories in calories out" crowd really loves to dismiss outright.

I don’t buy fad diets. I also learned that places a western diet goes there are increased healthcare costs. Learned this reading about studies in Barons (which is really for investors).

I changed my diet. Eat a lot of food. Am regularly full. My numbers are all great. I feel better than I have in a long time. And I eat the types of food the people who live the longest (on average) and have the best long term vitality do.

It wasn’t easy but I’m delighted now

Same. Eating a massive caloric surplus at the moment while lifting 6 days per week (3600-4200 calories/day) -- eating about 60% animal protein, vegetables, and dairy. Rice/pasta on occasion.

Don't really try and stop myself if I want to splurge on the weekends: ice cream, maybe some pizza, etc.

Bloodwork is fantastic currently.

The problem with bloodwork is it doesn’t look at artery build up. Heart disease is the #1 killer on the US. Our numbers can look great on the way to atherosclerosis

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