With my first cup of coffee of the morning, i'm drinking to the memory of Douglas Adams, the author of the Hitchhiker's Guide and Dirk Gently series of books. Though sciency-fictional, he presents an awful lot of practical truths for real life. My favorite is probably the concept of the SEP Field -- Somebody Else's Problem makes it easy for other people to ignore something that's really glaring....
Forty-Two, on the other hand, is the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. (The problem here is, the question ITSELF was never adequately defined.) Lots of ingenious questions whose answers equal 42 have been proposed. I just thought of a new one, while reading overnight tweets with my coffee.
FORTY-TWO is the minimum number of crucial lifestyle choices, leading to great health and tremendous fitness.
It's not gut-bugs, it's not early-to-bed-and-early-to-rise, it's not always burning fat for fuel, it's not always avoiding "high-reward" food. It's all those things ... plus a lot more.
We realize now that Ancel Keys was a self-important asshole with esteem issues, but all those people out there who are currently trying to carve a career by choosing ONE central concept as their signature FIX are treading dangerously near to his path. Becoming well-known on poorly-executed science will set you up for all kinds of reputation-wrecking down the road -- just look at Colin Campbell. ;-) Think how embarrassed some famous folks must be, when they have to back down from a pet cause because they found out too late that it was just plain WRONG.
We human beings like simple answers. We like short and snappy expressions of complex concepts, probably because having a firm understanding of ALL the laws of physics is much harder than parroting "conservation of energy/matter! SQWAAAAAK!"
But life is far from simple, and biology and biochemistry are far more detailed than we even know at this point. When I think of all the studies that haven't been done yet.... When we acknowledge that, though we put a man on the moon 45 years ago, we only are BEGINNING to understand the intricacies of leptin and glucagon, we have to admit that innerspace still holds an awful lot of mysteries.
Actually, Adams said 42 was intentionally just a simple, small, arbitrary number. No hidden meanings. LOL
ReplyDeleteoh, I certainly didn't assume he HAD "The Answer"....
DeleteIt still is a great answer to cease the endless chatter of folks "in the know".
ReplyDeleteyep! I answer "42" to a lot of questions and debates. ;-)
DeleteT. Colin Campbell didn't just do bad science, he's an out-and-out fraud. Fact checking his books shows that.
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be a wide difference in proponents of various diets and other therapies who have had the problems being addressed and/or have had to deal with patients, and those who haven't. The second group tends to repeat the latest memes without much regard to whether they work.
I should be the poster child for probiotics and gut bug restoration. I had GI problems and I've taken enough antibiotics in my life to fill a pharmacy. Yet healing my GI problems had nothing to do with probiotics or potato starch or fermented vegetables and everything to do with cutting out fruit and grains and going easy on all other carbohydrates. I can't remember hearing a lot of people say their stomach felt better for eating a lot of vegetation and bacteria. And the fact is, most people adopt a special diet to lose weight--yet the paleos are constantly harping on gut bugs. Maybe they want to be the next big thing or get a book out; I suspect they all just repeat what everyone else is saying because it's easier and they won't stand out if they're wrong.
Now that the microbiome has become "a thing" with mainstream writers, I see signs that the next one is circadian disruption. It affects EVERYTHING, from the point of view of one writer I actually respect ... and my dread is that he's going to become monomaniacal about it, as so many have with their favorite hypotheses.
DeleteIt IS so obvious, who has treated problems and who has merely "studied" them! The doctors who deal with patients and the patients who have gotten better don't usually need to talk about biochemistry to suggest something that WORKS. ;-)
Richard is a good example of a person who choose the wrong set of priorities and took feeding his gut bugs too seriously. I hope they are doing fine, unlike their host, even though he considers himself a success story. I think microbiote people mistook cause for effect.
DeleteNorm Robillard's hypothesis about GERD is that if you suffer from it, you have too many of the damned things.
DeleteLove your concern for Richard's bugs, Galina. LOL!
The discussion on the Hyperlipid prompted me to re-read the old post by Peter with the telling title "FIAF - Who's fat is it anyway?" http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2007/12/fiaf-whos-fat-is-it-anyway.html . It is during the resent discussion Richard Nicoley told that he started to think about his microbiote as dear pets who needed his care and special feeding with starches and fibers.
DeleteWas he drunk?
DeleteI take care of myself; my microbes are on their own. It's sort of an Ayn Rand approach to gut health.
Actually, he thought he either fed his "gut pets" or they would rebel and start eating him from inside out. Where is Stephen King ? Sounds scary enough to propel the poor guy toward a bottle, I guess.
DeleteBut if the bacteria can eat their host's flesh (I doubt it), why can't they eat meat instead of potato starch? And how would such live flesh-eating bacteria evolve--they'd destroy their host, wouldn't they? Your intestines would be ulcerated and bleeding. Even nasty viruses and illness-causing bacteria seldom kill their host. Yes, he ought to stop health blogging and start writing horror fiction instead.
Deleteyep, i think worrying that your microbiome will go rogue if you don't feed them what they want is on the borderline of alcoholic dementia ... or maybe his gut-bugs ARE in control of his brain! :-)
DeleteMaybe his gut-bugs are drunk AND in control of his brain.
DeleteCat parasites can control mice brains. May be our love for the plain tasting starches is also based on our microbiote preferences.
DeleteHi Tess
ReplyDeleteI think I have the answer!
Someone asked me today re. a bet about weight loss, what was my chosen charity. I stated my charity, should I win is 'Help the aged' as I only have a few days before joining the decrepit and one foot in the grave ones.
Jeez, sex, drugs and rock and roll has been my downfall. Take heed my friends, that kind of life is very shallow. But as shallow lives go, you could do worse.
Kind regards Eddie
We could do MUCH worse! :-) Well, the icons of classic R&R have set us a marvelous example, hobbling out onto the stage and then showing us that they STILL rock -- it would be cowardly of us to wimp out just because we're a little older too....
Delete......raising a glass to wish you and your family a Happy and Healthy New Year
ReplyDeleteAll the best Jan and Eddie
thank you both! :-) hope your new year's day was as good as ours -- our daughter and family came up from Texas, and it's been a whirlwind week!
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