Maggie's Farm

Simple test; if your doctor (a real doctor) prescribes a vitamin or supplement THEN take it as prescribed. If an author or a late night advertisement tells you to take it "Don't do it!!!"

And yet somehow iatrogenesis happens. http://www.ourcivilisation.com/medicine/usamed/deaths.htm

[/i]Not the first time Maggie's farm has said this about vitamins, I'm confused why such a lack of critical reading, and exaggerating the results of this study to a degree of overt dishonesty.[/i]

Yet certain MF writers are immune to fact and have been wrong about diet and health for months, probably years. MF is the single most entrenched community - not that I frequent many - on the subject that I know of, not that reactionary rightist lifestyle-signalling isn't prevalent among the less intellectual "conservative" commentariat in general. Look just at this thread...

And yet reality shows:

-that hundreds of scientific studies clearly support the connection between health and diet;

-that the plant-based diet is convincingly more healthy than any other and that such evidence simply cannot be refuted;

-that the wretched, ketogenic paleo-diet is superior only by comparison to the mixed, processed, western diet that it is an explicit, conscious reaction to;

-that in that western diet industrial meat and dairy norms, markets, and practices bear no resemblance to what they were even 50 years ago, much less 150 years ago and back through man's evolution;

-that unsurprisingly, synthetic vitamins do not include the broader nutrient makeup of whole food;

-that conversely, processed food and western dietary norms lack these nutrients;

-that there is no demonstrable benefit to the meat and dairy diet save as a defense against starving and that the protein myth was and has just again been shown to be such.

And so on, the trajectory being that health absolutely entails diet and a whole plant diet is superior to all alternatives, health-wise. The synthetic vitamin program simply isn't a substitute for it while the rightist carnist preference is just a fad built on reaction and lifestyle.

Adherents brook no dissent, naturally, especially - and this is the ironic part - when talk turns to animals being sentient, feeling creatures confirmed by humane sentiments and practices for about as long as man has existed.

Just not anymore. Now it's burger chains across the fruited plain as one of the last bastions of what used to be conservatism. Hilarious if it wasn't so transparent...

That [diet and health are related] is obvious.

Apparently it's not so obvious. Food faddists routinely tell me it's all genetics. I usually hit 'em with epigenetics and they go quiet so there at least I gather that you have one over on them. Good to see diet get its nose under the tent.

The question here is do we humans NEED mega doses of vitamins and rare fruits from the Amazon forest

Aside from that hyperbole, actually the question here is whether diet and health are linked, which you say they are. While that's still a generalization thus far, it's unclear how you got another generalization clear across the general topic. At some point you're probably going to have to get specific.

common scams of the supplement industry

That also gets thrown around a lot, and just as typically, without a tenth as much factual evidence as it does simple belief. I'm not taking a stand on it; just pointing out how odd that particular polarization is.

OR do we ONLY need the MDR's as defined by science and medical studies???

Government MDRs? Anyway, that's a lot of emphasis to assert a stance not supported by the evidence of those medical studies. I'd correct you and call them scientific studies - the medical field being largely silent on preventative diet - but if you're going to assume evidence - with which to confirm the fervency of your obvious belief - wouldn't the facts thereof appear at some point? Can't really claim what you can't identify, which takes us back to your belief in the link between diet and health. Just wish we both knew which one(s).

The second question is: Are all humans genetically equal...

Obviously not.

...and there is ONE perfect and definable diet?

Regardless of genetic diversity the science strongly supports a fairly universal diet - there really are no exceptional Eskimos, as it turns out, and even among a highly homogeneous people significant diet-related health trends are documented.

In fact, the epigenetics say that a people derive their health to a significant degree from their environmental conditions with diet being primary among them. This is hardly controversial to any common sense and it's certainly not controversial to science.

If so please tell me what, exactly, is the correct diet. You cannot of course, no one can. There is no "ONE CORRECT" diet.

You're still arguing a fallacy or maybe two or three. I'd no more aim to advise you about perfection than you'd aim to listen to me do it.

We can pretty much eat anything as long as we get our MDR's. Everything else is bias and superstition.

Evident nonsense when you consider, as you say you have, that diet and health are related. A MDR could be met by hot dogs on wonder bread, tomato sauce, and lemonade, or near enough.

Having been deconstructed a little I'd say it's your opinion that's biased and superstitious. As wrong as you generally are I'd think you'd be less adamant about it.

Also it isn't simply a waste of money issue because in fact some of these supplements and mega doses of vitamins are in fact harmful. It is improper and should be criminal to "prescribe" medical care without a appropriate doctors degree in medicine.

There you go again connecting dots that don't connect. In this case you trot out your Unitruth that science is closed and supplements don't qualify for it and then you somehow extend that to a nice piece of projected Orwellianism. According to you the heretics must burn with you deciding who they are.

I'm in tech. I know of two fields, one very major and another much smaller, in which the established, 50-100 year norms as presumed to speak from "science" are being exploded nearly daily. Neither turns out to be even close to as understood or reliable as they were assumed, but in both the established old guard is coming unglued defending what can't really be defended.

What do they have in common? In addition to all the aspects of human nature, their bias - and as it now turns out, their superstition - is rooted in power, control, and money. They're motivated by their long standing to take the positions they've taken and there'll be no abiding the new guys regardless of fact. And as with many disagreements, facts are in the back seat, bound and gagged.

Of course it's the new guys doing the heavy lifting. The new guys are incrementally, inherently, and inevitably chipping away at the obsolete views and interestingly, they're not doing this by intent or choice; it's just a natural byproduct.

The same thing is happening in health and it'll only accelerate. The view that I simply must consult my mechanic when I aim to prevent my automobile wearing down or we should jail all sellers of wax and air fresheners is just dumb.