

Nutrition Science Initiative launched - Hagelin
http://nusi.org

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boothead
If the independence from industry and focus on the scientific method can be
truly maintained then this can only be a good thing.

One comment, the board of directors seem pretty top heavy with "big pharma"
and VC/private equity types, which I find a bit hard to reconcile with the
non-profit and independence aims of nusi. Surely the whole thrust of an
organization like this is to promote health and this must be fundamentally
against the interests of drug companies. I'd certainly be interested to hear
what the board of directors hope to achive.

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tokenizer
As someone who has recently learned of a ketosis diet and a low carb approach
to this problem, it was pretty interesting when during this talk,
<http://youtu.be/FSeSTq-N4U4?t=32m10s>, when he mentions the diabetes booklet
given out by a pharmaceutical company which recommends low sugar foods. While
this seems like a good approach, the doctor in the video explains how this is
counter intuitive to combat diabetes, as a _as little sugar/starch as
possible_ diet is the correct approach. This booklet told people to have
fruits and starches but in moderation, when most of those foods they said was
fine, should be avoided entirely if possible.

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kafkaesque
What NuSi is doing sounds great.

I was vegetarian for 7 years, an omnivore for 1 when I started weight-lifting,
and after that I stopped weight-lifting and became a runner. It has been a
year and am training for my first half marathon.

Compared to 10 years ago, I feel there has been an increase on food data-
collecting and more rigorous scientific experiments that help build a database
of bad foods and good foods. And I feel what NuSi is doing can be a good thing
because it'll bring about talks and communication between big food
corporations and nutritionists, "food scientists", etc.

However, the dilemma for me comes when trying to change the rules of what
ingredients are allowed in foods (I'm thinking about the so-called 'soda pop
ban'). I feel certain things ought to be banned, such as trans
fats/hydrogenated oils. I think they are poisonous, but corporations, being as
they are, are reluctant to change this because using them are so cost-
effective and good for their pockets. To ban something that would decrease a
company's profit and force them to effectively increase their production cost
goes against their ideology.

I am optimistic that gradually we will see an improvement, but we are years
away from it, simply because changing large companies's mission for a higher
food standard brings about unwanted consequences for them, especially when
change is abrupt.

So, of course, we're getting the wrong advice. It is a chain of connections.
Some health advisers work for large companies and have their own agenda to
push. Other scientists and nutritionists do not have the means to fund big
experiments and collect more data.

My question is: who are these 'best scientists and universities' that are
working on these 'risky questions'? Transparency would be nice, for sure.

You have my attention.

(My $0.02)

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bennesvig
Tim Ferriss posted about joining the board yesterday -
<http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2012/09/12/nusi/>

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Shivetya
The idea of examining food to determine if its good or bad for us sounds
wonderful. Simply reading some of the comments here shows prejudices on both
sides. I put myself on the side of "don't eat so much" as compared to "don't
eat that".

Yet I am a firm believer that when lives gets easier people get lazier. When
they get lazy they do not make good choices because they do not have too.
People do not even have to go anywhere or even outside for entertainment. The
amount of physical labor, let alone activities in general, has vastly
decreased. Then add in the fact that about any food you want is readily
available, conveniently packaged, and having the means to keep most if not all
of it for long periods of time and it looks like a recipe for disaster.

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amalag
It's complicated because people don't want to cook. If you eat freshly cooked
vegetables and WHOLE grains, what problem will you have? Another silly attempt
at "hacking" our bodies. Spare me.

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mef
It's assumptions like these that drive the need for rigorous nutritional
science initiatives.

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amalag
So Michele Obama's attempt to counter obesity with exercise for children and
healthy fresh cooked food needs to be examined rigorously through the lens of
a nutritional science initiative? We might discover that exercise makes you
more fat or fresh vegetables contain an unknown chemical which makes kids fat?
Again people don't want to cook simple healthy food and are more interested in
the next four hour body guru telling them that they can eat lots of meat and
no grains or some other crazy thing.

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frankus
I agree with your comments on the benefits of cooking as many meals as
possible from scratch, and on the idea that it clearly was possible for people
decades and centuries ago to avoid getting fat.

So absent some pervasive non-dietary effect, we should be able to stay thin by
eating like our grandparents.

On the other hand, we don't want to be spending limited resources on things
that don't solve the problem at hand. For instance, as the American Heart
Association and American College of Sports Medicine stated:

“It is reasonable to assume that persons with relatively high daily energy
expenditures would be less likely to gain weight over time, compared with
those who have low energy expenditures. So far, data to support this
hypothesis are not particularly compelling.”

If we tell people to go running during their lunch hour, and then they go eat
at MacDonald's because they don't have time to cook, it's probably not helping
the situation.

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Tichy
I don't get it. What is their point? Why not go public once they have some
results? Also wondering how they want to get fast results when presumably a
lot of effects of diets are only visible in the long term?

Also, are there really just useless studies, or are they just not popular
enough?

This almost cries out for a parody. Teleportation - we have waited long
enough. Now we bundle the best scientists and we will deliver fast results.

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alokv28
Peter Thiel, in his Stanford class, referred to a "Manhattan Project for
nutrition." He indicated that it was in the formative stages at that point. I
wonder if this is what he was referring to.

