Its the low quality food, my memory improved a lot, after I stopped eating sugar and most refined foods.
Theres even some research that Alzheimer starts from bad bacteria in the gut, that loves sugar.
> The increase in disability prevalence from 2016 to 2022 is likely attributable in part to the long-term effects of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Most people have been infected at least a couple of times may this point, and at this point it’s very well documented to cause lasting cognitive decline.
Second, old people were more likely to die on covid. Kids were getting covid too, just not dying and long term covid consequences were observed in then. It can easily be that where old person died, young ended up with long term consequence.
There is no reason to assume the effect would be uniform accross generations.
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Either way, cell phone obsession and "rewiring of biology" claims are wven further from anything shown in the article. They are both purely what HN and the blogger want it to be.
Substantially:
We've been eating "low quality" food of one type -- ultra-processed food -- since at least the '60s, so what's your explanation for the recency of the effect?
And some time earlier than that -- very roughly the 1920s and earlier -- we were eating "low quality" foods of a different type: spoiled, adulterated, and questionably-sourced food products, so do you claim that we started with poor concentration then, got better/had a heyday in the mid-20th century, and now we're declining again?
In short: what's your evidence to support your claim?
* Improving diet (primarily avoiding refined foods and sugar) generally improves my energy levels.
* Cutting out social media mostly improves concentration.
* Trying to avoid rumination such as problem solving or rehearsing arguments through meditative practices reduces stress levels, makes it easier to be present and react to things in front of you.
* Sleep is also pretty big for cognitive clarity. Having a consistent sleep schedule and not drinking coffee past noon helps with sleep.
But really, all of these seem to tie into each other. If you want to improve your diet, it's much harder if you are tired from lack of sleep or overstimulation. If you want to improve your sleep, you can't be scrolling social media all day. Mental exhaustion also makes awareness/meditation harder.
It was a good experience as it's prompted me to get more serious about cutting back sugar, implemented as long term, achievable habit change.
And the reason why isn't clear. So the most likely reason is that we're doing what humanity has done repeatedly and endlessly throughout history and likely accidentally poisoning ourselves with some thing or things -- things that we believe to be completely safe. So a precautionary principle approach to consumption is to consider what we evolved with and sugar definitely wasn't that. Sugar only really took off in the 19th century. And various further refined sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup and other such things only took off in the late 20th century.
[1] - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2294757/Bear-ly-con...
[2] - https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a43469569/american-...
We have evidence that apiculture has been a thing for well over 8,000 years.
Our bodies literally love to burn glucose as fuel and we perform better physically (and mentally I assume) when glucose is readily available.
We have literally evolved to be sugar burning machines.
Just don’t eat too much of it and you’ll be fine.
Not whatever we have in the modern / food pyramid diet.
Cue universal freak out in the parents’ WhatsApp group.
Apparently, sugar:
- causes cancer
- causes autism
- causes hyperactivity
- causes blindness
- makes children indolent and lazy
- will permanently ruin a child if they even look at it
Perhaps it’s because she’s physically active - the rest of her cohort are pretty much forbidden from walking or running as those pose risks, and children must be sheltered from all conceivable risk so that they grow up into independent and capable adults.
I would argue that that - physical activity - is far more important than what you shove in your face.
There have been repeatedly, credibly and demonstrably shown to be significant benefits to not spending your entire life sitting on your ass - but I guess it’s harder to get off your ass than to proselytise about sugar being an evil and artificial harmful chemical that has no place in the human body - despite it literally being what we run off of.
No, it bloody is not.
I used to drive a bicycle for 6 - 12 hours ever day while working in the delivery. I also didn't watch what I was eating.
I ended up getting fat and with haemorrhoids. So I had to quit cycling.
Then I spend some time (years actually) researching and slowly improving my diet.
Result? I lost weight, my haemorrhoids (and several other health issues) stopped acting up, and I am overall much healthier despite most of my physical activity being walking.
Yes, exercise is important. But it won't help you if you eat massive amounts of garbage food.
So stop talking stuff you have no clue about.
Also, we do not "run off of" sugar. Human body can run off sugar, or fat, or a combination of these. And argument could be made that running off fat is actually healthier. Body can in fact produce all sugar it needs with absolutely zero need for dietary sugar (note that doesn't mean you should go zero carb, just that carbs / sugars are not a metabolic necessity).
As for this: "who even already have rotten teeth at two, despite their sugar free diets. They feed them simple carbs almost exclusively, and are oblivious to amylase."
Uhh... carbs ARE sugars. It literally doesn't matter that you are avoiding "sugar" if you end up eating bread instead.
It may or may not affect peoples weight (which is aesthetic issue on itself), but in terms of health improvements it is one intervention that consistently works.
They are not saying kids should be 8 hours on bikes whether they feel like or not. They are saying they should run around with other kids which something entirely different.
Great selective quoting. 10/10.
Gary Taubes, who became widely known for researching tons of studies on diet and coining the saying "eat food, not too much, mostly plants". Food meaning unprocessed stuff your (great great) grandma would recognise as food, wrote an NY Times article agreeing with it.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
[2] https://removepaywalls.com/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/1...