Aaah, this is the kind of progress (#1599758) I can get behind: via negativa; addition by subtraction #1540851
Dude comes to terms with his extensive and unfortunately mostly useless supplementation regimen.
He had a pretty good test/method:
I reasoned that though we can’t be absolutely sure, a supplement was, on balance, likely worth taking if three things held. First, we have a plausible evolutionary story about how we originally evolved in an environment with more of it, and our modern diets do not. Second, there is a logical, not obviously disputed, story about how it works. Third, the balance of evidence suggests that consuming the nutrient at least correlates with good health, and ideally well-designed trials show that it actually causes good health.
His problem?
I didn’t really believe in all the supplements I was taking – I just treasured the esoteric dietary knowledge, like a kind of modern-day druid
= It was all confirmation bias
food obsessiveness. I’m afraid that I was a pathologically, distressingly fussy child who would eat only a handful of plain foods. As a teenager, I forwent artificial colorings and flavorings completely, to an extent that made people think (rightly) that I was a freak. For years, I ate only during a six-hour window between 2pm and 8pm. At other times, I have obsessively counted calories, or completely avoided carbs. Currently, I just eat a lot of fiber. I follow dietary fads like I am constantly switching religions
Also, there's a "science" problem at the heart of this:
My feeling had always been that we could still draw conclusions if we had a big enough pile of papers. But now I have come to believe that something like 90 percent of research is nearly valueless.
"Another perhaps equally big problem is that most science is nearly useless."
Loving the game, not the play
This complexity was a great deal of what made the whole thing so enjoyable, akin to being into a fandom like Warhammer with a lot of lore, or a sport like baseball with very rich statistics.
This isn’t to say that there are never beneficial supplements for normal omnivores, but I am now suitably chastened.
Yes, at 66° N we stopped making vitamin D from the admittedly scant sunlight about a month ago. So yeah, I supplement that, for sure: usually via cod liver oil (or more pleasantly via gummy bears). I also occasionally take some magnesium — I fall in and out of this practice — again on some pretty flimsy evidence that it's good for muscle recovery, sleep, and most importantly, preventing migraines.
I refer you to the main rule above: science knows almost nothing about the world, and certainly nutrition.
What kind of nightmares do you have?
As for his article, it’s fun for him to jump on the bandwagon once in a while even if he doesn’t quite believe what he is doing
Nightmares??
my longsightedness is affecting more than I thought. I read migraines and my brain took it to be nightmares haha
Oh, haha. oops!!
I was so confused... Did I discuss nightmares? What, is there a well-known connection between magnesium and nightmares I'm not aware of??
I've long been of the opinion that the bigger problem is what people think science says vs what it actually says
The science is not useless, but it isn't the end-all-be-all evidence that some people seem to attribute to it. Then when they realize that science results have nuance, they overreact and say it's useless
true that... and also, in the distilling of science, journalists usually
a) take an extreme, non-representative "new" result
b) and draw the wrong conclusions from it (e.g., meat or wine is cancer-causing)
...and the unsuspecting reasonable reader goes "oh, I suppose that's what the science says; let's cancel the wine order, honey"
the 37% secretary rule is a good example
the model has real insights regarding tradeoffs in information gathering
but the mainstream explanation ignores the nuance and goes for the big headline, leading to a total misunderstanding of the purpose of the result
His test is very similar to my own thinking about most health things:
The only two supplements that consistently survive that for me are Vitamin D in the winter and B-12. And, I'm still not sure about either. How much D can we actually store? Are there ways to continue producing it further into the winter or begin earlier in the spring? Can we eat enough fermented foods to get sufficient B-12? How much can be produced by our own microbiome? etc.
Not that worried about B-12 (should I be?) given the amount of meat and organ food I eat.
As for D, it definitely depends on your lifestyle and where you love. Quite a lot of Icelanders go to Spain/Canary islands for a week or two in deep winter. That could quite plausibly patch you over until April
B-12 comes from bacteria, not meat. Our optimal levels are way beyond what you can get from a diet of cooked (or even sanitary) foods. Basically, this is an issue of our bodies being adapted to consuming lots of rotting foods, which we don't do anymore (for overwhelmingly good reasons).
...speak for yourself. I don't mind myself some rot now and again!
I doubt it's at prehistorical levels, though. Optimal B-12 intake is something like 100x modern levels.
I take magnesium before bed and I get much better sleep at night. I’m a love hate guy when it comes to supplements with social media and now AI you can be convinced to take just about anything to better your health. The marketing is brilliant take this whatever and improve your health! Almost like Bitcoiners falling for the carnivore only diet which I always found laughable.
... -.-
do you hear me laughing?
Most supplements are a pure con.
Playing on peoples natural desire for health and an easy fix.
There is no easy fix- just a good healthy diet and exercise.
Fish oil is one of the exceptions which is worth taking sometimes.
This argues we often misjudge supplements as essential. If you enjoy this kind of thing, our little ~food_and_drinks would love it.