[burkaman]

Aren't there tons of studies on whether some particular food is good for the heart, good for the brain, etc.? It's not that nobody does them, it's just really hard to get a conclusive result that applies to everyone. There are lots of foods that are both good and bad for you, depending on the study.

I think the problem might be more that there aren't very many universal results, and the fish and vegetables diet that works for one person won't work for others.

[dragonwriter]

> Aren't there tons of studies on whether some particular food is good for the heart, good for the brain, etc.?

Not really. There's tons of studies on whether some particular food is connected to some very narrow positive or negative outcome for the heart, brain, etc., on which popular ideas about the food being generally good for the heart, brain, etc. are built. (And, from those, even flimsier popular ideas about the food being generally healthy or not.)

[foota]

I went to an interesting talk the other week about the potential for personalized medicine to and how what seemed like just throwing data at medical issues can eliminate this problem.

ie, you gather medical data from thousands of people and find someone similar on a micro level to the current patient and see what has helped them.

[bsder]

> It's not that nobody does them, it's just really hard to get a conclusive result that applies to everyone.

Exactly. The research is starting to show that individual reactions vary dramatically.