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Comment by wouldbecouldbe | Hacker News Reader

Jeez, chill out.

You have zero proof & did zero research on this person, yet trying to put someone who down sees profound benefit with the good old: "it's just placebo".

Just because there is no direct studies backing it up yet doesn't mean there isn't real effect. Could be keto, could be lack of certain starches or other foods, could be the focus & rhytm, whatever it is let's not discourage someone who is having a great practical benefit.

In this case there is literature & studies on epilepsy and keto, and OP was on put on epileptic medicine & describes a link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6361831/

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>You have zero proof

Proof of what? I fully accept that this guy finds keto really helpful and I have made no effort to dispute that. There is a world of difference between "a thing that some people find helpful" and "an evidence-based clinical intervention".

>Just because there is no direct studies backing it up yet doesn't mean there isn't real effect.

The entire point of my comment is that the chance of there being a "real" effect (i.e. greater than placebo) is extremely low. That isn't the same as saying "this is definitely, 100% bogus".

Your chance calculation has zero arguments & zero proof.

You do know things can be effective without evidence-based clinical trials?

Just because there isn't any clinical trial done on it, doesn't mean it defaults to a placebo effect. What makes this case even more convincing is that there is literature on Epilepsy and keto, and OP was on put on epileptic medicine before: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6361831/

Everything new, and old but unprofitable, lack clinical trials. Clinical trials are extremely hard and expensive. Especially on complicated issues with hard to control variables: for instance mental issues with similar symptoms might have different causes.

Clinical trials are trying to prove what works safely for a large group, that's it, nothing more.

It is actually not low. There are numerous studies on how cutting out gluten has positive health outcomes for schizophrenia, epilepsy, and autism. [1,2,3] Not to mention numerous anecdotes from diabetics about how going on keto got them to reduce or stop using insulin.

As someone who has allergies and a ton of symptoms that were alleviated by cutting out foods, it is really tiresome to hear that it is placebo or it is psychosomatic. Before I knew it was allergies and had the test in hand, I just had to grin and nod along when someone said my chronic sinus headaches were essentially make believe. Now I have a piece of paper that confirmed just about every food I had cut out or naturally avoided.

You are clearly not familiar with the research in this area. People dealing with mystery symptoms that are cleared up by cutting out certain foods will generally be. Maybe hold off on telling them it is placebo?

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6606425/

2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6586915/

3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3747763/

> chronic sinus headaches

As I am writing this, I am going through something like this. Over a longer period of time I have made myself believe that it is related to what/when I eat etc. If you can, could you share what were the triggers for you?

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