To think there's a growing amount of people who think food can fix everything?

[StructuredChaos]

Was listening to some ZOE podcasts, and love eating healthy foods myself, so it isn't a criticism of nutrition awareness. I'm a bit of a cooking nerd so love all of this stuff and finding new recipes, but I am noticing more and more people who seem to believe that eating low upf and fresh fruit and veg can add 'decades' to a human lifespan.

It certainly won't shorten it!
Surely this is an oversimplification, though?

I have always eaten in a kind of 'ZOE' way, and whilst I don't have any metabolic disease, weight problems or other issues, I am not so confident that I am going to outlive my peers due to this. It's something I can control, yes, and that's great, but I think it's deceptive to think we won't ever get cancer, heart disease, dementia or auto immune diseases if we eat in a 'clean' or ideal way.

Not to mention the 'ideal' keeps bloody changing!

I don't think life is that simple at all, even though I do champion healthy, fresh diets.
I see people who claim their spots, headaches, IBS, brain fog, joint aches and other issues immediately cease when they start eating fresh fruit and veg, or low histamine, or low inflammatory diets...... What puzzles me, as someone who has always enjoyed high fibre and fresh foods, is how nebulous those symptoms are, and not very well understood by GP's.
It allows for all manner of snake oil claims online, since the placebo effect is strong.

Just saw a vid with Tim Spector claiming that eating the ZOE way will certainly add 10 extra healthy years to your life. So if we use myself as an example of this, it doesn't take into account my familial heart disease, stroke risk, potential genetic cancers, and a world of non food related risks, of which there are countless examples.

It reminds me of those people who think they will never get ill because they don't smoke. Neither did my parents, but they died before their time (sepsis and vascular dementia).

Thanks. Happy to read the newer research. I also don’t think I’ve seen anyone actually post anything arguing that a healthy diet absolutely doesn’t contribute to the systems behind apoptosis and therefore I stand by my point until proven / sourced with a reasonable oppositional argument.

So far nobody seems to actually disagree with me they just seem to want to pick apart my source.

Here’s a 2023 source that states - ‘Reviewing the literature, almost all articles concluded that the transition to one of these diets (health-conscious diets of the Mediterranean, ketogenic, and plant-based diets) was beneficial in preventing cancer incidence or reducing progression (transition to metastases), tumor staging, tumor markers, and inflammatory markers’.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10627144/

This journal isn't the most reputable in the field. Its peer review process is a little questionable.

So not everything then.

I’m certainly not arguing with you. I would be interested to read the research you’re referring to in your posts. But you’ve said you don’t really have any, so I would take that up mean you’re pretty confident that plant food can kill cancer cells but you don’t know how to demonstrate that confidence, which is fine.

but it feeds into the Zoe argument- and really it’s on the same axis as conspriacy theories- it sounds right, it can’t do any harm to follow it right?

The issue is when people who are not emotionally healthy (ie have eating disorders) use these ideas in an unhealthy way- puritanically, the preach, to reinforce their delusions. And that’s what the thread is about.

Yeah but longevity isn't the same as 'health span'

I agree OP - having Psoriasis has meant lots of people have lots of views, including about diet. It's exhausting and guilt inducing.

I gree about thinking that rather than increasing lifespan or healthspan with good diet we need to think of shit food reducing the optimum

Food certainly can't "fix everything". I was trying to put up a curtain pole and it kept falling down - the butter just wouldn't hold it.

I had another problem with the sausage draft excluder I had made. My friends dog wouldn't leave it alone.

You’re misquoting me and that is unfair. I have never said that plant food kills cancer.

I said that the food we eat contributes to the systems behind apoptosis (programmed cell death that takes out cancerous cells in the body). Aka the systems that destroy some cancer in the body.

You are misrepresenting my argument, I have shared multiple peer-reviewed journal sources that argue that healthy diet plays a part in apoptosis. How that is conspiracy theories or not really having any research I don’t know. Do you want me to conduct the studies myself?

OK.

TBH, a great deal of published diet research is here today, gone tomorrow. It’s not a very well-regarded field. Or at least, any real world recommendations supposedly drawn from the research are treated with a great deal of scepticism. In any case, it’s nearly always faddists who come up with diet-related health stats and conclusions, not the authors themselves.

That's not really true.
The papers I have read are from scientific research across the world . There are stats showing a far better response to immunotherapy in patients with healthy guts compared to patients without.

I understand that ideas change- once upon a time fat was the demon but now it's sugar and UPFs.

This is more to do with advances in medicine and research.

When I was experiencing a period of high stress, I got put on a coaching programme they were trialling with the NHS.

They went into a lot of the science around stress and diet. Your body will "store" stress in fat, in a way to cope with it (this made a lot of sense as I piled on lbs even though I was hardly eating). Your body also treats UPF and other intoxicants in the same way it rests stress.

Your gut is designed to handle bad nutrition to a certain extent - but low fibre and nutrients and high UPF can damage the gut's ability to do this, causing Leaky Gut syndrome, so that the elements that were filtered out return to the bloodstream. A negative cycle.

Oh, and when you lose weight, the stressors held within it are let out again!

There's also a second "UPF" - Ultra Palatable Food. Moreish food that has been perfectly calibrated to keep you reaching for another without giving you any nutrients.

I'm not looking to live forever, but recalibrating yourself away from this stuff is a no brainer IMO.

Hear hear, and hear hear again. Spector's variety of healthy eating is out of reach for such a huge proportion of households and it isn't just about money, to anyone pointing out that cooking from scratch is cheaper than KFC or whatever.

Academic papers are often trapped behind a paywall and generally only academic institutions have access so only academics like me or students can read them.

It was also scientific evidence that stated fish is great for you, and then bad for you. Ditto meat, butter, eggs etc. Science evolves. I have no doubt UPFs are shit for you but the polluted air in the UK is too.

I stared at my spag bol for half an hour last night yet the telly is still broken.

Clearly the idea that food can fix everything is complete nonsense.

This. Its not that it can cure everything OP but I don't think you realise how badly most people eat and yes for them these changes are life changing and will resolve smaller issues like spots and energy that they had issues with.

Do you realise how badly “most people eat” though? How?

Just don't eat crap and highly processed food. No-one should deny themselves a treat on occasions, but just a treat. Life's too short to worry yourself unnecessarily about how long you'll live. A lot is down to your genes.

I'm not sure this is any more fact based than what I said.

No @Itsmetheflamingo, they will probably start banging on about how using WLI is cheating and people just need to eat less and move more ! They still need to find a way to feel superior.

Are ketogenic and plant-based diets not pretty much opposite in what is eaten though ?

I was thinking this. So maybe it's more 'starting to give a crap about your health in some way makes you more healthy'.

Pretty sure people like Chris Hoy etc had a pretty healthy diet and a lot of excercise - I certainly think not having a healthy diet is more likely to bring on certain ailments but eating healthily isn’t a total panacea -

Sounds like it's open season on 'gym bunnies' or those you've diagnosed with orthorexia, but WLI shaming is absolutely not ok?