
Healthy fat hidden in dirt may fend off anxiety disorders - whack
https://neurosciencenews.com/dirt-fat-anxiety-14108/
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r00fus
I was once participated in a diet program where I was given some pills to eat
to suppress my appetite (in addition to other generic mediterranean diet
principles).

Being skeptical, I immediately scanned the ingredients and they all seemed
like harmless/filler so I figured it was some placebo to placate those who
needed pills as a confidence/mechanic. However, upon taking the pills for a
few days, I did notice a marked decrease in appetite.

Re-examining the ingredients, the first one was "silica". Sand. Dirt. I've
since come to the belief that our modern diet is too clean, and we are evolved
to eat some amount of dirt - even if it's inhaled, so we may need to
reintroduce some to control weight/allergies/disorders.

That dirt also contains other beneficial ingredients other than silica doesn't
surprise me one bit.

~~~
xyzzy_plugh
This is interesting, but my nonscientific counter might be:

What if "dirt" is harmful, and causes your body to degrade appetite in attempt
to overcome the irritants?

I agree we've evolved perhaps, but sometimes modern is better (e.g. portion
control). Is it harmful to "feel" hungry and not sate your appetite?

~~~
CptFribble
> Is it harmful to "feel" hungry and not sate your appetite?

This is something that most people don't understand, given that we live in a
world where food is cheap and plentiful.

As many people who have gone through fasting-based diets have discovered,
there's a difference between "I'm hungry" and "I need calories, I'm getting
weak and tired." Learning that difference is how you discover the actual
amount of food your body requires, not just checking off three meals per day.

The feeding patterns of our ancestors were very far from "eat as much as you
want all the time with no physical effort required," and that was normal for
15,000+ years, so it'll probably take longer than the 100-200 or so since
industrial food production began for our brains and bodies to adjust to the
new normal. That, or we'll just have to start teaching our kids about cravings
vs hunger vs actual food-need.

~~~
derefr
I'm not clear on what "I'm hungry" means, other than "I need calories, I'm
getting weak and tired." I don't experience anything until I experience that;
being tired (after not eating all day) is the first sign my body gives me that
I should eat something.

What are the qualia of non-hypoglycemic hunger?

~~~
abdullahkhalids
My understanding is that you feel "I'm hungry" when your blood sugar drop
below its typical level. The typical level can be increased by eating a lot of
sugary processed food over a long period of time. In other words, sugary
processed food change your body chemistry to make you addicted to them. If you
largely eat healthy food and are at a healthy weight, then "I'm hungry" is a
reliable signal for "I need more calories". If you are not, then it becomes a
one-sided biased signal.

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ubertakter
I can see the webloids headlines now: "Should you eat dirt: Newly discovered
fatty acid 10Z-HA helps cure burnout!"

/sigh If only it were so easy.

~~~
kyoob
Anxious? Eat dirt!

~~~
RyJones
Pica?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pica_(disorder)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pica_\(disorder\))

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phkahler
The wikipedia page on this bacteria says it is not pathogenic and when fed
live to mice their maze solving performance increased. If it's not pathogenic
to humans, why haven't they tried it with people? With all the rage about gut
bacteria an experiment like this seems obvious.

~~~
colechristensen
Human trials are expensive and involve a whole lot of being careful beyond
"the wikipedia page says it's fine so let's do it!"

Part of that being careful often involves mice.

~~~
phkahler
Clinical trials are expensive. Trying something on yourself is not. I'm not
advocating any of us do that. But if the mouse researchers actually believe
it's not harmful and believe their own results, why wouldn't they do an ad-hoc
experiment on themselves?

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SmokeGS
This paper:
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00213-019-05253...](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00213-019-05253-9)

indicates IL6
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interleukin_6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interleukin_6))
is down regulated in ex vivo tests (outside animal, cell cultures)

and specifically 10(Z)-hexadecenoic acid may be related with PARa signaling in
mice

so this is pretty cool. I hope they get some similar results with humans.

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m3kw9
Maybe the hidden reason gardening is a viewed as a reason peeps live longer

~~~
mcfunk
If soil indeed has anti-inflammatory properties, that would make a whole lot
of sense.

~~~
mjevans
I'd be more likely to believe (at least part of) the effect is caused by
giving the natural defense systems of the body something actually foreign to
'attack'. Sort of like regular training exercises and legal
explosives/fireworks days give a more controlled and thus safer expression of
pressure relief, training, and general readiness inspection.

PS: Related to the fireworks I mentioned, I'm for having local fire
departments provide basic fire knock back training with basic safety gear
(bucket of water and hose) that should be required when they're in use. We
focus way too much on black and white bans rather than enforcing responsible
consumption.

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kouh
This could explain why some people pick and eat nasal mucus (a dirt colloid)
when anxious

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ianai
As a vegan, I’m not surprised. We all have to get our vitamin b12 from
functional food because it would otherwise naturally occur on the foods we eat
from bacteria. Our foods are sterile and thus the bacteria never deposit b12
for us. There’s probably much more we don’t know about.

~~~
Aromasin
I remember reading a study a while back about the B12 found in unfiltered
river water being sufficient for maintaining healthy levels in humans. It
would be interesting to see a human study on this - albeit not useful for most
people, as river water in most places if very much contaminated.

Also for something more anecdotal, I worked as a labourer on a couple of farms
for a while (which had a lot to do with why I went vegan...), and the animals
had to be supplemented to the teeth to get sufficient vitamins and minerals.
My guess is this was because their feed was all from processed grains and
legumes, and their water came from the filtrated mains system.

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camjohnson26
Off topic but does anyone else automatically filter out any headline that has
"may" in it? Literally anything can be true if you add "may".

Eating dirt may cause cancer. Eating dirt may cure cancer. Earth may sit on
the back of a giant, invisible tortoise.

It feels like a lazy way to pump out blog articles when there's no real
information available.

~~~
casefields
I would love a huge study done on say NY Times/Wapo and a few other sources
and going back through their science reporting through 2000-2010. Focusing on
articles like this and see if how wrong/right they were. Or, if it's so
inconclusive, that we really shouldn't be letting scientists push out their
work willy nilly without establishing better data/proof. Science journalists
seem to take these education PR departments at their word a bit too often.

~~~
Stronico
I'm working on something to track stuff like that. What would you consider
evidence of a study being disproved?

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giardini
This is old news (circa 2002) and was published widely under the subject
heading of "The Dirt Vaccine". Here's a link to "The Edge" series on this
topic:

"The Dirt Vaccine (Bacteria and Health) 2002":

[http://emro.lib.buffalo.edu/emro/emroDetail.asp?Number=1059](http://emro.lib.buffalo.edu/emro/emroDetail.asp?Number=1059)

Google for "the dirt vaccine" for more:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=the+dirt+vaccine&ie=UTF-8&oe...](https://www.google.com/search?q=the+dirt+vaccine&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)

