Hacker News Reader

Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

The thing I find odd about many of these biohacking/longevity experts is that they don’t seem to look at real people that live a long time in Spain, Italy, Japan, etc. and instead just default to an over-optimized “scientific” diet that insists that over-analyzing everything is equivalent to being effective. If there isn’t a name for this fallacy, there ought to be one: analysis and results are not always correlated.

Edit: reading the linked post again, I realized what it is: an obsession with data and a total disregard for cultural practices. French people, for example, eat all kinds of things considered forbidden, and yet obesity isn’t much of an issue there compared to other Western nations. One reason why is the strong cultural rule against snacking.

View on HN

And in the end, let me guess, 95% of the results are just from not eating your average processed foods, that are filled with HFCS, etc

Carbs are not the enemy. "Bread" high in HFCS and preservatives is though

>they don’t seem to look at real people that live a long time in Spain, Italy, Japan, etc

I think you're referring to 'Blue zones'[0] here. I'm certainly not an expert in longevity, but was also intrigued by these areas and their apparently above-average lifespan, and how it goes against a lot of conventional longevity advice re: diet.

One explanation I've heard is that they're simply the results of poor record keeping, and that there isn't much strong evidence to suggest people in those regions do statistically live longer than average.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_zone

> [...] and how it goes against a lot of conventional longevity advice re: diet.

Why do you think it goes against "conventional longevity advice"?

Japanese people generally don't skip breakfast and eat rice with every meal. So they aren't doing intermittent fasting and they are constantly eating one of the foods TFA says not to eat.

Intermittent fasting and not eating the foods TFA mentions is precisely not conventional longevity advice.

I am pretty sure the benefits of intermittent fasting beyond calorie restriction are not really supported by the latest science.

I am not saying it's bad; eating fewer calories has its benefits. However, the effectiveness of intermittent fasting, especially as portrayed in the media, has been quite overblown, IMHO. I think one of the main sources of this is from a study that suggested longevity improvements in lab mice. Unfortunately, studies involving lab mice, especially those concerning metabolism, translate poorly to humans.

It doesn’t need to be strictly based on the blue zones idea, but the basic fact that in some places, people live longer than others. That Wikipedia article criticized the Okinawa narrative but doesn’t mention that Japan still has one of the longest lifespans in the first place.

My criticism is basically this: there are places where people live longer than others, and they certainly aren’t eating bowls of green goop and 200 pills every morning. If your goal is to maximize longevity, it seems logical to imitate whatever they’re doing. Or at least investigate it.

It's not quite the "it works in practice but does it work in theory" mindset but it seems related.

Also with French food, the food can be decadent but with the proper portions size. Quality over quantity.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com