News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Better cognitive ability from less snacking of processed carbohydrates. Parent comment

Re:Better cognitive ability from less snacking of processed ... by londons_explore on Thursday May 25, 2023 @09:00AM (#36070172)
I think the problem is it is unethical to do the kinds of experiments necessary to come up with any certain facts in the field of nutrition.

At a minimum, you would need to force people to eat a certain diet, with no option to sneak in a few snacks while the researchers aren't watching.

And you probably need to do this for a whole generation (ie. from birth until death) to really get good data to prove that diet X leads to better outcomes than diet Y.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Better cognitive ability from less snacking of processed ... by closeparen on Thursday May 25, 2023 @09:07AM (#36070256)
Something I have always wondered: many people get most/all their nutrition from an institutional cafeteria (college campus, military base, arguably tech company). Why couldn’t they consent to experimentation on what it serves them?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Better cognitive ability from less snacking of processed ... by L_226 on Thursday May 25, 2023 @09:40AM (#36070578)
How do you know they didn't - how many people read the full T&C's for anything?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Better cognitive ability from less snacking of processed ... by mschuster91 on Thursday May 25, 2023 @09:46AM (#36070644)
Most people only get lunch from cafeterias, not to mention all the unhealthy shit we snack on all the time.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Better cognitive ability from less snacking of processed ... by FredPret on Thursday May 25, 2023 @10:16AM (#36071026)
What about the confounding variable that your test population all have something non-nutritional in common: the institution.

Large-scale high-quality research on humans isn't possible.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Better cognitive ability from less snacking of processed ... by AuryGlenz on Thursday May 25, 2023 @12:56PM (#36073127)
Here's an example of study that was done like that and the results were never published:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/records-found-in-...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Better cognitive ability from less snacking of processed ... by n8henrie on Thursday May 25, 2023 @09:15AM (#36070324)
Leaving out the "birth to death" part, metabolic ward studies aren't unethical or unheard of, they're just terribly expensive and tend to be short in duration because they are so onerous.

But they certainly have some advantages over, say, studies based on food frequency questionnaires.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Better cognitive ability from less snacking of processed ... by bryanrasmussen on Thursday May 25, 2023 @09:17AM (#36070348)
Cooking with The Truman Show!
[ Parent | on HN ]