Comment by c54 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by c54 | Hacker News Reader

I've been long exposed to the standard tech-circles common knowledge about intermittent fasting (IF), the benefits of fasting, basic gym science about calorie restriction, and so on. I thought a lot of this stuff was pretty well confirmed by science as well as various fasting-oriented traditions around the world. Fast one day a week, live longer. Work IF into your eating schedule, increase your productivity and give your body time to 'clean up' your system.

But I was surprised to recently realize how novel a lot of fasting research is, and how unconfirmed a lot of the benefits are. Even the wikipedia page for fasting doesn't have as much as I'd really like to see. It's nice to see posts like this one, but even this doubles down on "there are studies in progress" without any convincing completed studies.

Review studies such as this[0] one basically confirm in so many words that "additional trials are needed" and while IF can help you lose weight "whether IF itself affects cancer-related metabolic and molecular pathways remains unanswered"

It's curiously similar to woo-woo or religious habits and self-help advice: similar in being fringe from the perspective of scientific medicine. But the same groups who I'd expect to be pro-science (for example more likely to get vaccinated) are often mixed up in fasting stuff which isn't (yet) confirmed.

I suppose it's not too unheard of to see tech circles overlap with fringe medicine. Check out r/nootropics for instance. Now, I've experimented with nootropics and various supplements. I don't use the term 'fringe' as a haughty outsider. I'm quite willing to consider that it's "not yet confirmed" protoscience, and that this is different from falsified or counter-indicated "remedies" and bits of fringe medicine, things like homeopathy. But it's curious nonetheless.

[0] https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/caac...

It's really only curious if you consider individuals themselves to be "within science" or "pro-science" as some meaningful identity- or category-like distinction. Which, ironically, does feel a bit religion-like. Like participating in an untested or disproved practice is doing a heresy or something.

Anyway people aren't science we are just people. Everyone has some beliefs and activities that they find valuable for themselves in ways that science can't measure or verify. It's fine.

I realize this could come across as pretty negative or hostile and I really don't intend it that way. I think if anything the problem is that we've sort of constructed a framework where practices are valid only if they are scientifically validated, which incentivizes people to use the jargon of scientific validity to justify practices they find valuable.

Something I find consistently funny about fasting particularly that you kind of pointed out: just because it's new to science doesn't mean it's new to us. I fast for religious reasons, my religion has a fasting tradition going back thousands of years. Its personal spiritual benefits are attested by many over much time and I find it so as well. Good enough for me. The fact that tech nerds just got hyped on it and provoked a bunch of studies in the last decades is fun, but literally a few billion people globally fast for non-scientific non-productivity reasons and will continue to either way.

I agree with everything you've said here.

I do wish science could catch up to some of these old-and-probably-quite-true traditions.

I think a large part of the problem is we may never have big studies for this. It’s very difficult to do human trials, you can’t just lock people up and restrict their calories for years on end.

the bigger question is: who would pay for such studies?

big pharma? government lobbied by big pharma? universities given grants from government lobbied by big pharma?

actually though, the soviets did do serious research into the science/benefits of fasting. Too bad it never really made it to the west.

Watch the video: "The Science of Fasting" for an overview.

There are many studies in the animal models and limited data in humans. It is hard to do studies, but NIH has a grant and many trials IF and Cancer therapeutics.

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