[jeffdavis]

I guess the holy grail is to get to the point where you can take some lab tests (genetic?) and a doctor can tell you: "eat this kind of diet, avoid these kinds of foods, and you'll be healthy".

Obviously it would take a lot to get there, but having a few high quality studies that can give a lot of people at least some advice (without tons of qualifiers and weasel words) would be a huge help.

This might cost ~50B, but that seems worth it.

[conistonwater]

This is kind of funny, but we're already there! Take 0 tests, eat a balanced diet with plenty of vegetables, don't eat too much, avoid processed meats and junk food and the rest of it, exercise, and you'll be healthy, you've heard it yourself already too. How many people do you know who'd actually do it if a doctor said something like that to them? You kinda manage to both under- and over-estimate the current abilities of food science at the same time, and if people don't already do the things that we pretty well know for sure, an extra $50B won't really change any of that, that's a people problem.

[reinkaos]

What you said is probably 80% of the way. I would also be interested in more research about individual responses to food. There's some evidence blood glucose levels vary considerably between individuals consuming the same food: https://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674(15)01481-6. That would help me choose my staples (what's best for me, brow rice or yam?) and how much junk to include (what if I don't have that much of a blood sugar spike after eating ice cream?).

[firethief]

If people took a high-tech test and were told that that advice was personalized, imagine how much better compliance would be though.

[conistonwater]

So like a very expensive placebo?

[jeffdavis]

Not quite.

Right now there's a lot of confusion. Is gluten a problem for me, or dairy, or fat, or sugar, or alcohol, or caffiene? It's easy to get overwhelmed.

If you eliminate everything that might be bad for you, there's not a lot left. There's a lot of value in specificity because it's actionable.

[conistonwater]

I suppose I just fundamentally don't agree with you about the confusion existing in the first place. Here's my understanding. All of those things are fine, in moderation, unless you have a specific medical condition against something. Except for alcohol: that's just bad for you in proportion to the amount you drink. And that's already with existing research, as far as I know, I might not like it but I don't get overwhelmed.