[HN Gopher] Chronic inflammation may be a "disease of affluence"
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       Chronic inflammation may be a "disease of affluence"
        
       Author : PaulHoule
       Score  : 25 points
       Date   : 2024-01-22 19:20 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (bigthink.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (bigthink.com)
        
       | mensetmanusman wrote:
       | It seems like the hygiene hypothesis is true... I wonder how long
       | before patches that replace allergy shots exist to fix us :)
        
       | markstos wrote:
       | The other thing correlates with Western affluence is our diet
       | that's much heavier in animal products. The Standard American
       | Diet: SAD.
       | 
       | The diet of the Blue Zones where people live longest are mostly
       | plant-based.
        
         | extasia wrote:
         | Do you believe that meat consumption is the prime causal
         | factor?
        
         | firecall wrote:
         | Wasn't there something linked on HN the other day that pointed
         | out what nonsense the Blue Zones are?
         | 
         | No validate scientific evidence, blue zones are areas with bad
         | record keeping and no birth certificates etc...
        
         | xhkkffbf wrote:
         | Mostly plant-based? This is kind of wishful thinking. Okinawa,
         | for instance, eats plenty of fish. The Greeks and the Italians
         | eat plenty of fish, meat and cheese.
         | 
         | The poorest countries have the greatest percentage of plant-
         | based food and, no surprise, they also have the shortest
         | lifespans. The reality is that the phrase "plant-based" is now
         | a buzzword replacement for "vegetarian" and it has more
         | political meaning than any real connection to health or
         | nutrition. Hostess Twinkees, Hohos, Ring Dings, etc. are all
         | very good examples of plant-based food.
        
       | teslabox wrote:
       | > research [] conducted in the Philippines and Ecuador
       | 
       | These are tropical countries where coconuts are an evolutionary-
       | appropriate part of the food supply. Coconut oil is mostly
       | saturated, and is stable at human temperature. Western countries
       | switched to polyunsaturated "vegetable oil" as a dietary staple.
       | 
       | Sometime in the 1940's the paint industry figured out how to make
       | their paints and stains from petroleum distillates. Originally
       | the paint industry used linseed oil and soybean oil for most of
       | their products. The unsaturated components of polyunsaturated
       | seed oils combine spontaneously with the oxygen in the air to
       | form a hard film [0].
       | 
       | The paint industry essentially said, "farmers, thanks for your
       | products all these years, best of luck in your future endeavors."
       | The seed oil conglomerates [1] (ADM, et al) were screwed. Then
       | they realized they could just rebrand their products as
       | "vegetable oil". Ancel Keys was hired to convince people of the
       | hazard of saturated fats...
       | 
       | Omega-6 degrades to prosteglandins [2], which are molecules of
       | stress and inflammation [3]. Omega-3's are more unstable than
       | Omega-6 oils. IMHO, the o-3 / o-6 ratio doesn't really matter -
       | the most important thing to get inflammation under control is to
       | limit "vegetable oil" intake.
       | 
       | Olive Oil's okay, if it's genuine. Unfiltered olive oil is even
       | better. But wikipedia says the American Heart Association still
       | recommends getting your daily dose of inflammation precursors
       | [4]. Not impressed.
       | 
       | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drying_oil
       | 
       | [1] https://www.imarcgroup.com/vegetable-oil-manufacturers
       | 
       | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostaglandin
       | 
       | [3] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0334211100
       | 
       | [4]
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-6_fatty_acid#Health_effe...
        
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       (page generated 2024-01-22 23:01 UTC)