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Comment by throw646577 | Hacker News Reader

Going to go out on a limb here and say you probably shouldn't get any scientific advice about nutrition -- or really any scientific advice at all -- from anyone on Diary Of A CEO.

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I don't like the interviewer, but just three weeks ago, Eric Schmidt was on the podcast and he is obviously very smart and knowledgeable about technology and business.

And yet, and yet, I still wouldn't take his diet advice that seriously.

If you're going to make a bold claim like that, shouldn't you provide some support? Otherwise you're expecting us to just take an anonymous person's word for it... and particularly a throwaway account.

You're saying "discount science based not on facts, but on the form in which such science is published" which is utterly unscientific

I did reply to another comment about my concerns about Diary of a CEO in the context of nutrition advice.

Looks like concerns about the host, not about the content the interviewees share.

More like "discount anything coming out of the mouth of a CEO", which makes perfect sense.

Not only does that also not make sense, but guests on the show are not strictly CEOs, which further supports the view that this shallow dismissal is indeed unsupported by evidence.

It's a podcast. They're only useful for entertainment. If you take advice from them in a meaningful way you're effectively rolling the dice on tabloid grade slop factories.

That's a different statement from the one in the original comment which singles out DOAC as an untrustworthy source

So do the BBC, now (the people who employ him on Dragon's Den, the UK shark tank show)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gpz163vg2o

You're right that it was an ignorant statement on my part.

In general yes, but there are some good guests that were there. For example, in case of nutrition, Dr. Layne Norton called him out on having a guy that was talking nonsense on the podcast and then they got in touch with Layne and had him on the podcast where he explained many of the misinformation about nutrition currently in wild.

Is there any information on nutrition at all? Isn’t it 100% misinformation?

Every week a new thing contradicts last week’s thing.

A researcher opinion on Dr. Layne Norton:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ4p1bCsUio

"When Predator Becomes Prey: Will Dr Layne Norton Choose Humility or Humiliation? by Nick Norwitz"

YMMV

Norwitz and Layne differ on the lean mass hyper-responder phenotype. Norwitz likes referencing his meta-analysis of 41 RCTs, but pay attention to its conclusion:

> A substantial increase in LDL cholesterol is likely for individuals with low but not high BMI with consumption of an LCD, findings that may help guide individualized nutritional management of cardiovascular disease risk. As carbohydrate restriction tends to improve other lipid and nonlipid risk factors, the clinical significance of isolated LDL cholesterol elevation in this context warrants investigation.

"warrants investigation"??? Come back when you have hard outcomes, i.e. reduced MACE. His meta-analysis of RCTs concludes that some people on keto have increased LDL! Norwitz admits in another video: "No, I'm not going to say that high ApoB is fine... ApoB is necessary but not sufficient [to cause ASCVD]" https://youtu.be/270ZyfSGLkE?t=484

So, what "humiliation"? If high ApoB (synonymous with LDL for our purposes) is bad, why would you go on a diet that causes it?

Layne has a large lay audience, and he has to stick to his main message: that w/r/t diet, calories are all that matter. Lowcarb/lowfat/vegan/whatever is fine. Platforming someone who's obsessed with LMHR is going to be too much biochemistry for Layne's audience. And for an effect that's relevant to perhaps only 2% of people? Low-carb advocates have their own YouTube channels; there's no reason Layne, as a center-aisle scientist, needs to engage.

Until the LMHR has been shown to have reduced MACE, which Norwitz admits we don't have evidence for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxRLRYEQaEs&t=971s I don't see the point of Layne platforming him to just talk about biochemistry and confuse people.

what a dumb remark, what does it matter who the host is

It absolutely does matter?? If you're trying to do reference class forecasting and your class is "a person who is not a CEO" and then you're forecasting based on anecdata of "people who are a CEO" you're not going to get good predictions.

people on the show aren't strictly "CEOs" in the truest sense of that word. just to pick an obvious counterexample, Robert Greene is an author, not a CEO, and he was a guest

The host in this case is a significant investor in Huel who seemingly fails to mention his relationship to it when bigging it up.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0rwz5xkrg8o

To me it casts any discussion of nutrition on his podcast in a somewhat different, less than neutral light.

Okay, but the parent was implying that would discredit the interviewee. One thing I've observed with people that have an important message to disseminate is they are not fussy about what the medium is

I don't know if it would or would not. But some cynicism feels warranted by association.

And then there's the further research you can do:

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/ketogenic-diets-for-cancer-...

I dunno. I don't know enough to evaluate this in precise detail. But I do know enough to feel cynicism about extraordinary claims.

If you have significant financial interest in a product or service you're not going to bring on someone who will meaningfully oppose that product or service. Therefore anyone who goes onto that podcast, or whatever media, would be selected for.

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