#evidence based nutrition

[disengaged]

oh my god pegs i really dont know what to say. i'm so sorry abt the fibro! i'm glad u were finally listened to by the doctors at least + v glad u were able to get home, i hope u can rest at least a little now! really really hope things calm down soon so u can have the time to process everything, sending love <3

hi <3 ily, thank u so much for the support!

i'm back home now and kinda ... adjusting to having a lot of empty hours to fill ... but i'm setting goals and trying to make the most of my time off from work! AKA figuring out how to balance rest/activity and working on my coping skills, attempting to get back to hobbies, etc :) it's gonna take a few months but oh well. life is not a race!

[electriceyespots]

the way society thinks about weight is so fucked. the fundamental assumption of so much of the societal body image, ie that losing weight is both desirable and achievable (with just a little more work a little more guilt a little less food), is so incorrect that it feels like a sick joke. we structured our beauty standards, our food, and even our goddamn medical system around something that's not actually possible for almost anyone and then made everyone feel like it was personally their fault

[zaryathelaika]

Content Warning: food discussion, coprophagia

One good thing about switching from Acana to Purina Pro Plan is the pupper no longer eats her own poop.

Super excited about the not-eating-poop thing.

Was kind of annoyed because I was unaware of the ingredient changes. Should have seen the recent trend for switching out grains for pulses coming. We moved away from Champion Petfoods since they kept switching the binder (eg. rice, pea, potato) on us depending on the global market prices. And one of our previous dogs was allergic to any starch from root vegetables: sweet potatoes, tapioca, cassava, yam etc. Stopped feeding Acana altogether in winter of 2015. Difficult to find a brand which didn't change ingredients based on market fluctuations! So, wasn't surprised the so-called "grain-free" kibbles found a cheap alternative to keep the prices down.

Just massively disappointed because the first time I heard about Acana was because Orijen (for cats) was the only decent kibbles available for ferrets.

(Believe me, trying to get an imprinted ferret to eat something other than kibbles is a pain.)

Anyway, found this interesting chart. Thought the visual from the paper is interesting.

Same for this table:

And here is the summary of that paper:

Source: Carciofi, A. C., F. S. Takakura, L. D. de-Oliveira, E. Teshima, J. T. Jeremias, M. A. Brunetto, and F. Prada. "Effects of six carbohydrate sources on dog diet digestibility and post-prandial glucose and insulin response" [PDF, 226 kb]. Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition 92 (2007): 326-336.

No archived versions, unfortunately.

Anyway, it's okay she eats Purina for the time being. She will be switching to Inukshuk or Redpaw when she's old enough to pack, and those contains ingredients often demonized by pet parents. (But like exhale ... The Great Divide Trail has sections where there are no resupply for about a week or two. Every gram counts on a long-distance hiking trip.)

[medscribr]

Debunking Myths About a Mother's Postpartum Diet: Evidence-Based Insights

Explore evidence-based insights to debunk common myths surrounding a mother's diet after childbirth. From spicy foods to alcohol consumption, learn how to make informed choices for both maternal health and breastfeeding success.

Today we will explore evidence-based insights to debunk common myths surrounding a mother’s diet after childbirth. Mother and her family members are always concerned about what to include in postpartum diet and what to exclude. This can lead to a very restricted and monotonous, bland diet and reduce the interest of mother in eating simultaneously causing nutritional deficiencies. From spicy foods…

[fatliberation]

they have a point though. you wouldn't need everyone to accommodate you if you just lost weight, but you're too lazy to stick to a healthy diet and exercise. it's that simple. I'd like to see you back up your claims, but you have no proof. you have got to stop lying to yourselves and face the facts

Must I go through this again? Fine. FINE. You guys are working my nerves today. You want to talk about facing the facts? Let's face the fucking facts.

In 2022, the US market cap of the weight loss industry was $75 billion [1, 3]. In 2021, the global market cap of the weight loss industry was estimated at $224.27 billion [2]. 

In 2020, the market shrunk by about 25%, but rebounded and then some since then [1, 3] By 2030, the global weight loss industry is expected to be valued at $405.4 billion [2]. If diets really worked, this industry would fall overnight. 

1. LaRosa, J. March 10, 2022. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Shrinks by 25% in 2020 with Pandemic, but Rebounds in 2021." Market Research Blog. 2. Staff. February 09, 2023. "[Latest] Global Weight Loss and Weight Management Market Size/Share Worth." Facts and Factors Research. 3. LaRosa, J. March 27, 2023. "U.S. Weight Loss Market Partially Recovers from the Pandemic." Market Research Blog.

Over 50 years of research conclusively demonstrates that virtually everyone who intentionally loses weight by manipulating their eating and exercise habits will regain the weight they lost within 3-5 years. And 75% will actually regain more weight than they lost [4].

4. Mann, T., Tomiyama, A.J., Westling, E., Lew, A.M., Samuels, B., Chatman, J. (2007). "Medicare’s Search For Effective Obesity Treatments: Diets Are Not The Answer." The American Psychologist, 62, 220-233. U.S. National Library of Medicine, Apr. 2007.

The annual odds of a fat person attaining a so-called “normal” weight and maintaining that for 5 years is approximately 1 in 1000 [5].

5. Fildes, A., Charlton, J., Rudisill, C., Littlejohns, P., Prevost, A.T., & Gulliford, M.C. (2015). “Probability of an Obese Person Attaining Normal Body Weight: Cohort Study Using Electronic Health Records.” American Journal of Public Health, July 16, 2015: e1–e6.

Doctors became so desperate that they resorted to amputating parts of the digestive tract (bariatric surgery) in the hopes that it might finally result in long-term weight-loss. Except that doesn’t work either. [6] And it turns out it causes death [7],  addiction [8], malnutrition [9], and suicide [7].

6. Magro, Daniéla Oliviera, et al. “Long-Term Weight Regain after Gastric Bypass: A 5-Year Prospective Study - Obesity Surgery.” SpringerLink, 8 Apr. 2008. 7. Omalu, Bennet I, et al. “Death Rates and Causes of Death After Bariatric Surgery for Pennsylvania Residents, 1995 to 2004.” Jama Network, 1 Oct. 2007.  8. King, Wendy C., et al. “Prevalence of Alcohol Use Disorders Before and After Bariatric Surgery.” Jama Network, 20 June 2012.  9. Gletsu-Miller, Nana, and Breanne N. Wright. “Mineral Malnutrition Following Bariatric Surgery.” Advances In Nutrition: An International Review Journal, Sept. 2013.

Evidence suggests that repeatedly losing and gaining weight is linked to cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and altered immune function [10].

10. Tomiyama, A Janet, et al. “Long‐term Effects of Dieting: Is Weight Loss Related to Health?” Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6 July 2017.

Prescribed weight loss is the leading predictor of eating disorders [11].

11. Patton, GC, et al. “Onset of Adolescent Eating Disorders: Population Based Cohort Study over 3 Years.” BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), 20 Mar. 1999.

The idea that “obesity” is unhealthy and can cause or exacerbate illnesses is a biased misrepresentation of the scientific literature that is informed more by bigotry than credible science [12]. 

12. Medvedyuk, Stella, et al. “Ideology, Obesity and the Social Determinants of Health: A Critical Analysis of the Obesity and Health Relationship” Taylor & Francis Online, 7 June 2017.

“Obesity” has no proven causative role in the onset of any chronic condition [13, 14] and its appearance may be a protective response to the onset of numerous chronic conditions generated from currently unknown causes [15, 16, 17, 18].

13. Kahn, BB, and JS Flier. “Obesity and Insulin Resistance.” The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Aug. 2000. 14. Cofield, Stacey S, et al. “Use of Causal Language in Observational Studies of Obesity and Nutrition.” Obesity Facts, 3 Dec. 2010.  15. Lavie, Carl J, et al. “Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease: Risk Factor, Paradox, and Impact of Weight Loss.” Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 26 May 2009.  16. Uretsky, Seth, et al. “Obesity Paradox in Patients with Hypertension and Coronary Artery Disease.” The American Journal of Medicine, Oct. 2007.  17. Mullen, John T, et al. “The Obesity Paradox: Body Mass Index and Outcomes in Patients Undergoing Nonbariatric General Surgery.” Annals of Surgery, July 2005. 18. Tseng, Chin-Hsiao. “Obesity Paradox: Differential Effects on Cancer and Noncancer Mortality in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.” Atherosclerosis, Jan. 2013.

Fatness was associated with only 1/3 the associated deaths that previous research estimated and being “overweight” conferred no increased risk at all, and may even be a protective factor against all-causes mortality relative to lower weight categories [19].

19. Flegal, Katherine M. “The Obesity Wars and the Education of a Researcher: A Personal Account.” Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases, 15 June 2021.

Studies have observed that about 30% of so-called “normal weight” people are “unhealthy” whereas about 50% of so-called “overweight” people are “healthy”. Thus, using the BMI as an indicator of health results in the misclassification of some 75 million people in the United States alone [20]. 

20. Rey-López, JP, et al. “The Prevalence of Metabolically Healthy Obesity: A Systematic Review and Critical Evaluation of the Definitions Used.” Obesity Reviews : An Official Journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity, 15 Oct. 2014.

While epidemiologists use BMI to calculate national obesity rates (nearly 35% for adults and 18% for kids), the distinctions can be arbitrary. In 1998, the National Institutes of Health lowered the overweight threshold from 27.8 to 25—branding roughly 29 million Americans as fat overnight—to match international guidelines. But critics noted that those guidelines were drafted in part by the International Obesity Task Force, whose two principal funders were companies making weight loss drugs [21].

21. Butler, Kiera. “Why BMI Is a Big Fat Scam.” Mother Jones, 25 Aug. 2014. 

Body size is largely determined by genetics [22].

22. Wardle, J. Carnell, C. Haworth, R. Plomin. “Evidence for a strong genetic influence on childhood adiposity despite the force of the obesogenic environment” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Vol. 87, No. 2, Pages 398-404, February 2008.

Healthy lifestyle habits are associated with a significant decrease in mortality regardless of baseline body mass index [23].  

23. Matheson, Eric M, et al. “Healthy Lifestyle Habits and Mortality in Overweight and Obese Individuals.” Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine : JABFM, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 25 Feb. 2012.

Weight stigma itself is deadly. Research shows that weight-based discrimination increases risk of death by 60% [24].

24. Sutin, Angela R., et al. “Weight Discrimination and Risk of Mortality .” Association for Psychological Science, 25 Sept. 2015.

Fat stigma in the medical establishment [25] and society at large arguably [26] kills more fat people than fat does [27, 28, 29].

25. Puhl, Rebecca, and Kelly D. Bronwell. “Bias, Discrimination, and Obesity.” Obesity Research, 6 Sept. 2012. 26. Engber, Daniel. “Glutton Intolerance: What If a War on Obesity Only Makes the Problem Worse?” Slate, 5 Oct. 2009.  27. Teachman, B. A., Gapinski, K. D., Brownell, K. D., Rawlins, M., & Jeyaram, S. (2003). Demonstrations of implicit anti-fat bias: The impact of providing causal information and evoking empathy. Health Psychology, 22(1), 68–78. 28. Chastain, Ragen. “So My Doctor Tried to Kill Me.” Dances With Fat, 15 Dec. 2009. 29. Sutin, Angelina R, Yannick Stephan, and Antonio Terraciano. “Weight Discrimination and Risk of Mortality.” Psychological Science, 26 Nov. 2015.

There's my "proof." Where is yours?

[fullgossip]

The Benefits of Keto: How Eating the Right Foods Can Change Your Life

The Benefits of Keto: How Eating the Right Foods Can Change Your Life is a comprehensive guide to the keto diet, a dietary approach that has been gaining popularity in recent years. In this book, you will learn about the basics of the keto diet, including its macronutrient ratios and the science behind how the diet works.

But this book is about much more than just the basics of the keto diet. It explores the many benefits of the keto diet for weight loss, cardiovascular health, blood sugar and insulin levels, brain health, and more. Each chapter is dedicated to a different aspect of the keto diet and its impact on overall health and well-being.

Chapter 1 explores the basics of the keto diet and how it works, including the macronutrient ratios that are required to achieve ketosis. This chapter provides a solid foundation for understanding the rest of the book and the science behind the keto diet.

Chapter 2 delves into the many benefits of the keto diet for cardiovascular health. By promoting the consumption of healthy fats and reducing the intake of carbohydrates, the keto diet can lead to improvements in cholesterol levels, reduced inflammation, and a lower risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease.

Chapter 3 explores the effectiveness of the keto diet for weight loss. By reducing overall calorie intake, promoting the consumption of healthy fats and moderate amounts of protein, and promoting the breakdown of stored body fat for fuel, the keto diet can lead to greater weight loss and improved overall health and well-being.

Chapter 4 delves into the impact of the keto diet on blood sugar and insulin levels. By reducing carbohydrate intake and promoting the breakdown of stored body fat for fuel, the keto diet can improve insulin sensitivity and reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes.

Chapter 5 explores the many benefits of the keto diet for brain health. By promoting the production of ketones for energy, the keto diet can improve cognitive function, provide neuroprotection, and be beneficial for people with certain neurological conditions.

Chapter 6 separates fact from fiction when it comes to common myths and misconceptions about the keto diet. This chapter explores some of the most common myths and misconceptions about the diet and provides evidence-based information to help readers make informed decisions about the keto diet.

The Benefits of Keto: How Eating the Right Foods Can Change Your Life is a comprehensive guide to the keto diet and its many health benefits. Whether you are interested in losing weight, improving cardiovascular health, or promoting overall health and well-being, this book provides evidence-based information and practical advice to help you achieve your goals. By following a balanced and sustainable approach, the keto diet can be a safe and effective way to achieve improved overall health and well-being.

Free download , no email required.

[writtenbymoonflower]

Hi there I was wondering if you would be comfortable writing a poly!maurauders x reader where the reader struggles with an eating disorder. Like she is from a pure blood family and it was a bad habit she picked up. I totally understand if you wouldn’t want to write something like that however!

hi lovely! thank you for requesting, i hope this is okay

cw: general discussion of ed struggles and thoughts (including restriction, binging, and purging, not detailed), swearing, sexual joke implying rough play (towards the end)

1k words

You weren’t sure how long you had been in the kitchen for, but it started to feel like an excessive amount of time. You stared into the cupboards, scanning the shelves for something to eat. Both everything and nothing was appetizing. You would then give up, sighing in disdain before repeating the same process with the fridge, then the freezer, then back to the cupboards, then the freezer again to make sure-

The door opened, a bag dropped, shoes squeaked against the hardwood floors. 

“Hey, angel!” James barrelled into the kitchen. You turned towards him so he could embrace you. 

“Hey, Jamie. You’re back early.” He looked at you questioningly, cutting his eyes to the oven clock. 

Shit! It had been that long? 

“Oh wow!” You laughed uncomfortably. “I must’ve lost track of time.” You shrugged as Sirius slid into the kitchen, patting your ass as he walked past. You turned your now-warm face in his direction. He opened the cupboard, immediately finding a snack and eating with ease. It made you jealous to see the boys eat with so much levity. They never denied their cravings in favor of something smaller, or even nothing at all. They never stared a hole into every nutrition label, wondering how days of food would have to be restricted to compensate, or how many steps would have to be taken to burn every bite off, or how easy it would come back up. They never wallowed in hunger for hours, or ate to the point of pain. Their moral value had never been questioned based off of the food they chose to eat (or not eat). You must’ve been staring in wonder for a long time, because Sirius had quirked a dark brow at you. 

“You checking me out, babydoll?” He teased. You shook your flaming face, looking away from him and mumbling an apology. The quick motion had you seeing spots though, and you brought a hand to your head in hopes of steadying yourself. 

“Shit, sweetheart.” James grabbed your face, looking you over for any visible injuries. 

“Sorry, I just got a bit lightheaded.” This called the two boys to alert fast. 

“Yeah, baby?” Sirius asked carefully. He crooked a finger at you, beckoning you over while James quickly went to get you some water. He felt your face, which was now cold, he scrunched his brows in concern. He moved his hands to your hips, hoping that would keep you steady. You took the water from James, noticing the pinkish hue.

“It’s electrolytes. It will taste good I promise.” He reassured. The taste wasn’t what you were worried about. “When did you last eat, angel?” That was the dreaded question. You struggled through the dense fog of memory. 

“Umm, me and Remus ate together earlier. I’m not sure when, though.” You did remember exactly what you had eaten, though. With a little too much clarity for comfort. Like magic, Remus appeared, holding three empty mugs of tea. 

“What are you gossiping about me for?” His voice would seem monotone to most, but you could hear the humor in it. 

“Remus, love,” James asked gently. “When did you and Y/N eat?” 

“We had a late breakfast after you two left today.” He responded suspiciously. You winced. It hadn’t felt like that long ago. The time it took for Remus to understand the situation was very little. 

“Did you forget to eat today, honey?” James’ anxiety was evident. You could tell he was hoping it was forgetfulness, as opposed to the other possibility. 

“Yeah. I tried to find something a while ago but nothing looked good.” They knew you got like this. Too much choice, nothing made the voice inside your head happy. 

“That’s okay.” James’ hand was rubbing a soothing path up and down your arm. “I haven’t had dinner yet, we can find something together.” He pressed his lips to your forehead before turning to the other two in the room. “Have you two eaten yet?” 

“Not since lunch, no.” Remus slipped back out of the room. 

“I mean, I could always eat.” Sirius said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Remus returned, carrying upwards of ten bars of chocolate. 

“Have some of this, dovey.” Remus picked out your favorite, starting to break it into chunks for you. 

“Rem, it’s okay.” You panicked. Your brain was screaming, both in want for food and in rejection. “I don’t need it.” 

“Sure you do.” He said, nonchalant. You picked up a bar of chocolate, flipping the package over. You didn’t have a chance to look before James took it from you. 

“Baby!” He laughed in disbelief. “I can’t believe you thought we would let you do that.” He was right. Since the boys picked up on your issues, they always tried to hide these things from you. Bottles would be handed with the label facing away from you, they would read items off of the menu at restaurants, hoping you wouldn’t look yourself, and the scale in the bathroom had strangely disappeared. Something that apparently Sirius ‘didn’t even notice, dolly, that’s funny.’

“Here, open up.” Sirius grabbed a square of chocolate from Remus’ stash. “Say, ahh.” He teased. 

“Siri,” You laughed. “I don’t need you to feed me.” 

“So? I want to. Stop being so selfish.” You let him place the chocolate in your mouth, rolling your eyes at him. He apparently took great offense to your attitude, deciding to worm his fingers into your waist in revenge. You tried desperately to bat his hands away. 

“Careful, pads.” James tried to scold, obvious humor and affection slipping into his tone. “You’ll make her choke.” Sirius grunted in disdain. 

“I guess you’re right.” Sirius kissed you, mouth still full of chocolate. You pulled away, dizzied to chug water.

“Thought that choking was my job.” Remus said casually. You nearly spit your water out.

[sinybird]

MİDHEALT - PLATİN (2)

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[thedomesticanthropologist]

Astarion never felt full. Vampires tend not to, unending blood thirst being a well known aspect of their condition, but he wasn't JUST hungry due to his condition

He was starved. Then, through "food", he was tortured.

You cannot die from being starved when you are undead. Starvation cannot kill a corpse. We see this in his year of isolation. We see this in the 7000 Spawn locked in the dungeons without a drop of blood fed to a single one of them since their capture.

What Astarion WAS fed, was putrid rats and bugs. Lets stsrt with the rats. Putrid.

"Putrid" refers to something that is decomposed, rotten, or emitting a foul and unpleasant odor. It is often used to describe decaying organic matter or anything that has undergone significant deterioration.

This would have taken effort to produce on Cazadors part. Rats are easy to come by, with his labyrinthine temple beneath an expansive estate. To gather a rat is an easy thing. He has many servants. To gather a putrid, rotten animal is another. This would require gathering the animals via trap, letting them rot for days, and then providing them to Astarion. They could have been caught in droves, or a few at a time and laid out in the kitchens or pantries or within the closets to be gathered as a treat-meets-torment for the Spawn, but it required FORETHOUGHT and TIME. Animals do not /rot/ in a day.

Then there is bugs. The type of bug you'd expect to find within the kennels of the mansion would be your fairly typical selection of Ants, Spiders, Beetles, Flies, Silverfish, Mosquitoes, Centipedes, Cockroaches.

Each of these has up to a few MICRO LITRES of blood, which would be accessed by biting them and sucking on their entire corpse until you've got what you can get out of them. the amount of blood in these small insects is typically not enough for a human to taste. Vampire Spawn? Hard to say.

The feeding of these creatures to Cazadors Spawn would be for the purpose of torture alone, in my opinion. There is no way that they would provide relief or sustenance in any meaningful way. The rats, depending on their freshness (which I would argue was sometimes more or less fresh depending on when it was caught) would be the primary source of "reward/hunger suppression", and the bugs something eaten due to sheer desperation.

Let's look at rats and decomp now!

The blood of a decomposing rat undergoes changes as part of the decomposition process. Initially, bacterial and enzymatic activity breaks down the blood, and its nutritional content diminishes. The precise timing can vary based on environmental conditions, such as temperature and humidity.

As decomposition progresses, the breakdown of organic matter continues, and any remaining nutrients in the blood become less accessible and less nutritious. It's challenging to pinpoint an exact timeframe, as it depends on various factors influencing the decomposition rate.

This means that if served a particularly rotten rat, Astarion could very well face the reality of its poisoned, rotten blood providing him with NOTHING beyond disgusting flavor. Keeping in mind this is all based on guesswork about how Vampire Spawn can obtain what they need to sustain themselves based on nutrition alone, when there's evidence its also *life force* that they absorb from their victims, which also would not be available in a dead victim/animal

And then suddenly, after 200 years of this, 200 years of having to fuck the food he cannot have, pressing his face against flesh that throbs and POUNDS underneath his touch from him administering pleasure that sets his targets hearts to THUDDING, veins pushing litres of sustenance through them in ways he would be incredibly attuned to but unable to access,

After 200 years of rotten, unsustainable dead blood

He's free. Surrounded by living animals- that boar, which he drained dry in one night, for example. Total blood volume of a swine (couldn't get boar on Google, but it's comparative) is 60 ml/kg or 6.0 % of total body weight. The average weight being from 60kg-100kg depending on sex and size. So let's say he drained a 75kg boar.

That means the night he snuck off, he exanguinated (completely drained) an animal of roughly 9 POUNDS OF BLOOD

Impressive

Let's go to the Bear, now. Cave bears are actually extinct, so I'm gonna go with grizzly bear but feel free to do your own math. He took down between 130kg-270kg of bear depending on its sex. Let's say 200kg for ease. As roughly 6%-8% of any mammal is its blood, I'm gonna use the Boar 6% from before to average the blood Astarion would have drank.

Total in pounds: 26.455

HE DRANK

26 POUNDS OF BLOOD FROM ONE ANIMAL IN ONE NIGHT

All my research on these numbers is from Google and a calculator so forgive me if I'm off. But I'd say this is evidence of binging after starvation, as well as solid evidence that Vampires absorb blood differently than humans drinking fluids, so I'd HAVE to assume it evaporates within him or is consumed in its entirety and converted to energy magically cause there's NO way a body could absorb all of that and just "get drunk"

Anyways thanks for coming to my Ted Talk about vampires, Astarion, starvation, and blood volumes in your average mammal. 🫡

[ms-demeanor]

Look I was always annoying but my primary pathway to being annoying on the internet involved reading the entire back catalog of science based medicine after getting diagnosed with celiac disease and food allergies and getting a bunch of fucking *bullshit* woo woo pseudoscience crap thrown at me when I was trying to find evidence-based ways to make myself less sick.

It was *medical woo specifically* that pointed me to online skeptical and rationalist communities that I'd never bothered looking for because I was raised by annoying skeptics and didn't need the online community until I hit a wall of bullshit cures and the fucking Wheat Belly book.

I am Extremely Not Chill about medical woo and I'm often able to maintain a polite, enthusiastic, considerate tone when talking about nutrition but I am not capable of keeping that up to dismiss yeast overgrowth or the china diet or Dr. Oz. Those are not things that I feel it is reasonable to calmly and patiently dissect because they are bullshit and they do tangible harm to people.

I try hard to not directly be an asshole to people who accidentally bring up topics that I go nuclear about, and I don't want people being assholes on my behalf, but also i hate the candida overgrowth woo community so fucking much and if it's something that you've found yourself believing I'm probably not someone you're going to listen to about it, but I'd strongly recommend trying to find some evidence based sources to read on the topic and I'd strongly suggest burning any books you come across with the name "Mercola" on the spine.

[transmutationisms]

any thoughts on the obsession with "hyperprocessed foods"? is there even such a thing and if so how much of the stuff around it is fake?

such a flawed useless categorisation lmao; this phrase comes from the nova scale, according to which an "ultra-processed food" is identified by a lack of sufficient "intact" food and the presence of "sources of energy and nutrients not normally used in culinary preparations" and additives specifically "used to initate or enhance the sensory qualities of food or to disguise unplatable aspects of the final product" (other additives, such as preservatives, antioxidants, and stabilisers, only qualify a food as group 3, "processed"). ultra-processing is defined as "a multitude of sequences of processing [...] includ[ing] several with no domestic equivalents," and ultra-processed foods are "usually packaged attractively and marketed intensely."

......so ok, first of all, this is very obviously reliant on a lot of assumptions about what 'normal' cooking and cooking equipment means, lmao. i do all kinds of shit in the kitchen that would have been inaccessible to someone in the mid nineteenth century; has the food become 'less processed' because i can make it at home now? if i obtained the equipment to hydrogenate oils myself would they magically not be ultra-processed simply because they came from my kitchen and not from an industrial setting?

this is just quasi-scientific language to express a fundamental distrust of food produced in ways that currently can't be replicated in [researchers' definitions of] a [normal] home kitchen. it's barely more sophisticated than platitudes like michael pollan's command to "eat only foods your grandmother would recognise". using the nova classifications to make assumptions about the healthfulness or danger of a food is just silly; the presumption is that the dietary and medical effects are not due to the food itself but to how it's produced, an idea that has led researchers to conclude that "the NOVA system suffers from a lack of biological plausibility so the assertion that ultra-processed foods are intrinsically unhealthful is largely unproven."

fundamentally the only evidence that nutritional scientists have been able to produce is observational studies showing a correlation between certain ill health outcomes and consumption of 'ultra-processed food'.

But the observational studies also have limitations, said Lauren O’Connor, a nutrition scientist and epidemiologist who formerly worked at the Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health. It’s true that there is a correlation between these foods and chronic diseases, she said, but that doesn’t mean that UPFs directly cause poor health.

Dr. O’Connor questioned whether it’s helpful to group such “starkly different” foods — like Twinkies and breakfast cereals — into one category.

[...]

Clinical trials are needed to test if UPFs directly cause health problems, Dr. O’Connor said. Only one such study, which was small and had some limitations, has been done, she said.

ie, when evaluating the healthfulness of foods you have to actually look at what they are and what the human body does with them, and not just make a bunch of wild assumptions based on fears about their lack of proximity to 'naturalness' or propensity to be advertised (unlike, i guess, other more intact foods, which are not commodities. who knew!)

and there are like a million trillion other reasons why this correlation might hold: off the top of my head, for instance, people who rely more on the convenience of ready-made foods likely to be categorised as 'ultra-processed' are likely to be people who can't cook because they don't have time because they're working. so as usual nutrition and health science does a dogshit job distinguishing between the health effects of socioeconomic status and those of whatever some dickwad wants to publish a splashy study about.

there are certainly 'ultra-processed' foods that we can be extremely confident are harmful to human health---for example, trans fats. but the categorisation as a whole is so conceptually flawed as to be useless for any purpose besides as a term that 'scientises' culturally held beliefs about the wholesomeness and healthfulness of home food preparation, and the corresponding danger and artificiality of industrial production and methods.

[kiefbowl]

I was reading an opinion piece on Kate Middleton's cancer diagnosis on CNN by Jamal Baig about the increasing rates of cancer in patients under 50. As far as 5 minutes of googling and JSTORing can lend me to believe, there's nothing illegitimate about Dr. Baig. However, I found this bit in his opinion interesting:

Now, I'm always dubious when reading anything that attributes a very broad generalized idea that changes in diets have caused an increased in cancer, because more often than not it's not pointing to an exploration of, say, increased pesticide use, but the author's personal bias against the quote unquote "unhealthy", especially those who are deemed "fat" by the medical industry.

That being said, I was curious what source he linked, half expecting it to lead to just another op-ed from some other doctor from who knows when, but I was pleasantly surprised! Written by a man named Michael Donaldson, it was an evidentiary review published in a scientific journal called "Nutrition and cancer: A review of the evidence for an anti-cancer diet."

Now I wasn't going to give the whole thing a read, but I stopped in each section, gave a quick skim to get a general vibe, moved on to the next section, etc. I was immediately suspicious that the very first line in the abstract was "It has been estimated that 30–40 percent of all cancers can be prevented by lifestyle and dietary measures alone" as that seems to be a bananas statistic to just posit, but it still had the air of scientific integrity, so I did my skim.

The first handful of sections had things that gave me some moments of pause, that this article was in fact another doctor simply cherry picking data to confirm his own biases, but nothing so egregious as to do a spit take. That comes in a few minutes. The first section that made really go hold the phone was when we got to his Flax Seed section.

Compare how he writes about Red Meat...:

(that's all he wrote, btw)

...with how he starts writing about Flax Seed:

Did I just enter a Flax Seed commercial? Does this guy work for BIG FLAX SEED? on and on he writes about Flax Seed, and I start getting a sense that perhaps this man has a Flax Seed Agenda. In any case, he eventually moves on and I quickly skim to get to the end (because it's boring among other things).

So, who exactly is Michael Donaldson?

Girl are you kidding me

The Hallelujah Acres Foundation is a FOR PROFIT company that sells a """biblical""" based diet program called the hallelujah diet and also sells supplements on said site.

Now, in case you forgot where I started with this, this was the link provided as a "source" to a legitimate doctor's claim in an op-ed about cancer that "at least part of the answer" of why cancer is increasing in under 50 patients are the "changes to nutrition and lifestyle that took hold in middle of the last century." Dr. Baig did not read this article, or if he did was not concerned that it was written by the employee of a company that profits from unscientific research it uses to sell supplements and diets. Which is worse, I don't know.

The point I'm making is that you absolutely need to be vigilant all the time. You need to understand that doctors can not only have biases, but agendas. Researchers can have biases and agendas. Scientists can have biases and agendas. And that magical thinking about real health issues that can affect your future can permeate the scientific community because weirdos write convincing enough evidence that support their already determined world view.

This kind of shit is the reason why women go into doctor offices complaining about pain in their abdomen and get told to go lose weight and come back in 6 months. This is why ideas like moralizing eating have huge effects on women's health and influence medical misogyny, and why it's a feminist issue.

[zaryathelaika]

What Is Folklore Husbandry? (YouTube Interview w/ Kevin Arbuckle)

This hour-long-and-30 minutes podcast episode has automatic captions. Did contact Liam [archive.today] about outsourcing captioning jobs to his own community via Amara or YouTube Studio or within his own Discord. Who knows if he will follow up. (To be honest, all podcast episodes need transcripts [Wayback Machine].)

The paper in question is:

Arbuckle, Kevin. "Folklore husbandry and a philosophical model for the design of captive management regimes" [PDF, 396 kb]. Herpetological Review 44 (2013): 448-452. Retrieved April 3, 2023. Archived from the original on April 4, 2023 via Wayback Machine.

Person is not related Jon Arbuckle, who made the amazing scientific breakthrough of keeping a cat alive for 44 years with an alternative diet.

The podcast episode itself is interesting because there is a lot of resistance towards evidence-based science in herpetoculture. I remember when commercial breeders started accusing a university student of being an animal-rights activist because he had access to the PDF files, which was absurd because the person works within the oil-industry conducting geological surveys for corporations operating tar-sands in northern Alberta which is notorious for destruction of wildlife, particularly migratory birds such as ducks and geese. The communal bickering was an absolute nightmare.

Earlier last year, I was considering getting a crocodile skink (Tribolonotus gracilis), a colony of emerald tree skink (Lamprolepis smaragdina), a tegu, a Vietnamese blue beauty snake (Orthriophis taeniurus callicyanous) or a pair of tree monitor (Hapturosaurus sp.) But ultimately ended up deciding against acquiring another reptile because a lot of hobby-breeders and hobby-keepers still place industrial breeders on a pedestal and "preservation through commercialization" still persists as a dominant ideology.

And folks refusing to question capitalism or not understanding the exploitation of the pet trade don't jive well with me. There is a lot of similar hostility in dog-world amongst hobby-breeders towards evidence-based medicine, nutrition, sports, training etc in dog-world. But as Kevin said, there is use in personal experience and inherited knowledge from folklore husbandry. The problem is when anecdotes clash with data. Actually having that issue with dog-training right now with folks projecting their emotions onto a puppy who doesn't have the toolkit to communicate with humans effectively. And people don't like it when you tell them to back off the dog. With the last dog, rearing him was easier while living with someone who understand the science behind dog-training. So, that's why I thought the podcast episode was worth sharing.

Other important papers of note from this fellow:

Arbuckle, Kevin. "Influence of diet on mineral composition of crickets used as prey for captive amphibians, specifically Hylidae" [PDF, 628 kb]. Master of Science), University of Glasgow (2009). Archived from the original on March 25, 2021.

Arbuckle, Kevin. "Suitability of day‐old chicks as food for captive snakes" [PDF, 344 kb]. Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition 94, no. 6 (2010): e296-e307. Retrieved April 3, 2023. Archived from the original on May 26, 2021.

Slight, Dean J., Hazel J. Nichols, and Kevin Arbuckle. "Are mixed diets beneficial for the welfare of captive axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum)? Effects of feeding regimes on growth and behavior" [PDF, 520 kb]. Journal of Veterinary Behavior 10, no. 2 (2015): 185-190. Retrieved April 3, 2023. Archived from the original on April 4, 2023 via Wayback Machine.

[inclosedwalldelusion]

40 sentences that will teach you more about nutrition than a $400,000 medical degree

From Brett Boettcher @brettboettcher1

40 sentences that will teach you more about nutrition than a $400,000 medical degree.

1) Meat, eggs and animal organs are the most nutrient dense foods on the planet.

2) Bone broth is loaded in collagen and helps repair the gut so you can heal from the inside out.

3) Saturated fat doesn’t cause heart disease, insulin resistance does.

4) Your ratio of triglycerides to HDL is a great indicator of mortality risk; the lower the better. ·

5) Protein is the most metabolically active macronutrient and it isn’t bad for your kidneys.

6) There isn’t quality evidence to show that dietary cholesterol impacts the cholesterol in your blood. ·

7) There is even less evidence to support that total cholesterol is bad for your health since it is inversely correlated to mortality risk. · 4h 8) Walking before and after meals is a great way to improve digestion and reduce blood sugar spikes.

9) Fiber is the last thing you need if you have IBS or diverticulitis.

10) Dairy is great for your health and its saturated fat intake is inversely correlated to heart disease.

11) Most nutritional recommendations were introduced based on profit margins, not health outcomes.

12) Calories in and calories out is all that matter, but some calories make you hungrier (sugar/grains). Other calories (protein) help you burn more calories.

13) Multi grain just means they took 2+ different terrible sources of grain and put them together into one product.

14) Cereal and bread for breakfast will spike your blood sugar and have you starving before lunch. Try Greek yogurt or eggs instead. ·

15) “Intuitive eating” and “listen to your body” makes no sense considering 88% of people are metabolically unhealthy and addicted to food. No one would say “intuitive crack use.”

16) Eating is a stress on your body; The less often you can eat, the healthier you’ll be.

17) Plan your meals around the protein source (with its natural fat) and add a small side of carbs if needed.

18) Eating for satiety is more important than relying constantly on willpower. Find filling foods and avoid foods with addictive properties (ultra-processed).

19) You don’t have to know how to cook. Grill a meat, sauté a green vegetable, bake a potato. Mix and match a million ways.

20) Eating many of the same foods every week isn’t perfectly optimal but it’s likely your best path to consistency and therefore success. ·

21) Becoming more insulin sensitive should be the focus of any health-related nutrition plan.

22) Salad dressings are one of the worst things you can eat for your health. High in calories and inflammatory industrial oils.

23) Eating 5x per day won’t boost your metabolism. If you are trying to gain weight, it’s an excellent strategy.

24) Bacon can be healthy, just avoid the processing with nitrates.

25) Cottage cheese and Greek yogurt are two of the best sources of protein per calorie.

26) Carbs are beneficial around a workout. But many sources of carbs are processed and easily overeaten. Focus on single ingredient foods.

27) You can’t be healthy at any size no matter what your mother or liberal arts professor said.

28) Eat a high protein meal before attending social events that are filled with junk food.

29) If eating out, order the food with the highest protein content.

30) The #1 reason people fail is that they don’t prepare. Meal prep, meal plan, have ready to eat protein sources. · 31) The food you eat directly impacts your mental health and processed foods are correlated with depression and mental illness.

32) Processed foods have been engineered to be as addicting as possible. Your taste buds can be retrained with natural sources.

33) “Plant-based” foods are made in laboratories and are an easy way to sell overpriced junk to consumers at high margin.

34) Eating 1 gram of protein per lb of ideal body weight daily will do more for your body composition than spending 30 minutes on the treadmill.

35) When in doubt, if it comes from the center aisles of the grocery store or has more than 3 ingredients, it’s not good for you.

36) Many foods labeled as “keto” “paleo” or “high protein” are far from meeting the intended definition.

37) Your gut is responsible for 70% of your immune system; feeding it sugar and other inflammatory foods is making you sick now and later.

38) Genetics play a role but over 90% of the country has a resting metabolism within 500 calories daily. Being fit is possible for everyone.

39) Flipping the food pyramid upside down is closer to healthy eating than the traditional suggestions.

40) Eliminating drinking your calories is the first change to make when trying to improve your health.

[fatliberation]

oh wow im really interested about your review of glp-1 agonists study. can't waut to read it if you ever publish it!

also have you seen those studies about calorie deficit prolonging life in mice? i'vr been thinking for a while what to say to people that bring it up besides obvious "we are not mice and our metabolism is different, etc." i wonder if you have any thoughts on this topic

Thank you, it's basically one big summary of all of the studies I've been referencing on this blog but in formal paper mode! I will let y'all know when it's up on my ko-fi soon.

So, I just did some reading and the evidence for calorie restriction prolonging lifespan is not very strong, even in mice, so it's definitely not something that a human (or any other mammal) should take as fact. We also know that calorie restriction is the leading cause of eating disorders in humans and leads to weight cycling, which is linked to cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and altered immune function.

Some quotes I pulled from two separate mice studies:

"In summary, our initial belief that the rate of aging is directly proportional to caloric intake (with obvious limits at the higher and lower ends of the spectrum) has now been shown to be incorrect. DR (Dietary Restriction) works through a variety of mechanisms, as evidenced by the fact that its pro longevity and pro health effects vary based on several modifiable study design factors including: the diet composition, age of onset, feeding regimens, and genetics and sex of the organism. The fact that nutrition influences aging in many animal models is nevertheless valuable, and given our incomplete understanding of aging itself, it continues to provide an avenue of investigation that is not even close to reaching its full potential."

"Despite repeated claims in the literature implying that ER (Energy Restriction) extends the life span of virtually all species (3), there is considerable evidence that this effect is not universal. ...In cohorts of mice derived from wild-caught ancestors, Harper et al. (7) did not observe a significant extension of life span following ER. Notably, the effect of ER on longevity of different strains of inbred mice is also selective. For instance, whereas the life spans of C57BL/6 and B6D2F1 mice are extended by ∼25–30% in response to a 40% decrease in energy intake, the same regimen has no demonstrable effect on the longevity of DBA/2 mice (8), suggesting that genetic background is a factor in determining the longevity extension effect of ER."

[m1ckeyb3rry]

Nagi's butt.

you know this is only tangentially related but it reminded me that something i’ve always found funny is that everyone finds it super unrealistic that nagi has really defined muscles but based on what we know about him it actually makes sense for him to look that way because muscle DEFINITION is more related to body fat percentage than anything. so like that’s why body builders go on cycles of bulking/cutting and why they’re often very hefty looking most of the time — in order to build muscle at that pace, you have to eat a shit ton of food or else your body will actually burn your muscles for energy as well as fat, so they’ll bulk in order to have enough calories to lift heavy, and then when they want to look aesthetic (ex for competitions) they’ll cut their food intake so that their body fat percentage rapidly drops and the muscles that they’ve built become visible!! this is especially true for abs LMAOO back in high school my best friend competed in gymnastics nationally and also rode horses but she never had incredibly visible abs. meanwhile my younger brother literally just runs cross country and his abs are crazy despite the fact that he never trains them but it’s literally because his body fat percentage is so low that they’re always visible — this is why exercises designed to target your abs to make your waist narrower or give you a six pack do not really work and are the cause of many people giving up on exercising (although i always say health benefits >>> aesthetics but eh everyone has their reasons)

anyways so given nagi’s general dissatisfaction with eating he probably has a CRAZY low body fat percentage (likely too low to even maintain his body weight until reo/bllk/chris prince intervened) which means whatever muscles he does have will be incredibly visible as there’s literally nothing to cover them. this is actually kinda evident in the earlier parts of the manga — if you compare second selection-era nagi with, say, reo, zantetsu, or karasu (since i know off the top of my head that we have shirtless panels of all three of them either from the main manga or epinagi and they’re in a similar height range — isagi/chigiri are much smaller so they don’t serve as good comparisons and kunigami/barou are on a diff level entirely LMAOO) at around the same time, you’ll see that each individual muscle of nagi’s is more defined, but all three of the formerly mentioned characters are broader and have bigger chests/biceps/thighs than nagi does as they all likely eat more than he does in a day. this difference is mitigated as the series goes on and nagi is probably forced to gets a better nutrition plan as well as exercises a lot more but uhhh yeah. actually idrk what the point of all of that was pretend i said smth profound 😭

ANWAYS yeah he def gets his squat reps in 🙂‍↕️ he looks so good in the manshine kit that i can almost forgive the british for everything they’ve done to my ancestors