Comment by yalok | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yalok | Hacker News Reader

Summary from GPT (wow, not sure about avoiding cheese & milk - sounds risky for calcium/bones health):

Omega-3 fats seem to protect against myopia, while saturated fats seem to increase the risk. Other nutrients didn’t show clear effects.

Foods rich in omega-3 (protective foods) • Fatty fish: salmon, mackerel, sardines, tuna, herring, anchovies • Seafood: oysters, mussels • Plant sources: flaxseeds, chia seeds, walnuts, hemp seeds • Oils: flaxseed oil, canola oil, soybean oil • Fortified foods: some eggs, dairy, or juices enriched with omega-3

Foods high in saturated fats (risk foods) • Fatty meats: beef, lamb, pork, processed meats (sausages, bacon) • Dairy: butter, cheese, cream, whole milk, ice cream • Baked goods: pastries, cookies, cakes made with butter or shortening • Fast foods: fried chicken, burgers, pizza • Coconut and palm oil products (though plant-based, they’re high in saturated fats)

So the takeaway is: More fish, nuts, and seeds may help protect children’s eyes, while too many fatty meats, butter, and fried foods may raise the risk of myopia.

> wow, not sure about avoiding cheese & milk - sounds risky for calcium/bones health

The importance of dairy is overblown, especially in the US where the dairy industry funds a lot of school nutrition initiatives. I helped out around a cousin's dairy farm as a kid but eventually discovered that I'm part of the ~2/3rds of the world population that doesn't digest dairy well.

You'll get calcium as long as you eat some white/navy beans, tofu, kale, okra, collards, broccoli raab, chia, or even "calcium fortified" foods.

There has historically been a lot of flawed research about saturated fat. Sugar and fat together is always fattening, and being obese comes with a lot of risk.

> Summary from GPT

This whole post is filled with bad implicit advice. No one should stop eating meat to make their eyesight better. No one should add canola oil to their diet as a source of Omega 3.

Yeah, also soybean oil would be as useless as canola oil.

Among vegetable oils, flaxseed oil is the best source of ALA, while also walnut oil and hemp oil have decent amounts.

However many humans, especially many men, have a too low capacity for elongating ALA into DHA and EPA, so they may remain deficient in omega-3 fatty acids even when eating decent amounts of ALA from flaxseed oil or the like.

Because you normally do not know your own biosynthetic abilities, it is less risky to eat fish oil or Schizochytrium oil, instead of flaxseed oil.

> not sure about avoiding cheese & milk - sounds risky for calcium/bones health

Non-fat dairy. Greek yogurt + walnuts + berries

Low/no-fat cheeses are available too.

The kitchen is a pharmacy.

Although high omega-3 with saturated fats may protect against the effect of only a diet high and saturated fats.

If I was not on my phone, I would look up the studies on this. :)

"... wow, not sure about avoiding cheese & milk - sounds risky for calcium/bones health ..."

A disappointing level of knowledge and sophistication in this late, 21st century era.

Your bone health is almost entirely correlated to the load bearing exercise and gravity stress that you put on your musculoskeletal system.

Fine optimizations to your diet (just like fine optimizations everywhere in life) are only sensible after you've taken care of the big, macro factors.

> Your bone health is almost entirely correlated to the load bearing exercise and gravity stress that you put on your musculoskeletal system.

This is a somewhat bold claim.

I have literally zero dairy in my diet or calcium fortified alternatives. My best estimate is that without supplementation I would get 20-50% of the recommended calcium intake. Is your suggestion that lifting weights is better than a calcium supplement for bone heath in this case?

Milk/cheese is hardly the best/only source of calcium.

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