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Comment by sph | Hacker News Reader

From the article:

> "Supplementation of riboflavin and/or biotin is likely to be beneficial in a subset of Parkinson's disease patients, in which gut dysbiosis plays pivotal roles,"

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riboflavin

> Best sources of riboflavin: Beef liver, Chicken liver, Whey protein powder, Almonds

> People at risk of having low riboflavin levels include alcoholics, vegetarian athletes, and practitioners of veganism.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotin

> Best sources of biotin: Chicken liver, Beef liver, Eggs, Peanuts, Sunflower seeds, Pork chop

Offered without comment.

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>Best sources of riboflavin: ... Whey protein powder ...

Not the gains I was expecting.

Could really do with an easy way of viewing - for all important nutrients - all the best sources that you can eat where something you can't eat is a significant source.

So for example I enter that I can't eat beef liver (presumably via a helper group that I'm vegetarian or Hindu or no beef or something) and it tells me to keep up my chicken liver, whey protein powder, ... intake for riboflavin & biotin.

But doing that across all vitamins etc. at once having entered all the things you don't eat - because it's too much to be on top of otherwise, imo, and I think it's pretty easy to think you eat a balanced and varied diet but actually not have any good source of one or two specific things at all.

The big catch is that vegan diets seem to be protective against the progression of Parkinson’s disease: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11516224/

As is often the case, the truth is probably a lot more nuanced than “x causes y”.

And again, more nuanced than "vegan diets", taking just the abstract of the linked hypothesis:

> Three recent case-control studies conclude that diets high in animal fat or cholesterol are associated with a substantial increase in risk for Parkinson's disease (PD); in contrast, fat of plant origin does not appear to increase risk.

> In aggregate, these findings suggest that vegan diets may be notably protective with respect to PD. However, they offer no insight into whether saturated fat, compounds associated with animal fat, animal protein, or the integrated impact of the components of animal products mediates the risk associated with animal fat consumption.

That is, the underlying cause could very well just be high cholesterol, and that the carnivores in the study were more likely to have high cholesterol than the vegan groups, either due to lifestyle choices (despite veganism itself not implying any sort of healthy lifestyle, there might be a stronger overlap with those choosing veganism and those leading a healthy lifestyle than for carnivores), or due to difference in dietary cholesterol intake.

Another example of nuance, from that very paper: "A very recent study, utilizing prospective data from the Honolulu Heart Program cohort, indicates that heavy regular consumption of coffee or other sources of caffeine provides substantial protection from PD"

Later: "Surprisingly, tobacco smoking is also markedly protective with respect to PD"

In general, the conclusions of it are weak because it's a very weak paper. These vegan diets were compared against what? I can't be bothered to follow all sources, but this paper doesn't seem to pose this question either, which is a noticeable omission which smells of agenda.

Are they comparing against people eating random junk like most of the Western world? Then of course any diet eliminating of our ultra-processed food is healthier, be it vegan, pescatarian, ketogenic, paleo, carnivore, Mediterranean, etc.

>Offered without comment.

Pretty sure that's a comment.

For all the Aussies/Kiwis. Should this mean Vegemite and Mightymite are good against this?

Is Parkinson's rate lower in Australia/New Zealand?

Follow up question: do Aussies actual eat that stuff or was just a lie in a song?

Not a lie and yes we do

Any data about how much is consumed on what regularity, and whether there is a difference in incidence of PD?

You don't get the required doses from food though.

I should eat more chicken liver pâté...

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