[avgDev]

This is survivorship bias at its finest.

What his father is experiencing is luck mixed with good genetics. Plus, additional support of good diet and exercise. Yes, we all can control our diets and exercise. However, we cannot control the medication that we take, which carry side effects. We cannot control what is in our food, we cannot control the air we breath, we cannot control cancer and hundreds other diseases. There are so MANY other factors.

If his father grew up somewhere where lead is a problem, I have a feeling the outcome might have been different.

The whole article is useless. My grandfather was an awful person, smoked all his life, drank most of it, and ate whatever he could. Lived to 78 and was healthy, at that point he committed suicide as he could not live without his wife, which passed away few months earlier. Ironically he was an awful husband.

This is all anecdotal and useless.

[dekhn]

There is ample evidence in medical research that diet (to the extent that people have control over what they eat) has huge impacts on quality of life at high ages.

All of this is about taking actions that reduce risk statistically. None of this is about a magic action that will prevent all disease.

[huijzer]

Probably "diet is correlated with quality of life at high ages".

[methehack]

Nonsense. No one is trying to establish a causal link here. Still, a concrete example of what's possible is useful and inspirational. If you do this, will you get this outcome? Probably not. Does it help me imagine a possible path? Yes, definitely.

[avgDev]

So, if the article mentioned {insert product name}, doing mushrooms, drinking and smoking, should I look at it as a possible path for me to achieve great health? Even though all it is, is just some survivorship bias? Should I think about doing those things? Am I wrong for not doing those things?

[ericmcer]

Yeah it’s anecdotal but there are statistics backing up most of what is said here. We know diet and exercise play a positive role, we know drinking and smoking play a negative one and we know there are outliers. It’s probably best to assume you aren’t one.

[mandeepj]

> However, we cannot control the medication that we take, which carry side effects.

>We cannot control what is in our food, we cannot control the air we breath, we cannot control cancer and hundreds other diseases.

Seriously? The answer to all of the above - Yes, we can!

[avgDev]

You can control the side effects you may get from a medication you take? If you get an infection you are taking meds. If you get kidney stones, you are very likely getting meds, if you injure yourself and need surgery you are getting meds. These carry risks, therefore, every time your chances of "perfect health" are decreasing.

I get that most people on HN, can control the air they breath as they have the means to decide where they want to live, this isn't the case for most of the people.

Cancer is literally just a numbers game, people in perfect health at their PEAK get diagnosed with cancer. A top club soccer player is now going through testicular cancer treatment.

I am not sure how general person can control any of this.

[WalterBright]

Many cancers are lifestyle affected. For example, smoking and lung cancer. Excessive sun exposure and skin cancer. Alcohol consumption and throat cancer.

[Broken_Hippo]

No, it really isn't. "Control your medication" might leave you dead if you are diabetic or leave you hearing voices if your meds control a psychiatric condition.

In the same vein, you don't really get a choice in most cancers. Sure, you can do things like never smoke tobacco, but you might just be an 8-year-old with bone cancer. And lots of other afflictions and diseases are similar in this manner, much like you probably won't be able to avoid whatever cold is circulating in your workplace.

And I've not seen any proof otherwise.

[nradov]

Most patients with type-2 diabetes can reduce or even eliminate their need for medication through lifestyle changes.

https://www.virtahealth.com/research

[tomca32]

Absolutely. The problem is that diabetes type 2 is a lifestyle induced condition. People (most not all) get type 2 because of unhealthy diet so sure you can eliminate the need for medication by eating healthy.

Insulin dependent diabetes is type 1. Eating healthy still helps but you will die without insulin injections no matter your diet

[Broken_Hippo]

Type 1 exists, and often starts in childhood. Some of the folks with type 2 won't be able to control it with lifestyle changes, there is no evidence that you can cure it, and it has been pretty common knowledge that you have better results if you eat healthily.

Your link is an advertisement, however, and doesn't back up your claims. Sure, they cite research - 6 papers - but they were funded by Virta. [1] At least some of the research was done by cofounders.

[1] https://www.usnews.com/news/healthiest-communities/articles/...

[nradov]

The link backs up my claims. Apparently you didn't read the underlying research papers.

No one is claiming a cure for type-2 diabetes, or that it works for every single patient. So I think your comment was not made in good faith. However, dietary changes can put it into remission for many patients. This has to be a permanent lifestyle change; it's not something they can just do just temporarily to fix the underlying pathology.

[Broken_Hippo]

I very highly doubt most of the folks are reading the research pages: I, like most folks here, am not a scientist, doctor, nor dietician. So I do have to look at other things to assess whether or not information is trustworthy before I take it at its word.

I'm not even saying that diet doesn't help. Neither is anyone else.

What I am saying is that your link is an advertisement for a paid service in the US, is done on a limited number of studies and some of those studies are done by a couple of the folks that founded the company. Not to mention that they funded the studies. These things actually make me doubt the entire premise for these links.

From what I can tell, they are basically pushing keto on diabetics. This particular diet program isn't a cure-all, nor does it perform better or have fewer risks than other diets. I don't doubt diet helps, I'm just doubting that this particular diet is something to push on others unless there is more research on this particular diet.

[cma]

I assume what he means with medications is if the benefits outweigh the side effects, that person is stuck with the side effects.

[mandeepj]

One can at least "try" to find a similar ayurvedic medicine. It has no side effects

[bee_rider]

There are definitely some medications that can be avoided by healthy living and we should try to minimize our use of those. But there are others that are necessary due to unpredictable random health issues.

In my mental model, I'm trying to minimize the number of avoidable medications that I take, because you never know if they'll have some weird interaction with a truly necessary one. I'm not sure if this is actually the right way to think of it, but it seems to be working out OK so far.

[1e-9]

I agree that the father appears lucky to have avoided issues such as debilitating disease due to random genetic mutation. Even the father acknowledges that "lots of good luck" was involved. The article does not appear to overstate the significance of this single example.

Anecdotes are not useless. They can be inspirational and they can help illuminate possibilities and methods that are otherwise opaque in large-sample statistics. Anecdotes that are consistent with our best scientific understanding are powerful ways of communicating knowledge and providing inspiration for change to those who don't have the ability or inclination to evaluate the studies. In this case, the father is doing several things that large studies tell us are beneficial to health. These unmentioned studies suggest that the father has probably improved his quality of life. Most people I know are far more motivated by such anecdotes than they are by credible statistical analysis.

I disagree with your list of uncontrollable variables. All of them are largely controllable. Much of the medication consumed today is either outright unnecessary or can be reduced with lifestyle changes. You can control the air you breath by controlling where you live and when/where you are most active. You can lower your risk of cancer and many other diseases by lifestyle and environmental changes. The fact that complete control and certainty are impossible is no reason for inaction.

[avgDev]

I addressed some of this in another comment: "You can control the side effects you may get from a medication you take? If you get an infection you are taking meds. If you get kidney stones, you are very likely getting meds, if you injure yourself and need surgery you are getting meds. These carry risks, therefore, every time your chances of "perfect health" are decreasing. I get that most people on HN, can control the air they breath as they have the means to decide where they want to live, this isn't the case for most of the people.

Cancer is literally just a numbers game, people in perfect health at their PEAK get diagnosed with cancer. A top club soccer player is now going through testicular cancer treatment.

I am not sure how general person can control any of this."

I don't disagree that exercise and healthy habits can be great for your health. But the post seemed like it ignored all the other factors.

[1e-9]

> You can control the side effects you may get from a medication you take?

You can eliminate unneeded medication to eliminate side effects.

You can reduce or change your needed medication to control side effects.

You can change your lifestyle to eliminate the need for medication.

Even if there is no way to eliminate your need for medication, you still don't necessarily have to accept bad side effects. Doctors make mistakes and the standard treatment doesn't work for everyone. The first medication a doctor prescribes is often a poor fit. Doctors sometimes need to be prompted to look for better alternatives.

> I get that most people on HN, can control the air they breath as they have the means to decide where they want to live, this isn't the case for most of the people.

Even with very limited means, there is still likely to be something you can control such as: how close to major road traffic you live, how well-ventilated your home is, whether you allow unnecessary particulate or VOC sources in your home, whether you exercise outdoors on days with higher than normal pollution levels, or whether you go running near a highway or at a park. These simple things can have a significant effect on one's air quality.

> Cancer is literally just a numbers game, people in perfect health at their PEAK get diagnosed with cancer.

Cancer has controllable risk factors. There is overwhelming evidence that we can take reasonable actions to significantly reduce our risk of getting cancer.

[xwdv]

“Genetics” is the ultimate excuse people love to use nowadays, and I say this as a person with somewhat eugenic views.

The fact is, genetics has a much smaller role than what people think it does. If you make good life choices and stay consistent with optimizing your health your genetics won’t have much relevance. Even if your bloodline is prone to cancers or other diseases you can mitigate dying to those conditions if you have awareness to catch problems early.

[jl6]

Perhaps chance is a major factor, but perhaps there are things you can do to increase your odds.

[avgDev]

This I definitely agree with, but things are always changing.

There is always new research coming out. Some of the research is bogus, just look at earlier days of smoking, the opiate scandal.

We are constantly adding new factors to the mix, like microplastics. The environment is changing.

[nradov]

We can control much of the medication that we take. Sometimes medications are absolutely necessary, and we have to accept the negative side effects in order to prevent death or serious symptoms. But too often medications are used as a "patch" to treat chronic conditions that would be better addressed over the long term with lifestyle changes. For example, some fraction of chronic depression cases can be treated effectively with frequent exercise and sunlight exposure instead of SSRIs. I am not trying to discourage anyone from seeking allopathic medical treatment but it's worth investigating all the options.

[paulpauper]

We cannot control what is in our food,

Of all the things you listed, I think this is controllable.

But I agree genes play a huge role. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger do no exercise and have famously bad diets, yet both are fully productive and healthy at 91.

[BossingAround]

I'd say what's in your food is controllable if you live on a farm.

Outside of that, it gets very difficult without scanning barcodes, looking up specific items in a database, and periodically doing lab analyses.

There's the "control your food" as in "don't eat fast food" and there's the "control your food" as in "does this fish have high mercury in it?"

[outworlder]

Sure, some food may have contaminants. Fish is a good example. You might have to choose, for instance, farmed salmon instead of wild. Pesticides may be a factor. Microplastics are going to make this a more annoying problem.

But far more important is to control _what_ you eat. A tomato is a tomato. But ketchup is not a tomato. You may get health issues from contaminants, maybe. But you _will_ have health issues due to bad diet.

[BossingAround]

Absolutely. I was more thinking about "was this tomato grown with pesticides? If so, which ones? What health impacts does it have?"

And if you think pesticides is a small issue, "was this chicken/cow/turkey/... loaded with antibiotics?"

Of course, as I said, eating less processed food is a very simple yet effective choice, but beyond that, it sadly seems to get very murky very fast.

[yuan43]

> However, we cannot control the medication that we take, which carry side effects.

What makes you say that? The medications one takes are due in part to decisions made earlier in life, which result in conditions experience later for which the drugs are prescribed.

Also, drugs aren't the only solution to certain medical problems. For example, you can take weight loss pills, or you can actually cut your caloric intake.

[BossingAround]

> The medications one takes are due in part to decisions made earlier in life, which result in conditions experience later for which the drugs are prescribed.

This seems like a naive take. While it is technically correct, you most likely cannot significantly influence a number of significant illnesses, such as mental illnesses (e.g. Alzheimers), cancers, blindness, etc. You might slow down the onset at best with some of those.

If one doesn't smoke, drink, and walks at least ±2h a week, what else is there to do that has significant benefits..?

> Also, drugs aren't the only solution to certain medical problems. For example, you can take weight loss pills, or you can actually cut your caloric intake.

Drugs and medical procedures tend to be the only feasible solution to a number of significant illnesses (such as cancer).

[matheusmoreira]

> what else is there to do that has significant benefits..?

Screening.

[Bellamy]

You should definitely Google "lifestyle medicine".