Brains of Overweight People Look Ten Years Older Than Those of Lean Peers, Says Report (theguardian.com)

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Brains of Overweight People Look Ten Years Older Than Those of Lean Peers, Says Report (theguardian.com)

Posted by BeauHD on Thursday August 4, 2016 @10:00PM from the body-mass-index dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The brains of people who are obese or overweight appear to have aged an extra 10 years compared to their lean peers from middle age onwards, brain scanning research has revealed. The difference, scientists say, corresponds to a greater shrinkage in the volume of white matter, although they don't know the cause. It might be down to genes causing both brain-shrinking and obesity, or it could be that changes occurring in the brain lead to overeating. Either way, it does not appear to affect cognitive performance. White matter is tissue, composed of nerve fibers, that aids communication between different regions of the brain. The volume of white matter in a human brain increases during youth and then decreases with age for both lean people and those who are overweight or obese. But researchers have discovered that this shrinkage differs depending on a subject's BMI. "The overall message is that brains basically appear to be 10 years older if you are overweight or obese," said Lisa Ronan, first author of the study from the University of Cambridge. Despite a higher BMI being linked to a smaller volume of white matter, it did not appear to have any link to mental prowess, with no difference seen between lean and overweight or obese participants when they were subjected to IQ tests. Scientists from the University of Cambridge and Yale University have published their findings in the journal Neurobiology of Aging.

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Wisdom of the elders by bruce_the_loon · 2016-08-04 22:09 · Score: 4, Funny

Well since you're supposed to get wiser with age, does this accelerate the wising-up process?

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1. Re:Wisdom of the elders by The+Real+Dr+John · 2016-08-04 23:52 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  As the article mentioned, they could not measure a difference in intellectual functioning, just a loss of white matter (nerve fibers) without a significant effect on cortex. They did not look at other brain structures, which are also involved in cognition. The loss of white matter may not relate directly to cognitive functioning because it can happen, for example, by a reduction in fiber thickness, without a loss of fiber number. Therefore, if being fatter affects nerve fiber diameter (or myelin sheath thickness) then this would show up as reduced white matter volume. But all the connections would still be there.
  
  --
  A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
2. Re:Wisdom of the elders by Ol+Olsoc · 2016-08-05 01:07 · Score: 1
  
  Well since you're supposed to get wiser with age, does this accelerate the wising-up process?
  Just makes us wiseguys.
  
  --
  The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
3. Re:Wisdom of the elders by omnichad · 2016-08-05 01:28 · Score: 1
  
  There's still a bit of a selection process - the really dumb ones don't all survive that long.
4. Re:Wisdom of the elders by GeekWithAKnife · 2016-08-05 01:32 · Score: 1
  
  Hence the expression wiseass? *ponders*
  
  --
  A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
5. Re:Wisdom of the elders by matthewmok · 2016-08-05 01:50 · Score: 2
  
  I think this very well could be the result of less movement. So the brain's cognitive ability is maintained the same as not so fat people, but since they do not move as much, those parts of the brain atrophy.
6. Re:Wisdom of the elders by minstrelmike · 2016-08-05 04:30 · Score: 1
  
  The only elders I have found to be wise were already pretty smart when they we much younger. There are plenty of elders out there who are the same dumbasses that they always have been.
  That's what I've seen. You can be a geezer at any age.
  And there seems to be a whole political party built from people who proudly say they haven't changed their opinion (learned anything new) in 40 years. That means those people know exactly the same stuff at age 60 that they "learned" at age 20.
7. Re:Wisdom of the elders by ausekilis · 2016-08-05 04:42 · Score: 1
  
  Did they control for the basement gamers that survive on doritos, ramen and mountain dew?
8. Re:Wisdom of the elders by t_ban · 2016-08-07 20:50 · Score: 1
  
  Well since you're supposed to get wiser with age, does this accelerate the wising-up process?
  Well, it does wizen you up.
  
  --
  First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. -Gandhi
Duh. by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-04 22:11 · Score: 1

It's because we're thinking more, stupid skinny people! The summary stated there was no difference on IQ test scores, but you know who designed and administered those tests? SKINNY PEOPLE!
Actually, the truth is we spend those extra brain-years thinking about food, so...
1. Re:Duh. by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-04 22:57 · Score: 1
  
  but you know who designed and administered those tests? SKINNY PEOPLE!
  Not just skinny people, but liberal anti-gun, food and freedom hating skinny people!
2. Re:Duh. by parkinglot777 · 2016-08-05 00:26 · Score: 2
  
  No one should be overreacting on this subject. On TFA, the researcher already stated that weight may not really be the cause (just a possibility and may need further research); thus, it is still inconclusive.
  
  But, Ronan warns, it is not yet clear whether an increased BMI is driving the effect. “It could be that the genes that are responsible for obesity could also be responsible for smaller brains, or it could be that if you have a brain change that could lead to overeating,” she said.
  Another researcher also confirmed that the result could be inconclusive.
  
  Claudia Metzler-Baddeley, from Cardiff University’s Brain Research Imaging Centre, said the research backs up previous suggestions that obesity and brain structure are linked. But, she added, “It is cross-sectional study - so it is not following people up over time. That is always a limiting factor. It doesn’t allow you to make any inferences about cause and effect.” What’s more, she says, self-reports of health and lifestyle factors are prone to inaccuracies, while the use of BMI also has drawbacks. “You can have a very high BMI just simply because of high muscle mass,” she said.
3. Re:Duh. by goose-incarnated · 2016-08-05 01:24 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  No one should be overreacting on this subject. On TFA, the researcher already stated that weight may not really be the cause (just a possibility and may need further research)
  If there's a correlation it could be the other way around: perhaps people with those specific brain characteristics are prone to eating more.
  
  --
  I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
4. Re:Duh. by magarity · 2016-08-05 03:38 · Score: 1
  
  It's because we're thinking more, stupid skinny people!
  Maybe skinny people are just thinking smarter, not harder.
5. Re:Duh. by Austerity+Empowers · 2016-08-05 04:00 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, the truth is we spend those extra brain-years thinking about food, so...
  Nope, we're obese, we spend those extra brain-years savoring the food.
6. Re:Duh. by penguinoid · 2016-08-05 09:03 · Score: 1
  
  No one should be overreacting on this subject. On TFA, the researcher already stated that weight may not really be the cause (just a possibility and may need further research)
  If there's a correlation it could be the other way around: perhaps people with those specific brain characteristics are prone to eating more.
  Perhaps people with smaller brains eat just as much but burn less (the brain uses enormous amounts of energy).
  
  --
  Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Or... by jandersen · 2016-08-04 22:15 · Score: 1, Flamebait

...they don't know the cause. It might be down to genes causing both brain-shrinking and obesity, or it could be that changes occurring in the brain lead to overeating.
Or it could be that overconsumption, especially of certain nutrients like animal fats, processed meats or refined sugars, also leads to a decline in brain health and tissue-loss. There is in fact research which demonstrates that, eg eating animal fat has a direct impact on people's congnitive performance, and there is a large number of other studies that demonstrate similar effects. Sorry, no citations, but it should be easy enough to find these things on, say, https://www.sciencedaily.com/i.... As far as I can judge, the case is pretty clear.
1. Re:Or... by war4peace · 2016-08-04 22:19 · Score: 1
  
  I'm skinny and eat fat food. My metabolic rate is very high, I eat a lot but can't gain weight.
  Where does that put me?
  
  --
  ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
2. Re:Or... by CrimsonAvenger · 2016-08-04 23:06 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Or it could be that overconsumption, especially of certain nutrients like animal fats, processed meats or refined sugars, also leads to a decline in brain health and tissue-loss. There is in fact research which demonstrates that, eg eating animal fat has a direct impact on people's congnitive performance
  Since they said specifically that there seemed to be no differences in cognitive performance between the skinny subjects and the fat ones, this is unlikely to be the cause of the difference.
  
  --
  
  "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
3. Re:Or... by jellomizer · 2016-08-04 23:31 · Score: 2
  
  Those people who stay skinny have a genetic predisposition however if a person struggles to keep their weight down it is their fault for not working hard enough. Because you know Calories in vs Calories burned.
  Now genetics is only part of the equation. there are thing you can do to put on weight (say weight lifting) or loose weight (sat cardio and diet)
  There are too many diet snobs out there telling you that everything you eat is bad. Just as your genetics may make your body digest faster and slower people have different dietary requirements. I tried vegetarian for about 2 months my body didn't like it. I gained weight because I ended up eating more calories to get what my body said it wanted for protein. Now other people are fine on a vegetarian diet because they may not need as much direct protein. Perhaps I have a harder time digesting protein from beans and vegetable than others do.
  However all these comments saying how a particular diet is bad and how their body types issues can be fixed with the diet changed that worked for them is just lazy, shaming of people so they feel morally superior due to their foods that they eat.
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
4. Re:Or... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-04 23:46 · Score: 1
  
  Switching diet entirely and quickly often leaves undesirable results.
  A lot of digestion occurs as a result of the bacterial flora, which needs time to adjust to a new diet.
  Meaning, if you want to try a vegetarian diet, it's wiser to go slowly.
5. Re:Or... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-04 23:55 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Having lost 150lbs over the past few years, I have read innumerable articles over that time about nutrition and have come to a conclusion: Nobody has any fucking idea what they're talking about. Carbs are bad for you, fat is bad for you, refined sugar is bad for you, all sugar is bad for you, processed food of any kind is bad for you, artificial sweeteners are bad for you, and on and on. I can find an article and a study to back up just about any claim you care to make about nutrition. It's all bullshit pseudo science.
  Here's the consensus: Burn more calories than you consume and you will lose weight, and try to eat some vegetables every once in a while to ensure you get some vitamins. That's about it.
  If you're having trouble gaining weight, you're not eating enough. Simple as that. Here's what you do: Eat what you normally would every day, then eat an entire loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter every night. That's an extra 10000 Calories or so every day. If you can't gain weight on that then you're a medical marvel or an Olympiad in training. Will it be hard to force yourself to eat all that? You bet it will. It's at least as hard for people on the opposite end of the spectrum who have to force themselves not to eat, trust me. So it's really just a matter of how bad you want it, isn't it?
6. Re:Or... by tomhath · 2016-08-04 23:57 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Your claim of lower cognitive performance due to diet choices is not related to the premature aging the scientists found.
  My guess is that the brain matter loss has more to do with the sedentary life style which often goes along with obesity. Lack of exercise, watching too much TV, etc.
7. Re:Or... by JamesTRexx · 2016-08-05 00:23 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  It's all bullshit pseudo science.
  
  That's what I concluded from years of following discussions, and I never even tried to start any fad diet.
  
  The one thing I started with after reducing my working days to just a few hours was only eat when I'm really hungry.
  Not when I feel peckish or something looks good. No, my stomach gives a clear signal that the body needs food and then I eat. And with just a little restraint at first and stop eating when I feel full enough, my portions became automatically smaller.
  Since the start of the year I've gone down from 110kg to hitting 96kg on the scale as of last week. With the increased energy I also did a bit more weightlifting.
  
  Even my girl who's overweight has followed my lead and only started eating when really hungry has lost 4 to 5 kg in just over 1 month (with light exercise). She now has more energy and feels much better.
  
  --
  home
8. Re:Or... by F.Ultra · 2016-08-05 00:46 · Score: 2
  
  Thanks for the most insightful post on Slashdot on this matter ever. Damn that I don't have any modpoints to give you. The only reason that "don't eat fat" or "don't eat carbs" work is because they make people eat less, i.e if you skip carbs then there is a lot of calories on a lunch plate that you suddenly don't eat anymore. Also if you skip fat or carbs you automatically don't eat a lot of the junk food. Myself I started to calculate calories and so far have lost 180lbs.
9. Re:Or... by Jaime2 · 2016-08-05 01:07 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Here's the consensus: Burn more calories than you consume and you will lose weight, and try to eat some vegetables every once in a while to ensure you get some vitamins. That's about it.
  Even this is a little bullshit. I lost 100 pounds last year and I had similar experiences to yours. My weight has now been stable for about eight months. This year, I suffered an injury which changed my routine, causing me to burn about 7000 fewer calories per week than my pre-injury routine (I was completely bedridden). With my reduced calorie burn and no significant changes in intake, I lost about five pounds in a few weeks. Here I am six weeks later, and the weight loss was real and permanent. This weight loss completely baffles me and can't be explained by my mental model of weight management.
10. Re:Or... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-05 01:17 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Thanks for the most insightful post on Slashdot on this matter ever. Damn that I don't have any modpoints to give you. The only reason that "don't eat fat" or "don't eat carbs" work is because they make people eat less, i.e if you skip carbs then there is a lot of calories on a lunch plate that you suddenly don't eat anymore. Also if you skip fat or carbs you automatically don't eat a lot of the junk food. Myself I started to calculate calories and so far have lost 180lbs.
  While that is true, one of the things that is a marker of healthy aging is higher than average insulin sensitivity, which a certain number of general things are known about:
  1- Centenarians consistently have excellent insulin sensitivity, resulting in lower heart disease, cancer and chronic degenerative brain disorder numbers.
  2- One way of improving insulin sensitivity is to lower carbohydrate intake in relation to total calories, for some this works for others it needs to be balanced by exercise.
  3- Ketogenic diets originally were formulated to provide relief in seizures for children who suffered from epilepsy. The ketogenic diet, while not for everyone is well studied and it is known and well documented that it does not cause heart disease and promotes good cholesterol numbers.
  4- Once people lose a lot of body fat through diet or exercise by restricting dietary carbs or overall calories (or both) they can titrate in more carbohydrates and in the presence of better insulin sensitivity tend to do better in keeping the fat weight down, all other things being equal.
11. Re:Or... by Jaime2 · 2016-08-05 01:23 · Score: 2
  
  Also, with carbs, it's really easy to underestimate the calorie content. It doesn't seem right that a lean chicken patty can easily contain fewer calories than the bun you put it in.
  I've found that when I look at a meal and think to myself "What can I take away that will remove a significant number of calories, but reduce my enjoyment of the meal as little as possible", I almost always come to the conclusion that taking the high-carb portion out works out best. Fats my be calorie dense, but 35 calories of butter can add a lot of flavor to a meal.
  Another virtuous feedback benefit relates to salt. You can reduce your blood pressure by reducing salt - and suffer bland food, or you can reduce your blood pressure by losing weight and getting fit - and eat much tastier food. My BP went from 120/80 when I was overweight (borderline high), to 85/55 now that I am normal weight and very fit.
12. Re:Or... by omnichad · 2016-08-05 01:33 · Score: 1
  
  You can reduce your blood pressure by reducing salt
  That's not even universally true. Some people are sensitive to salt intake and an increase in blood pressure. For others, the kidneys flush the extra salts right out - even at a high weight.
13. Re:Or... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-05 01:43 · Score: 1
  
  This year, I suffered an injury which changed my routine, causing me to burn about 7000 fewer calories per week than my pre-injury routine (I was completely bedridden). With my reduced calorie burn and no significant changes in intake, I lost about five pounds in a few weeks.
  Healing takes more energy than you might think. Stress too, if you were particularly stressed about it (during stress, the body can either accumulate -reserves in case it lasts-, or on the contrary dissipate energy -make available, thus leading to elimination if not needed on the short term).
  Plus it was only a week, so as your weight had been stabilized for some time, your body tends to try to keep some balance, and didn't store much of the surplus (it's not a process as basic and systematic as some Slashdotters want to believe, although it sure is the most important point to weight loss, in most cases).
  Your digestion efficiency might have been affected by your injury too (down to diarrhea).
  And finally, some drugs you might have taken, can also affect both weight gain and weight loss.
14. Re:Or... by operagost · 2016-08-05 01:47 · Score: 1
  
  I agree. High sodium diets can cause high blood pressure, but if your blood pressure is high for reasons other than sodium, why would you reduce sodium below an already healthy level when you could do things to improve in other areas? These tyrants in government who want to force people to eat less salt are frightening. They will actually cause health problems.
  
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  Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
15. Re:Or... by GeekWithAKnife · 2016-08-05 01:58 · Score: 1
  
  It puts you in the "I hate your guts you skinny show-off" category.
  
  --
  A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
16. Re:Or... by pr0fessor · 2016-08-05 02:12 · Score: 1
  
  Before you start a diet like that you should talk to your doctor have your cholesterol, CMP/BMP, and whatever other tests they may think necessary checked and a long talk about eating habits. There may be a lot of contributing factors that make dieting difficult or not work but you won't know unless you check.
  I've had that conversation with my doctor before and found that a lot of the foods I like that I thought were really bad weren't as bad as I thought.
17. Re:Or... by ripvlan · 2016-08-05 02:26 · Score: 2
  
  There is also science that suggests Low Carb and higher Fat diets are better. Insulin and Insulin resistance seem to be (for some) the primary factors in plaquing and heart disease. BMI is not the leading indicator.
  Links to scientific studies (not blog posts - real studies) http://2ketodudes.com/#science
  So --- what is the truth? dunno. But it seems this may all be an up and coming topic for researchers to figure out. Keto is 180 from conventional message - but seems to be working for many. Everyone loves a conspiracy: why isn't keto being researched? Because drug companies make money selling drugs? You'd think the bacon industry would be backing this anti-research :-P
18. Re:Or... by kcdoodle · 2016-08-05 02:29 · Score: 1
  
  Muscle burns more calorie than fat. Just to stay alive. So even when you are doing nothing, a muscular body burns more calories than a fat one.
  
  --
  
  - I live the greatest adventure anyone could possibly desire. - Tosk the Hunted
19. Re:Or... by Jaime2 · 2016-08-05 03:05 · Score: 1
  
  Healing takes more energy than you might think.
  Yea, that's my guess
  
  Stress too, if you were particularly stressed about it (during stress, the body can either accumulate -reserves in case it lasts-, or on the contrary dissipate energy -make available, thus leading to elimination if not needed on the short term).
  Doubt it. I'm not the kind of person that suffers from stress.
  
  Plus it was only a week, so as your weight had been stabilized for some time, your body tends to try to keep some balance, and didn't store much of the surplus (it's not a process as basic and systematic as some Slashdotters want to believe, although it sure is the most important point to weight loss, in most cases).
  Your digestion efficiency might have been affected by your injury too (down to diarrhea).
  And finally, some drugs you might have taken, can also affect both weight gain and weight loss.
  Wasn't diarrhea, because that's water weight and would come back a few days after getting healthy. It wasn't just for a week, I didn't walk for three weeks and got off crutches after four and a half. The only drug I was on was Hydrocodone, and that was only for about five days.
  I absolutely lost muscle mass, but I'm back to my pre-injury strength and five pounds are still missing. I'm thin enough that losing five pounds of lean mass isn't something I can do easily or quickly.
20. Re:Or... by jandersen · 2016-08-05 03:08 · Score: 1
  
  I'm skinny and eat fat food. My metabolic rate is very high, I eat a lot but can't gain weight.
  Where does that put me?
  Who knows? I used to be the same, but as I grew older, my metabolic rate fell, and I now have to eat far less, to avoid putting on weight. On the plus side, it is not all that difficult to change one's eating habits - I have gone from eating lots of meat and hating vegetables, to actually preferring vegetables and finding meat somewhat off-putting. It's just what you get used to, I guess.
21. Re:Or... by Jaime2 · 2016-08-05 03:16 · Score: 1
  
  Doesn't apply here. If anything, I had less muscle when I was injured due to the lack of activity. Before injury, I ate about 1800 calories a day and burned 1000 between the gym and my daily four mile walk at lunchtime. After the injury, I ate the same, but didn't go to the gym or walk. On the most extreme day, my FitBit recorded 181 steps. Those were probably almost all false positives from hand movement. Yesterday, I ate my 1800 calories, but did 30,000 steps. That's close to a typical day, and I probably won't lose any weight this week - not that I want to.
  
  Muscle burns more calorie than fat. Just to stay alive. So even when you are doing nothing, a muscular body burns more calories than a fat one.
  I'm probably 11% body fat and can bench press 150% of my weight, but my BMR is around 1000 calories a day.
22. Re:Or... by jandersen · 2016-08-05 03:31 · Score: 1
  
  Since they said specifically that there seemed to be no differences in cognitive performance between the skinny subjects and the fat ones, this is unlikely to be the cause of the difference.
  I think you may have mis-read my comments. I am not saying that "fat people are dumb", which is what several seem to taken offence by. But there is research (look it up, if you doubt me) which suggests that several ingredients in our modern diet have a negative impact on our brain function. Like for example studies that seem to show a connection between the risk of developing Alzheimer and consumption of a suger-rich diet. You have to keep in mind that these effects are subtle; it's not like eating a Mars bar or a hamburger gives instant brain damage. However, it is interesting that it is possible to find a measurable effect that appears to caused by consuming certain fats and sugars that are common in our modern diet; it is something that perhaps should inspire us to avoid those substances. Or not, considering all the other, unhealthy things we do to ourselves.
  About the cognitive performance - the explanation for the lack of difference may well be simply because the amount of white matter is not strongly correlated with cognitive performance in the group of subjects studied. The brain is amazingly good at compensating for loss of function, which is why people can quite often recover so relatively well from a serious stroke, so perhaps we can lose a lot of white matter without losing much function; but then there is likely to be a threshold, so once a certain critical amount is lost, a marked decline will be noticeable.
23. Re:Or... by war4peace · 2016-08-05 03:52 · Score: 1
  
  If you're having trouble gaining weight, you're not eating enough. Simple as that.
  I'm not even trying to gain weight. I'm skinny but healthy. My father was skinny, my grandfather was skinny (well one of the two), both his parents were skinny.
  Also if you binge you might gain weight but it might come with a plethora of other afflictions, because you're forcing your body into a place it wouldn't naturally fit.
  
  --
  ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
24. Re:Or... by war4peace · 2016-08-05 04:30 · Score: 1
  
  Let's see...
  Today I started with yogurt and fruits as breakfast at around 9 AM. About 18 ounces of it. Pure yogurt, 5% fat and fresh fruits, the mix was home made, so no extra sugar was added. At about 10:30 AM I had half a melon, that was about 4.4 pounds, was fairly sweet but it's mostly water anyway. At noon (12:30 to be more precise) I had some uncooked dried thin sausages (3.5 ounces) with fried potatoes (10.5 ounces roughly) and buffalo sour cream (which is fatter than cow sour cream). On top of that I had pickles and some bread (yeah I know, bread AND potatoes). Post-lunch I had an 8 ounces Monster energy drink. At about 5 PM I had some watermelon (maybe 2 pounds) and now it's 7:30 PM and I feel hungry again.
  In about 1h I'll have dinner, I think I'll just order a pizza (14 inch diameter), I like Quattro Fromaggi. I'll work until 2 AM when I will have my late meal (before sleep), probably some cheese, tomatoes, more sausages and bread. In the meantime I have my quota of two Dr. Peppers (12 ounce size).
  I never calculate calorie intake, but got a habit of roughly measuring the intake quantities since a retarded doctor worried me because she kept saying I'm too thin.
  
  --
  ...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
25. Re:Or... by DoofusOfDeath · 2016-08-05 04:48 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  This. There are several insights I've found useful for keeping my weight down:
  (1) Learn to recognize the difference between hunger and craving. When one's body seems to "be trying" to get back to your set-point weight, you'll be hit with all kinds of cravings that are unaccompanied by hunger. It takes less discipline to ignore cravings than to ignore the cravings+hunger.
  (2) Keep a mental tally of (approximately) how many calories you've eaten so far in the day, vs. how active you have been / will be. It helps you decide if it's worth eating food ${X} or doing activity ${Y}.
  (3) Poor sleep ==> { extra appetite, worse self-control, and less desire to get exercise }. So place a high premium on good sleep.
  (4) Carbs seem to be somewhat addictive, in terms of cravings. In my experience, it takes ~ 1-2 months of not eating a lot of carbs in order for the cravings to go away.
  (5) If I'm hungry, or even have cravings for fattening foods, it's better to eat something filling (meat, yogurt, etc.) rather than let myself get so hungry / craving that I say "screw it" and make brownies.
  (6) For some reason, people who eat a lot of yogurt seem to be skinny. Correlation isn't causation, but it's perhaps a sign of it. So consider eating more yogurt. IMHO the yucky low-fat stuff with aspartame isn't worth it; just get something really yummy like Liberte and accept the calories as a worthwhile investment.
26. Re:Or... by nateman1352 · 2016-08-05 04:48 · Score: 1
  
  Perhaps the healing and rebuilding of tissues takes nutrients? Also, if you had large open wounds I'm sure your immune system was activated and running on high alert, which also consumes a surprising amount of extra nutrients.
27. Re:Or... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-05 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  Dieting for many meets all the requirements for a religion (leaders, beliefs, meetup groups, shunning, purity).
28. Re:Or... by gosand · 2016-08-05 05:07 · Score: 1
  
  Having lost 150lbs over the past few years, I have read innumerable articles over that time about nutrition and have come to a conclusion: Nobody has any fucking idea what they're talking about. Carbs are bad for you, fat is bad for you, refined sugar is bad for you, all sugar is bad for you, processed food of any kind is bad for you, artificial sweeteners are bad for you, and on and on. I can find an article and a study to back up just about any claim you care to make about nutrition. It's all bullshit pseudo science.
  Here's the consensus: Burn more calories than you consume and you will lose weight, and try to eat some vegetables every once in a while to ensure you get some vitamins. That's about it.
  If you're having trouble gaining weight, you're not eating enough. Simple as that. Here's what you do: Eat what you normally would every day, then eat an entire loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter every night. That's an extra 10000 Calories or so every day. If you can't gain weight on that then you're a medical marvel or an Olympiad in training. Will it be hard to force yourself to eat all that? You bet it will. It's at least as hard for people on the opposite end of the spectrum who have to force themselves not to eat, trust me. So it's really just a matter of how bad you want it, isn't it?
  You are wrong on some points. There are NOT studies that back up some of your assertions (i.e. fat is bad for you). People have selectively interpreted results to fit their own opinions, and in some cases outright lied about them. IT IS NOT ABOUT CALORIES IN / CALORIES OUT.
  Eating more does not make you fat. Period. Being overweight is due to an imbalance in how your body regulates fat storage due to hormonal regulation of homeostasis. The main driver of this process is insulin. Insulin is directly affected by WHAT you eat, now how much. And more precisely, it is the amount of carbs in your diet. Sugars are particularly nasty in this regard.
  It's a lot more complex than this, but that is a sufficient summary of the basics. Overeating or sedentary behavior does NOT make you fat. It's pretty much the other way around - becoming fat increases the amount of food you need and makes it more difficult to be physically active.
  Good Calories Bad Calories (or Why We Get Fat: and what to do about it) and the Primal Blueprint are great books to read on this topic. And Grain Brain is good for how grains have been shown to impact our brains, which is more to the topic of this story.
  (some of the above was copy/pasted from another post I replied to in this story)
  
  --
  
  My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
29. Re:Or... by chihowa · 2016-08-05 05:12 · Score: 2
  
  Also, it seems to take a little bit of time before you start to feel full, even if you've eaten enough food to make you full. Eating slower helps you stop eating before you get too stuffed. Drinking water with meals also helps you get the "full" feeling before you're painfully over-full.
  I don't have any weight problems, but I absolutely hate the feeling of being over-full. I noticed that I'm way more likely to have it happen if I eat very quickly.
  
  With the increased energy I also did a bit more weightlifting.
  Building muscle burns energy, but even just having more muscle increases your resting energy consumption and can help you lose weight. Handy!
  
  --
  If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
30. Re:Or... by CrimsonAvenger · 2016-08-05 05:21 · Score: 1
  
  Which is irrelevant to the cause/effect that they saw.
  Their effect did NOT include a relative decline in cognitive ability, which was specifically stated. If the effect they were observing were caused by the cause you describe, it WOULD have shown a decline in cognitive function.
  So, no cognitive difference between the two groups implies strongly a different cause than the one you're describing, which DOES cause a decline in cognitive ability.
  Note, by the by, that this in no way implies that your dietary assumptions are true and correct, nor does it mean they are incorrect. They are simply not related to the effect these guys observed (unless, of course, the effect you describe is incorrect)....
  
  --
  
  "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
31. Re:Or... by JamesTRexx · 2016-08-05 05:33 · Score: 1
  
  I hardly eat breakfast early in the morning and eat only just after noon and later in the evening, so that had no influence on weight.
  
  And on occasion I don't feel hungry until late in the afternoon or early evening, so then I've only eaten once during the day.
  
  So, timing is pretty regular, and it fits most of the time with respect to lunch hour at the office and the end of the day.
  
  As with everything, you take small steps to enable your body to get used to it, and just in case hunger strikes at the wrong hour, take some snack bars, or what we have here, sort of cookies with raisins in them, to the office for a quick bite.
  
  And important is to have patience. Permanent weightloss is a slow process. I'm surprised it has been 2kgs a month for me.
  
  --
  home
32. Re:Or... by DoofusOfDeath · 2016-08-05 06:03 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, speaking for myself only, I've found the opposite to be true.
  The only way I've avoided falling off the wagon, so to speak, is to have a policy of simply never eating sweats. Even when I'm making a dessert for other people and need to taste-test it, I spit rather than swallow. (Sorry, hard to avoid the pun-fodder on that one.)
  When I've tried to simply be moderate in how often I eat sweets, I've always ended eating them more and more frequently, until I was effectively eating them whenever I felt like it.
  I'm not sure how much that holds for other people, but it's definitely true for me.
33. Re:Or... by judoguy · 2016-08-05 06:54 · Score: 2
  
  It's all bullshit pseudo science. That's what I concluded from years of following discussions, and I never even tried to start any fad diet.
  This stuff isn't magic or unknown. Long established science.
  Hormones, hormones, hormones. "Nutritionists" claim all sorts of crap but endocrinologists, at least the good ones, know that there is a vast amount of actual science on mammalian metabolism. A good book
  To say "Calories = calories" is flat wrong. Attention! Automobile analogy coming: Your car will run differently on gasoline vs diesel vs nitro-methane. No one with an I.Q. in the upper two digits or better would claim that they all have the same effect on a car engine for a given number of calories. Our bodies are the same.
  The hormonal effect of the *type* of calories makes a huge difference.
  
  --
  Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
34. Re:Or... by WhoBeDaPlaya · 2016-08-05 07:24 · Score: 1
  
  Agreed. Too many people take the BS shortcuts, ie. "A is healthy, B is bad, etc." Just eat what the f*ck you want, while obeying the cardinal rules : 1) cals in = cals out 2) IIFYM (if it fits your macros) Think of it like food budgeting, but with cals instead of $$$. You will naturally gravitate towards more filling but less calorie dense foodstuffs (greens, etc.). Those also happen to have the vitamins, etc. that you need. /donedeal
35. Re:Or... by david_thornley · 2016-08-05 09:17 · Score: 1
  
  A friend of mine suffered from low blood pressure, sufficiently low to be a problem. She started going heavy on the salt, in the hope of raising it. She said people would walk over to her table at restaurants to tell her not to use so much salt. (This was in the 90s.)
  
  --
  "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
36. Re:Or... by Jaime2 · 2016-08-06 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  I weigh 152 pounds. A side-effect of my losing 100 pounds last year is a very suppressed metabolism. Studies show that it takes a very long time for BMR to recover after extended periods of under-eating, sometimes more than five years.
Starving is good? by Terje+Mathisen · 2016-08-04 22:21 · Score: 1

There's been a lot of research (particularly on mice) which shows that _limited_ starving will increase the life expectancy of the test animals, right?
This looks like one possible factor in the explanation for that effect.
Terje

--
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
1. Re:Starving is good? by Opportunist · 2016-08-04 23:15 · Score: 1
  
  Sure, but who wants to get old just to torture himself?
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
2. Re:Starving is good? by gtall · 2016-08-04 23:32 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  More aptly, who wants to torture themselves just to get old.
3. Re:Starving is good? by Opportunist · 2016-08-04 23:55 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Like in the old joke:
  Doc, what do I have to do to get old?
  You smoke?
  Nope
  You drink?
  Nope
  You sleeping around?
  Nope
  Then why the hell you wanna get old?
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
4. Re:Starving is good? by alantus · 2016-08-05 00:51 · Score: 1
  
  The oldest man alive is a 112 year old Israeli, Auschwitz survivor called Yisrael Kristal. He survived the death camp weighing just 37 Kg. I read an interview about him where he claimed he never ate much, he said something like "eating is overrated".
5. Re:Starving is good? by F.Ultra · 2016-08-05 00:55 · Score: 1
  
  The problem with such studies on mice is that rodents have an extremely high risk of getting cancer. Since the mutation that causes a cell to be a cancer cell happens when a cell divides you get a far less chance of cancer if you minimize the division of your cells. With limited starving the body does not spend energy on rebuilding new muscle protein and so on so you get a lower cell division rate. For rodents where the risk of cancer is so high this could play a major factor and thus the mice with limited starvation have a higher chance of living longer.
  The big question is if this also would be true for primates such as humans where the risk of getting cancer is not that high to begin with. If your risk of getting cancer is say 1% and limit starvation reduces this risk to 0.8% then you have not really gained any advantage but for a rodent with 80% chance of getting cancer and you reduce it to 64% (same percentage reduction as in my human example) then that is a huge advantage.
6. Re:Starving is good? by Ol+Olsoc · 2016-08-05 01:29 · Score: 1
  
  Sure, but who wants to get old just to torture himself?
  Insightful question. If somehow it was found out that eating only tofurkey demonstrably added 10 years to a person's lifespan, I'd opt for eating what I do now, and gladly give up those years. Especially since those years are added to the old age part of life.
  
  --
  The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
7. Re:Starving is good? by MobyDisk · 2016-08-05 04:58 · Score: 1
  
  Caloric restriction?
8. Re:Starving is good? by nowsharing · 2016-08-05 13:32 · Score: 1
  
  Insightful question. If somehow it was found out that eating only tofurkey demonstrably added 10 years to a person's lifespan, I'd opt for eating what I do now, and gladly give up those years. Especially since those years are added to the old age part of life.
  What if they could show that avoiding animal products would not only extend your life, but would significantly improve your quality of life as well? Like not getting colon, liver, lung, or prostate cancer? That usually changes people's perspective, especially after seeing a family member or two go through the experience.
  
  Also, I'm a vegan don't know of any other vegans who stay on fake meat for more than a year or so as they transition. I completely agree with you though, that stuff is nasty.
9. Re:Starving is good? by Ol+Olsoc · 2016-08-05 14:03 · Score: 1
  
  Also, I'm a vegan don't know of any other vegans who stay on fake meat for more than a year or so as they transition. I completely agree with you though, that stuff is nasty.
  Quick Question - Do you eat Seitan? I wish I knew about it when I tried vegetarianism.
  
  --
  The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
10. Re:Starving is good? by nowsharing · 2016-08-05 15:00 · Score: 1
  
  Quick Question - Do you eat Seitan? I wish I knew about it when I tried vegetarianism.
  Yes, but I generally eat more tempeh. Great stuff once you learn a few ways to prepare it.
Wait a sec... by meglon · 2016-08-04 23:10 · Score: 4, Funny

So now, on top of missing dark matter, we're missing white matter too? Frak. Who the hell is in charge of keeping track of where this shit goes?!!!

--
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
1. Re: Wait a sec... by martinQblank · 2016-08-05 05:30 · Score: 1
  
  Hillary. ;)
BMI != obesity by Oligonicella · 2016-08-04 23:32 · Score: 1, Insightful

It was never meant to be such. Fit athletes can have a high BMI, it's mass (muscle is heavier than fat) against height.

A high BMI can be an indicator of high body fatness. BMI can be used as a screening tool but is not diagnostic of the body fatness or health of an individual.
Emphasis mine.
From CDC.
1. Re:BMI != obesity by tomhath · 2016-08-05 00:01 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  When looking at an entire populate, the very muscular athletes are outliers. High BMI almost always indicates obesity.
2. Re:BMI != obesity by serviscope_minor · 2016-08-05 01:17 · Score: 2
  
  It was never meant to be such.
  BMI is a 95% accurate predictor of obesity in men and 99% in women. IOW if you pick a random member of the population, measure their BMI and body fat percentage 95-99% that BMI says you're obese, the fat percentage will agree (and also BMI will miss quite a few). And bear in mind of those 5% wrong, some number will be merely overweight rather than obese. So if you take an obese BMI to mean "should I lose weight", if it says "yes" it's going to be wrong way under 5% of the time.
  That's pretty bloody good. A lifetime spent smoking is a less good predictor that you will die from smoking related diseases than BMI as a predictor of obesity.
  So, it's an accurate predictor as these things go and it is very easy to measure correctly without specialist equipment unlike more accurate techniques like body fat percentage or waist measurement (which is hard to measure correctly).
  Fit athletes can have a high BMI, it's mass (muscle is heavier than fat) against height.
  Fit athletes can, but even then it's not as common as you might think. Here's a paste from an earlier post of mine on the topic (the tone was directed at the person I was having a "discussion" with back then, not you):
  
  I doubt most of them are. I just picked one, "Andy Murray". A very fit, muscular chap. 1.9m tall, 84 Kg. Well into the OK band for BMI. A bulkier one like Usain Bolt? Upper end, but still in the "OK" band. Most recent olympics marathon winner? Wow quite underweight! Hm let's try another. Ronaldo. Nope, also OK. More footballers? How about the first 5 from this list (my patience is limited) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/spo... Huh, one is juuuust into the overweight band and the rest are right in the middle. How about a swimmer? Let's say Phelps. Nope, ALSO OK. See the pattern here? That's a nice sampling from tennis, running, football, swimming
  some of those are pretty big blokes. Even for pro athletes, you have to be on the bulky end to get on the wrong end of BMI.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
3. Re:BMI != obesity by serviscope_minor · 2016-08-05 01:19 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  When looking at an entire populate, the very muscular athletes are outliers. High BMI almost always indicates obesity.
  Except on slashdot. You see on any youth thread we complain about how all the millennials think they are special snowflakes. But on BMI threads, everyone with an obese level BMI is one of the few special snowflakes for whom the prediction is not accurate.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
4. Re:BMI != obesity by Jaime2 · 2016-08-05 01:33 · Score: 1
  
  If you're fit and muscular, you don't look at your BMI result thinking "I wonder if I'm fat?". Nearly everyone who is unsure if they should lose weight and has a high BMI should lose weight. Also, there is evidence that muscular people with a high BMI may share many health problems with fat people of the same BMI. For example, carrying extra weight is correlated with shorter lifespan and increased risk of heart disease, regardless of body composition.
5. Re:BMI != obesity by Gr8Apes · 2016-08-05 02:57 · Score: 1
  
  Notable researchers and organizations agree BMI is useless.
  You can have 2 people, identical height, same actual body fat, and one will be obese according to BMI merely because they are large framed and heavily boned vs the other being small framed and light boned. BMI is like trying to measure success by IQ.
  
  --
  The cesspool just got a check and balance.
6. Re:BMI != obesity by serviscope_minor · 2016-08-05 06:28 · Score: 1
  
  Notable researchers and organizations agree BMI is useless.
  And the first link has this as the first line of the abstract:
  "Body mass index (BMI) has various deficiencies as a measure of obesity, especially when the BMI measure is based on self-reported height and weight."
  Note the bit about relying on people to tell the truth?
  You can have 2 people, identical height, same actual body fat, and one will be obese according to BMI merely because they are large framed and heavily boned vs the other being small framed and light boned.
  Yes, so? Those cases are rare.
  BMI is like trying to measure success by IQ.
  No it isn't because success is poorly defined. You can measure BMI and then measure fat percentage using an accurate techinque and see how well the two are correlated. BMI predicts obesity vasy well. If BMI says you're obese then as a population average, there's a 95% chance you're obese if you're male.
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
  These things are measurable. Someone't measured it. It's actually pretty good.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
7. Re:BMI != obesity by Gr8Apes · 2016-08-05 07:43 · Score: 1
  
  BMI sucks per nih.gov as well. I'll stand by my statement that using BMI to determine obesity is like trying to measure success by IQ. The relationships would be very similar, and by your own admission, useless. This is independent of any meaningful definition of success/obesity. The more I think of it the more accurate the analogy.
  
  --
  The cesspool just got a check and balance.
8. Re:BMI != obesity by serviscope_minor · 2016-08-05 09:18 · Score: 1
  
  BMI sucks per nih.gov as well.
  From the article you linked:
  A BMI â¥ 30 had a high specificity (95% in men and 99% in women), but a poor sensitivity (36% and 49 %, respectively) to detect BF %-defined obesity.
  A diagnostic tool with a 95 to 99% specificity (that means if it says you're obese, it's wrong 1-5% of the time) does not by any measure "suck". If anything that paper points out that if BMI says you're obese, chances are that it's right, and if it says you're not, well, you might well be obese anyway.
  I'll stand by my statement that using BMI to determine obesity is like trying to measure success by IQ.
  Except as I pointed out that unlike obesity, success is ill defined. You can't measure how well IQ correlates with success until you define precisely what you mean by success.
  The relationships would be very similar, and by your own admission, useless.
  Er no. Inventing stuff I said is not a valid line of reasoning.
  This is independent of any meaningful definition of success/obesity.
  Obesity is defined as body fat percentage greater than some threshold.
  At this point, I've provided statistics and reasoning, and you've merely said "nuh uh" and restated your original position without adding any actual reasoning behind it. I'm getting the impression that you have high BMI and are in denial about what that means.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
9. Re:BMI != obesity by Gr8Apes · 2016-08-05 10:57 · Score: 1
  
  Obesity is defined as body fat percentage greater than some threshold.
  At this point, I've provided statistics and reasoning, and you've merely said "nuh uh" and restated your original position without adding any actual reasoning behind it. I'm getting the impression that you have high BMI and are in denial about what that means.
  OK, here's some statistics:
  
  BMI-defined obesity ( 30 kg/m2) was present in 21% of men and 31% of women, while BF %-defined obesity was present in 50% and 62%, respectively. A BMI 30 had a high specificity (95% in men and 99% in women), but a poor sensitivity (36% and 49 %, respectively) to detect BF %-defined obesity. The diagnostic performance of BMI diminished as age increased. BMI had a good correlation with BF % in men (R2 = 0.44) and women (R2 = 0.71), but also with lean mass (R2 = 0.50 and 0.55, respectively).
  
  To further assess the variability of BF% for a given BMI value, we selected 108 subjects (54 men and 54 women) who had a BMI of 25 kg/m2, and found that in men, the distribution of BF % widely ranged from 13.8% to 35.3%, while in women the distribution of BF % ranged from 26.4% to 42.8%
  There's some shocking variations and misses there. It's not that BMI of 25 or 30 is always obese, it's that a BMI of 25 will cover a significant percentage of obese people, as well as 40-50% of people that are not obese. BMI by itself is useless. It's like saying here's a group of successful people, most have an IQ above 100, 95% have an IQ above 125. However, there's a large group of not successful people that also have IQs above 100. If I grab everyone above 90, then I'll have covered 99% of all successful people (without defining success here, it's just semi-abstract).
  As for high BMI, when I was a teen, we used to have a chart with BMI on it. One guy hit 39. He ran 2 miles in less than 11 minutes 5 days a week as a warm up. I'll restate for the slow - BMI is meaningless. You can have a BMI of 20 and be clinically obese. You can have 30+ and be dangerously low on body fat. BMI is meaningless.
  
  --
  The cesspool just got a check and balance.
10. Re:BMI != obesity by AthanasiusKircher · 2016-08-05 16:37 · Score: 1
  
  BMI is a 95% accurate predictor of obesity in men and 99% in women. IOW if you pick a random member of the population, measure their BMI and body fat percentage 95-99% that BMI says you're obese, the fat percentage will agree (and also BMI will miss quite a few). And bear in mind of those 5% wrong, some number will be merely overweight rather than obese. So if you take an obese BMI to mean "should I lose weight", if it says "yes" it's going to be wrong way under 5% of the time.
  That's pretty bloody good.
  I have no idea where you get your supposed 95% figure. Actual studies tend to show that the BMI cutoffs for obesity are only accurate for somewhere between 50% and 80% of people. Errors are usually large in both ways in most studies (i.e., errors that misclassify obese people as not obese, or the reverse). Usually the error is larger in misclassifying obese people as merely overweight... though I recall a study which said if we lowered the BMI "obese" threshold to capture at least 95% of actual obese people, we'd misclassify at least 1/3 of merely overweight people as "obese."
  Bottom line -- BMI is terrible, and there are much better ways to do stuff like this. (And, frankly, easier -- waist size, for example, has been shown to correlate with obesity-related illnesses better than BMI... and that's waist measurement regardless of height or weight or anything else. That shows how bad BMI is.)
  Oh, and I'd cite studies, but just search for "BMI inaccuracy" or something, you'll get links immediately to half a dozen studies which back up what I just said. I've never seen any study claim anything close to a 95% accuracy for BMI correlation to adiposity. That's just bogus.
11. Re:BMI != obesity by serviscope_minor · 2016-08-05 22:06 · Score: 1
  
  Wow, you can't even read what you, yourself wrote:
  quote:
  BMI-defined obesity ( 30 kg/m2) ... A BMI 30 had a high specificity (95% in men and 99% in women)
  It's astonishing that you'll dismiss a diagnostic technique with such high specificity as "useless". The statistics for an awful lot of techniques are way, way lower than that in medicine, but no one dismisses them as useless, because no one thinks that a case of streptococcus somehow reflects on them as a person.
  There's some shocking variations and misses there.
  It's only shocking if you have no understanding of either medicine or statistics. If ever a technique is not perfect there will be 'shocking' (not the scare quotes) misses.
  95-99% specificity, remember.
  One guy hit 39. He ran 2 miles in less than 11 minutes 5 days a week as a warm up. I'll restate for the slow - BMI is meaningless.
  There are two reasons you're wrong, both independent:
  1. BMI is a predictor of body fat percentage not health or fitness, so saying "BMI is useless because here's a fit guy with a high BMI" is a complete non sequiteur. It also doesn't predict the price of gold. Doesn't make it useless.
  2. No one said BMI is a perfect predictor of obesity. The claim is it's 95% accurate for men. That literally means that 5% of the time it says someone's obese then they're not. So yeah it goes wrong sometimes. Expecting perfection from an early stage diagnosis technique is frankly foolish.
  However, there's a large group of not successful people that also have IQs above 100. If I grab everyone above 90, then I'll have covered 99% of all successful people (without defining success here, it's just semi-abstract).
  Well done, you're darkly stumbling towards an understanding of sensitivity/specificity, ROC curves and precision/recall. All you've told me so far that if you find someone with an IQ of under 90 and guess they're unsuccessful, you'll be right 99% of the time, so as a predictor of lack of success it's pretty good.
  And BMI is good like that.
  If you have a BMI over 30 then you should definitely go and get yourself checked out somehow with another technique (a clue, if you can grab rolls of fat and you have a BMI of over 30 then hoo boy do you have weight to lose).
  That is the use of BMI.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
12. Re:BMI != obesity by Gr8Apes · 2016-08-06 03:38 · Score: 1
  
  One guy hit 39. He ran 2 miles in less than 11 minutes 5 days a week as a warm up. I'll restate for the slow - BMI is meaningless.
  There are two reasons you're wrong, both independent:
  1. BMI is a predictor of body fat percentage not health or fitness, so saying "BMI is useless because here's a fit guy with a high BMI" is a complete non sequiteur. It also doesn't predict the price of gold. Doesn't make it useless.
  BMI is not a predictor of body fat percentage. The fact that you can be 39 and be lean, or 20 and be fat indicates just how flawed BMI is as a predictor of obesity. The NIH and other respectable entities came to this conclusion after much study. Why are you arguing against them?
  
  2. No one said BMI is a perfect predictor of obesity. The claim is it's 95% accurate for men.
  You lack an understanding of exactly what was stated. BMI doesn't predict body fat percentages anymore than IQ predicts success. What it claims is that if BMI (IQ) states you're obese (successful) then there's a 95% chance it's correct, at least for the range of subjects studied. In the total pool of subjects, however, it misses an astonishingly large percentage of those that are obese, and it's still wrong, because it's only a correlation of 2 measurements that trend with the desired measurement but by themselves have no direct relationship to what you're trying to measure. If you want to measure body fat percentages, then measure those factors that give you that percentage. Height alone has no bearing in this measurement. If you included breadth and depth, and an accurate volume calculation, then you'd be getting somewhere, but that's impractical from a pure length measurement standpoint.
  It's like taking height and adding it to IQ. CEOs (successful people) tend to be taller. (You're probably already getting the drift here)
  
  If you have a BMI over 30 then you should definitely go and get yourself checked out somehow with another technique (a clue, if you can grab rolls of fat and you have a BMI of over 30 then hoo boy do you have weight to lose).
  That is the use of BMI.
  Your "clue" is a non-sequitor - if you can grab rolls of fat, it doesn't matter what your BMI is, you have weight to lose.
  Your non-sequitor does lead to a different question: why not do the "pinch an inch" test? Then again, it's not very accurate either and prone to measurement error. It's still far more accurate than BMI will ever be. BMI is nothing more than a height / weight chart with designated lines on it. It's attempting to force everyone into a single "average" for lack of a better term. And we all know how all humans are average, right?
  
  Out of 4,063 pilots, not a single airman fit within the average range on all 10 dimensions.... if you picked out just three of the ten dimensions of size — say, neck circumference, thigh circumference and wrist circumference — less than 3.5 per cent of pilots would be average sized on all three dimensions.
  
  Less than 40 of the 3,864 contestants were average size on just five of the nine dimensions and none of the contestants — not even Martha Skidmore — came close on all nine dimensions.
  But while Daniels and the contest organizers ran up against the same revelation, they came to a markedly different conclusion about its meaning. Most doctors and scientists of the era did not interpret the contest results as evidence that Norma was a misguided ideal. Just the opposite: many concluded that American women, on the whole, were unhealthy and out of shape.
  You appear to fall into the contest organizers group. Also:
  The B.M.I. tables are excellent for identifying obesity and
  
  --
  The cesspool just got a check and balance.
13. Re:BMI != obesity by serviscope_minor · 2016-08-06 09:05 · Score: 1
  
  I had a longer reply, but let's get down to the fundamentals:
  You lack an understanding of exactly what was stated. BMI doesn't predict body fat percentages anymore than IQ predicts success.
  You quoted me some numbers. Let's accept them.
  Pick a member of the population at random.
  Now guess whether they're successful. What percentage of the time will you be correct?
  Now I tell you their IQ, or, if you prefer, I tell you their IQ is below 90. You now have an option to modify your guess. What percentage of the time will you now be correct?
  Here's the thing, if your chances of correctness increase, and by your own claim they will---you said people with an IQ less than 90 are rarely successful, so you ought to now get almost all of those cases right even if no other cases improve---then you have a predictor of success.
  Is it good?
  Well, that depends on the ROC curve and whether any part of that curve is useful.
  If you don't know what an ROC curve is then you're not remotely qualified to be having this discussion.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
14. Re:BMI != obesity by Gr8Apes · 2016-08-06 11:17 · Score: 1
  
  I had a longer reply, but let's get down to the fundamentals:
  Fine with me. So let's pick a large group of US southerners. I'd say your curve fits them just fine. Then lets pick a group of Amazonian aborigines. I'd say your curve is meaningless applied to them. That likely goes for Asians, as one specific sub-group. Let's pick only people above 6 feet tall. Gee, your curves seem to be rather incorrect. Let's pick a group of folks that are under 5.5 feet. Now they're much more likely to be correct. Let's grab only people under 20. Hmm, those curves are off again. Same thing for those over 60.
  Any single number that varies that much merely by shifting the observed population is relatively useless. As for IQ, I'd need to know more than just IQ. Because a 90 IQ might do just fine in some parts of the world, perhaps better than high IQs. These things are all merely statistical models, and where BMI fails is that it has too few metrics involved in its calculation to account for the large variance of its supposed observed group. In fact, the BMI number should be more of an asymmetric bell curve with regards to height and breadth and shifted by age. But then it no longer is as simple to condemn a person as obese nor to have an obesity epidemic (not that I don't think we have one in the US btw)
  Finally, while those reports linked to earlier have nice standards of deviation listed for various initial factors, such as age of participants, there are no standard deviations mentioned for the resulting BF to BMI correlations. They only claim that their results are 95% sensitivity (not accuracy). That in itself is suspect for anything that relies on statistical analysis. You know the line: lies, damn lies, and statistics.
  And for honesty, even the reports that claim 95% sensitivity conclude that BMI shouldn't be used to determine obesity. Why? Because it is useless. Arguing about ROC curves when the originating data isn't available is IMHO pointless.
  
  --
  The cesspool just got a check and balance.
15. Re:BMI != obesity by serviscope_minor · 2016-08-07 06:41 · Score: 1
  
  Then lets pick...
  Well done, you've discovered conditional independence. if you like, you can argue in the ace of the entire wold of machine learning that conditional independences make things "useless".
  In fact, the BMI number should be more of an asymmetric bell curve with regards to height and breadth and shifted by age.
  It isn't symetric, the numbers in are more or less bell curves, the calculation is nonlinear and...
  But then it no longer is as simple to condemn a person as obese ...ah and now we get down to the crux of the matter. You're clearly vey deeply emotionally invested in this topic, so much so that you can't help but dragging in emotional topics when I'm tying to discuss the science.
  Make no mistake: there are plenty of asshole fat-shames out there and body fat pecentage does in no way reflect on morals but the fact that fat shamers exist and many people assume fat==lazy/morally weak in no way reflects on the statistics of BMI.
  not that I don't think we have one in the US btw
  Call it what you will, but there's an awful lot of rather rotund folk in the US, more so than any other large nation.
  They only claim that their results are 95% sensitivity (not accuracy). That in itself is suspect for anything that relies on statistical analysis.
  Not suspect, no. Once you get to sensitivity/specifity, you've marginalised over everything else. The variances are built into that pair of numbers. Lower variances push you futher into the corner of the ROC curve. The ROC curve itself is noisy and they quote confidence intervals for that too.
  Why?
  Why: because it misses too many people, not that it calls too many non obese people obese. Whereas on every corner of the internet, evey fat related thread is ful of the special snowflakes claiming to be not in the 20% of the population that BMI incorrectly classifies as "not obese", but in the 1-5% that BMI classifies incorectly as obese.
  It would appear, you see, that hte internet is full of muscle-bound Arnold Schwarznegger lookalikes of both sexes.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
16. Re:BMI != obesity by Gr8Apes · 2016-08-07 16:43 · Score: 1
  
  FWIW, I really hate whatever settings you have that cause your quotes to not be actual "quotes".
  
  Well done, you've discovered conditional independence.
  Merely using it to prove that BMI is nothing more than a fitted set of statistics to a specific population. As such, it doesn't mean much unless it is used within a similar population.
  
  ...ah and now we get down to the crux of the matter. You're clearly vey deeply emotionally invested in this topic,
  
  Not at all, you still don't really address why you're so vested in this value when many scientists of note have ditched it. A useless measure is a useless measure, no matter how many times it happens to be right. If something's right 730 times a year, would you use it? Now consider that it is a stopped clock...
  
  Why: because it misses too many people, not that it calls too many non obese people obese. Whereas on every corner of the internet, evey fat related thread is ful of the special snowflakes claiming to be not in the 20% of the population that BMI incorrectly classifies as "not obese", but in the 1-5% that BMI classifies incorectly as obese.
  It would appear, you see, that hte internet is full of muscle-bound Arnold Schwarznegger lookalikes of both sexes.
  All you have to be is average proportions but tall. Nothing more. Add a heavy bone structure, and obese territory looms. BTW, you're special, just like everyone else.
  
  --
  The cesspool just got a check and balance.
17. Re:BMI != obesity by serviscope_minor · 2016-08-07 21:11 · Score: 1
  
  Merely using it to prove that BMI is nothing more than a fitted set of statistics to a specific population.
  Yep. Crudely speaking that's what machine learning is. What passes for machine learning these days is usually much more complex, but ultimately you fit a model to a bunch of labelled data and use that to make predictions on new data.
  As such, it doesn't mean much unless it is used within a similar population.
  That I suppose depends on how representative the population is. The link we've been sharing quoting high specificity shows it has some predictive power. The research was mostly done in "the west" so it's going to be a bit targeted towards western populations. Fortunately almost everyone I argue with online fits that bill.
  Not at all
  Except that in any discussion of BMI accuracy someone sooner or later brings up something about judging fat people somehow. It seems very hard to decouple emotion from a discussion of whether BMI is accurate enough.
  why you're so vested in this value when many scientists of note have ditched it.
  First, holy appeal to authority, Batman! Some scientists have ditched it, others have not. Some who have ditched it have done so for what I consider to be deeply spurious reasons. I'm qualified to make my own judgements based on the evidence, and as far as I can see the evidence says that the BMI has predictive power (trivially this is true for anything with an ROC above 0.5), but enough to be useful nonetheless.
  Now consider that it is a stopped clock...
  Except the stopped clock has no predictive power. Ask it the question "is it afternoon", the clock will be wrong 50% of the time. Ask BMI if you're obese and if it says you are there's a 95-99% chance it's right. See how that's different from the clock?
  All you have to be is average proportions but tall.
  Tall as in significantly above average height. Naturally that's relatively rare because of the nature of averages and significant deviations from them.
  Add a heavy bone structure, and obese territory looms.
  Ah yes, everyone on the internet is unusually tall with unusually heavy bones. What do you think is more likely? That every 270lb person on the internet claiming BMIis bunk is in the 5% of the population where they're a lean giant or actually the majority of them are in fact heavily overweight?
  BTW, you're special, just like everyone else.
  Not in terms of my build I'm not. I'm a little above average height and a somewhat average build. If anything the BMI has something of a tendency to underpredict my body fat percentage. I only tipped over into "overweight" according to BMI when it was quite clear I had *plenty* to lose.
  Anyway, since you reckon BMI is useless, I challenge you to come up with something better. I don't mean something merely more accurate: that's easy. You can get electrical resistance machines or even floatation tanks for density measurement. Your technique has to be more accurate within the similar confines.
  It has to be easy to use in that most people can use it. It must not require special equipment. Bathroom scales are pretty common. And it's got to be as accurate as possible when used by the general population. Waist measurement is superior to BMI in predictive power[*] but it's awfully easy to take it badly, especially if one's engaged in wishful thinking. Same with calipers.
  About the only thing I can think of is replacing the formula no one uses (the charts are a nice lookup table) with an arbitrary 2D lookup of weight class table filled based on population statistics, or a better model fitted to them. You might be able to get away with bit more segregation based on age (10 year bands?) than the simply adult/child split which exists now.
  [*] Even better, even where waist measurement mispredicts overall boy fat percentage, it does that by extrapolating abdominal cavity fat to the whole body. That's a benign misprediction as it appears to be that abdominal cavity fat is a better predictor of health problems than fat deposited elsewhere because the stuff is metabolically active.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
18. Re:BMI != obesity by Gr8Apes · 2016-08-08 05:27 · Score: 1
  
  Anyway, since you reckon BMI is useless, I challenge you to come up with something better. I don't mean something merely more accurate: that's easy.
  
  I am not sure that banding will actually address any problems with BMI other than the age shift. It would be an improvement, but a lot of older people would be upset. ;)
  To actually get a better meaningful measurement add a set of measurements for waist, chest (bottom of breastbone) and shoulder width. How, exactly, those would figure into a single number beats me, but in a chart based system, it's easy enough to use those measurements to refine where you should be. I'd go so far as to say a waist larger than a chest size will for most indicate obesity all by itself (obvious exception: pregnant women in the last trimester, for sure)
  I agree that additional measurements allow for error, but I'd guess that those errors are less than the current BMI nonsense. Yes, I've always thought BMI was stupid, for the same reason that the pilot study couldn't find an average pilot.
  Being more than a standard deviation taller than average and large framed I obviously have been skeptical about BMI results that listed me as obese when my body fat was below 8%. Were I to ever hit "normal" on the BMI scale there'd be questions of whether I was severely ill.
  
  --
  The cesspool just got a check and balance.
The study was on obese people. by EzInKy · 2016-08-04 23:41 · Score: 1

Overweight people fared just fine, and other studies show they live longer than underweight people. Perhaps it would be worth another look at just what is defined as "overweight"?

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Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
1. Re:The study was on obese people. by Schezar · 2016-08-05 01:15 · Score: 1
  
  Studies still show lower quality of life in old age for people who are overweight (or more specifically, obese - not just morbidly so, but regular old obesity) in middle age. Overweight people fared "just fine" in limited studies of overall longevity, which are heavily complicated by conflation with the chronic underweight status typical of people with severe long-term or terminal illness.
  The overweight people were better off in aggregate than, say, the skinny people dying of cancer or suffering through chemotherapy, but not better off than people who were a healthy weight and didn't have a complication like cancer.
  So YMMV. The evidence overall says that while being overweight is not something to panic about or damage yourself trying to undo, and while you can live a mostly healthy life even if you're overweight, it's basically objectively better, in a vacuum, to NOT be overweight.
  
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  Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Caloric Restriction? by lazarus · 2016-08-04 23:49 · Score: 2

This doesn't seem out of line with other studies that link a more restricted caloric intake with youthfulness and better health.

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I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
1. Re:Caloric Restriction? by Ol+Olsoc · 2016-08-05 01:33 · Score: 1
  
  This doesn't seem out of line with other studies that link a more restricted caloric intake with youthfulness and better health.
  This is great when the goal is to be the most youthful, and healthy person in the graveyard.
  
  --
  The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
2. Re:Caloric Restriction? by Ol+Olsoc · 2016-08-05 05:06 · Score: 1
  
  Usually when people make comments like yours, they're rationalizing their poor life choices to themselves. Embrace the bacon and live happy, or clean up your eating habits and get to the gym.
  Or experience. Most of our lifespan is based on genetics. I've seen people like my Mother in law, non smoker, non drinker get good exercise, and she died at 78 after 8 years of dementia in a nursing home. The men in my family from way back, tend to die at around 85, excluding those killed by accident or war. From great great relations, to modern day, when with exercise, excellent health care and maintenance meds, we still die at 85.
  It's obvious that completely sedentary lifestyles and completely off the wall calorie consumption is bad for you - that's just neglecting/abusing the machinery.
  But the concept of eating bacon being a poor life choice is just victim blaming. No one gets out of here alive.
  
  --
  The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Pick Your Poison - by Anonymous Coward · 2016-08-05 00:58 · Score: 3, Interesting

From The Guardian:
Underweight people face significantly higher risk of dementia, study suggests
==========
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/10/underweight-people-face-significantly-higher-risk-of-dementia-study-suggests
==========
Research involving health records of 2 million people condradicts current thinking, sparking surprise among authors and health experts
It has been wrongly claimed that obese people have a higher risk of dementia, say the authors from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
1. Re:Pick Your Poison - by omnichad · 2016-08-05 01:40 · Score: 1
  
  Underweight people face significantly higher risk of dementia, study suggests
  Well that should be plainly obvious. You need cholesterol to protect the brain. You need to eat fats to produce the cholesterol. It shouldn't surprise anyone - especially experts.
Re:Alcohol by JonnyCalcutta · 2016-08-05 01:15 · Score: 3, Funny

I'm already on it - no need to nag!
Brains of Overweight People Look Ten Years Older T by rickyslashdot · 2016-08-05 01:39 · Score: 1

Well, Gee, Fellas, if there is NO DIFFERENCE in COGNITIVE FUNCTIONS, then this seems to be a bottom-feeding slashdot filler to justify a moderator's quota ! ! ! IF the brains appear 10 years older, but are still fully functional, then it should be a PLUS for being overweight.

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redneck geek
Depression and memory problems by Billly+Gates · 2016-08-05 01:48 · Score: 2

Just because your IQ is not impacted doesn't mean the white matter doesn't serve other purposes.
I am currently trying to exercise and radically changed my diet. It is because exercise has as much if not more impact on depression than anti depressants according to studies! When you exercise, go on a ketone diet, or take anti depressants your body creates BDNF. BDNF causes neurons to grow more synapses and dendrites to repair the brain.
Fat and sediment people have shrunken Hippo Thalamus which controls mode, executive functions, and short term memory.
So yes as people as some people pointed out people become wiser, but many who for example who were once sharp programmers end up in management as their is cognitive decline and a difficulty learning new things.

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http://saveie6.com/
Do the math... by MitchDev · 2016-08-05 02:10 · Score: 1

Cost of living is going up, cost of health care, often more important in senior years is up, Pensions are a thing of the past, 401Ks are getting destroyed by the stock market, and Social Security is on life support and probably won;t even be there ianymore in 10-20 years. Who wants to keep living at that point....
1. Re:Do the math... by TeknoHog · 2016-08-05 03:42 · Score: 1
  
  I can't do the math because I'm morbidly obese, you insensitive clod!
  
  --
  Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
2. Re:Do the math... by MitchDev · 2016-08-05 04:42 · Score: 1
  
  That is sad, usually it was the fat kids who were smart and good at math...
I'm not fat..! by cyberchondriac · 2016-08-05 02:19 · Score: 1

I just have a more mature brain. Is there any correlation between white matter and "big bones"?

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Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Meh... by __aaclcg7560 · 2016-08-05 02:49 · Score: 1

Because I was born overweight, looked like the poster child for mongolism, and had a undiagnosed hearing lost in one ear, the school system classified me as being mentally retarded. Every year for eight years, I had annual evaluations of my mental abilities and consistently scored on the genius side of the scale. The evaluators were consistently surprised by the results but always called it as a "statistical fluke". I graduated the eighth grade with a college-level reading comprehension level and fifth grade skills in everything else. I skipped high school, went to community college, and took four years to get my A.A. degree in General Education with a 3.54GPA. A decade later I went back to school to get an A.S. degree in Computer Programming with a 4.00GPA while taking two classes per semester, working 60 hours per week and teaching Sunday school.
Today I'm 46YO, 5'-10" and 350 pounds. If my brain looks ten years older, I blame the public school system for making learning so difficult.
1. Re:Meh... by __aaclcg7560 · 2016-08-06 04:35 · Score: 1
  
  Lose some weight or you won't make it to 50.
  That's funny. I've been told I wouldn't live until I was 10-, 20-, 30-, 40-years-old.
  Here's the secrets of longevity: don't believe the critics and take care of your body.
Re:Sure by __aaclcg7560 · 2016-08-05 03:19 · Score: 1

You must have a skinny brain. If you had a point, you could have expressed it in fewer words.
the money shot by argStyopa · 2016-08-05 04:57 · Score: 1

...buried deep in the summary:
"...it did not appear to have any link to mental prowess, with no difference seen between lean and overweight or obese participants..."
Note also that there is growing evidence that being a little overweight (not morbidly obese, mind you) is actually beneficial to your survival going into mid- and later-old-age, particularly if you have certain diseases (specifically, cancer).

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-Styopa
Re:Duh. (bad science all around) by gosand · 2016-08-05 05:03 · Score: 1

If there's a correlation it could be the other way around: perhaps people with those specific brain characteristics are prone to eating more.
Eating more does not make you fat. Period. Being overweight is due to an imbalance in how your body regulates fat storage due to hormonal regulation of homeostasis. The main driver of this process is insulin. Insulin is directly affected by WHAT you eat, now how much. And more precisely, it is the amount of carbs in your diet. Sugars are particularly nasty in this regard.
It's a lot more complex than this, but that is a sufficient summary of the basics. Overeating or sedentary behavior does NOT make you fat. It's pretty much the other way around - becoming fat increases the amount of food you need and makes it more difficult to be physically active.
Good Calories Bad Calories (or Why We Get Fat: and what to do about it) and the Primal Blueprint are great books to read on this topic. And Grain Brain is good for how grains have been shown to impact our brains, which is more to the topic of this story.

--

My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Re:Do obese people perform the act in this haiku? by Bodhammer · 2016-08-05 08:16 · Score: 1

He tried to be cute
His Haiku was very lame
He is a douchebag.

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"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Research by nowsharing · 2016-08-05 08:39 · Score: 1

This research doesn't really come as a surprise to anyone studying medical nutrition, but it is interesting to see the hostile reaction that it incites in the comments. There is a lot of pouncing on the qualifiers that peer reviewers require, for example, they can't conclusively link the 10 years of missing white matter to decreased brain performance because it is simply beyond the scope of this particular study.

Obviously this doesn't mean there is no correlation, it just means that this further step (defining the direct correlation between brain scan data to patient observations and testing) was not part of this research study. Even if you did make that step, how would you define mental acuity 1:1 between patients when each participant has a vastly different educational background? That is a massive undertaking which would require a test group large enough that lifestyle and income adjusted participants could be compared.

Hence, they can't state that missing brain matter in these particular cases is linked to poor mental cognition because it wasn't within the scope of their research. Regardless, you certainly don't want to have your brain's condition reflecting 10 years of premature shrinkage under any circumstances.
Re: Duh. (bad science all around) by gosand · 2016-08-05 09:41 · Score: 2

Well... yes and no. 5000 calories is a lot, even in high-caloric foods. I think you would poop a lot and you wouldn't WANT to eat that much food because you wouldn't need to. The calorie argument is a red herring - it is a piece of information, but only a small one.
But I can tell you this. After eating high-fat (animal fats, butter, coconut oil, olive oil), no grains/legumes and virtually no sugar for a year, and not counting calories at all or exercising any more than I normally did, I lost 15 lbs and 2 inches off my waist. Actually that happened in the first 3 months, but I tracked it for a year. I went from 170 lbs to 155. If I were overweight, I would have lost a lot more. I have been eating this way for 4 years now, and after increasing my non-grain carbs a little I am at 160 with no effort. And I feel better than I ever have. There are other great effects of eating this way, such as reducing inflammation.
A year or so ago I did track what I ate and measured the fat/calories/sugar for a week. It was typical, and I made no adjustments to my diet.
The daily average came out to 2300 calories, 54 grams carbs, 186 grams fat, 18 grams sugar. I actually expected the calories to be higher, but that is what I found. I did actually think for a moment "oh no, I'm not eating enough... the average male should consume..." NO! That is generalized hogwash for the masses based on old information (I can't even call it science). Watch this video by Dr Peter Attia on Vimeo who talks about how our Dietary Guidelines are what they are. I know.. it's long, but it's really interesting. He has some really deep info on his website about how our diet and fat affects our cholesterol. Another fun fact - high cholesterol isn't bad. Another fun fact - half of all people who have heart attacks have normal cholesterol. Cholesterol is simply one thing, one factor in the grand scheme... but you know what doctors say... you need to lower it, I want you to take statins. (which are at the top of the most prescribed drug lists, in quantity and in dollars) But I digress...
I think it would be hard to eat 5000 calories in a day. I can see where someone doing vigorous work all day would require more food, but that is not saying the same thing as "just eat fewer calories and you will lose weight". I can only explain so much... I referenced some good books that go into far greater detail on the topic. Your body operates on hormones, and what you eat directly impacts that process. Calories do not. It's really that simple. But please, don't take my word for it, find those books and read them. The information is out there.

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My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Re: Duh. (bad science all around) by nowsharing · 2016-08-05 10:36 · Score: 1

Watch this video by Dr Peter Attia on Vimeo who talks about how our Dietary Guidelines are what they are. I know.. it's long, but it's really interesting. He has some really deep info on his website about how our diet and fat affects our cholesterol. Another fun fact - high cholesterol isn't bad. Another fun fact - half of all people who have heart attacks have normal cholesterol.
Peter Attia is an aggressive spokesperson for the meat industry whose primary means of persuasion is personally attacking other researchers. He exclusively fails to cite non-industry sponsored peer-reviewed scientific literature, and instead uses the tobacco-industry model of raising doubt to avoid the mountains of evidence and specific critiques that contradict his sales pitch. He's not a publishing scientists of any repute, and not someone you want to take health advice from. If your doctor wants you on a statin, it's time to start eating healthier because you have atherosclerosis. Yes, the industry is wrong to solely treat symptoms, but it is up to individuals to eat healthier. And the healthiest diet is one low in saturated fats and high in whole plant-based foods (including those starches you avoid).

Low carb diet fads sell a lot of books, and kill a lot of healthy people.
Re:Sure by MercTech · 2016-08-06 05:47 · Score: 2

Gender as a social construct, ignoring millions of years of evolution into a bisexual species, is truly a delusion. Gender is a double bell curve function. The majority fall in the one sigma deviation of male and female. There are outlyers that are significantly in the minority with XXY or XYY genes (hyper-male and hyper-female). There is a more significant minority that express mixed gender markers. This is "intersexed" and can run a spectrum from a man with lactating teats, a woman with an exceedingly large clitoris, all the way to having both a penis and vagina.
Now, gender specific customs are a cultural construct. But that is not driven by biology but peer approval. Some gender specific customs are quite benign. Some gender specific customs are quite toxic. Most are just that, customs.
One of the benign ones is how you button a garment. With unisex fashion a lot has fallen by the wayside but you still see it in more formal garments. Men's clothing buttons with the right plaquet on the bottom and women's clothing buttons with the left plaquet on the bottom. Why? I think it is in Leviticus where you find the prohibition against men wearing women's clothing and women wearing men's clothing. This kind of inconsequential crud is what is a social construct. I should rather say it is now inconsequential. In past centuries, sumptuary laws had real teeth. Our modern sumptuary laws seem only to involve how much skin you can show and where and whether the face can be covered in public.

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NRRPT/RCT
Re: Duh. (bad science all around) by gosand · 2016-08-08 02:26 · Score: 1

He is not a published scientist of any repute. There, I think I covered the facts of your response. He is a medical doctor. But there are lots of those, right? What he does well is encourage people to read the research, and to become critical thinkers.
Your post reeks of some vendetta against him. If I had to put money on it, I would guess you are a vegetarian/vegan.
Fine, you don't like him there are other doctors and researchers out there who are researching the same things, and he references them in what he publishes and talks about. You probably already know that, but only want to stick to your ideology instead of looking at the science behind it.

If your doctor wants you on a statin, it's time to start eating healthier because you have atherosclerosis.
WOW. This is exactly what is wrong. Doctors prescribe statins because someone has high cholesterol, not atherosclerosis! And they only do that because they think that "high cholesterol is bad". I know what you are thinking - there is "good and bad" cholesterol... which is grossly over-simplified. That is precisely the shallow-minded unquestioning thinking that causes unhealthy FADS like low-fat diets to take root and prosper. And mis-information that statins are to treat atherosclerosis. Yet with one of the most prescribed drugs ever in statins, heart disease is still on the rise.
The causes of atherosclerosis are not definitively known. Seriously, look it up. Here are some key words for you though - oxidation and inflammation.
I know it's Attia's site, but read the content... it's a 10 part series that delves in to cholesterol and atherosclerosis... Jump to Part 10 that summarizes things very well. Sorry if there are big sciency words. Read back through all 10 posts. It is a few years old, but it's pretty clear this guy is not a marketing shill.

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My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.