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Comment by wibr | Hacker News Reader

Given how little we know about digestion and the interaction between us and our gut flora I'd rather not limit the variety of my food based on the latest fad. From what I know, certain beneficial bacteria like to eat fibres and starches, a high protein diet can have negative effects on those.

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you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who advocates for a high protein diet. And its the bad gut bacteria (or at least the ones found more in obese people) that thrive on sugars and starches.

Paleo, Atkins, Primal, Ketogenic

All fads whose promoters have a vested interest in selling merchandise rather than the truth.

I mean...so is every diet. That's sorta the point of the 538 article, no? Diet science is trash. I was just pointing out that you would not at all "be hard pressed to find anyone who advocates for a high protein diet".

And honestly, I could have just said "anyone strong, ever" and been done with it. You can dismiss the diets I named as fads, but I have never met anyone with any appreciable muscle who doesn't have protein intake a few standard deviations above the norm. There's all kinds of disagreement about how to get that protein - there are vegan bodybuilders, strongman competitors who eat five pounds of chicken a day, the GOMAD folks chugging their milk - but there's no substantial disagreement that you need protein, and lots of it.

You don't need more than 10-15% of your calories to come from protein. Maybe a little more if you are a professional body-builder.

Most of those are actually high-fat, moderate protein diets.

> Given how little we know about digestion and the interaction between us and our gut flora I'd rather not limit the variety of my food based on the latest fad.

Some folks are saying that what we eat these days in western countries is indeed "the latest fad" - compared to at least what mankind ate 100'000-20'000 years ago. So, don't eat the latest fad - go back what your genome is used to. High protein?

That's a bunch of pseudo-historic non-sense with basically no scientific foundation to it.

The fact remains that eating less calories than you burn resulting in weight loss. There isn't any magic to this. There is nothing to indicate otherwise.

There is no strong evidence of what people ate dozens of millennia ago, and there is even less evidence that they were healthier than people who follow modern diets recommended by nutritionists.

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