Right, I agree. But if you try, you’re likely OK. I did say “Taking a multi-vite is cheap insurance, but it’s probably not nessesary. Well, unless you are pregnant, nursing, a woman, a senior, don’t eat right, or have a medical condition.” 
I don’t think anyone really eats exactly as the “food pyramid” sez. :dubious: But we can eat less junk food and *more * fresh veggies and fruits, right?
“You don’t really live longer, it just seems like it!”. 
I think we are starting to be on the same page. Unfortunately I don’t even have the opportunity to cook my own meals. I eat what the cheap public eateries throw at me. I think I need that nutrition insurance. That’s why I came here.
Dr Derth, I agree. My doctor will know my medical history, and that is very important. However, my doctor is absolutely NOT an encyclopedic source of general medical information. No one is, yet people persist with the attitude that doctors are above being human. My question here was one of a general nature. Your advice should have been “collate everything that is being said, write it down, and then check with your doctor to see what has to be custom tailored to you.” But truth be told, I am sure my doctor would be an imperfect human in that task as well.
The whole deal with “only talk to your doctor” is just a liability shift. The type that litigious Americans love so much. It is certainly the case on this board (where you admit yourself that that line is used to avert legal trouble). Having being repeated so often, people even forget that it’s about liabilities not about honest sources of knowledge. Unfortunately, liability shifting is a gimmick and a fascade. Americans love blaming people without careful though to whom they blame and to what degree. That broken system inspires others in kind and liability shifting is born.
Partially poor sources are marginalized, partially effective sources are unduly promoted.
A Russian commedian once made a joke that could only be well understood from the outside in. It doesn’t matter what an American needs to get done, he must hire a ‘professional’. It doesn’t matter how good the guy is, but he must be a professional.
In grad school, I knew a guy who claimed that he lived entirely on nutritional supplements and loaves of bake-at-home bread (for fiber). He may not have been entirely truthful, but I’d been to his apartment. He had the kitchen turned into a factory for making high-tech toys, and there was no food. But maybe he ate out.
He also claimed to brush his teeth with fine-grade industrial abrasive. and he didn’t like to wear heavy coats in winter.
Interesting guy.
There’s no way I’d imitate these reported behaviors.
If true, the bread was for protein not fiber. You don’t really need fiber. I hear from cereal ads it may help with cholesterol, but in truth it’s there just to make your shits nicer (the whole point of fiber is that your body cannot absorb it). People have the mistaken notion that the body expels waste through the digestive system. In general this is not true. Wastes are expelled through kidneys and urine (including those that may sometimes be expelled through digestive fluids), and I’m pretty sure you’re not poisoning or hurting yourself if you shit twice a week.
I’m just repeating his claims, but without the bread there’d be nothing for his system to work on – the rest of his claimed diet was powders and liquids.
Actually, it seems to me bread would give you carbs. I think he was supposed to be getting protein from his powders. as for the “fiber” part, his claim was that the bread was the only thing with physical bulk he was eating (SOMETHING THAT HE HAD TO ACTUALLY CHEW).
Fiber is very important:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/96/5/999
". These data sets were compared in light of our current understanding of the need for dietary fiber.
Results. Approximately half of the children from families who were health conscious enough to request dietary evaluation still fell below the age + 5 guidelines for grams of dietary fiber intake per day. The children referred to us with chronic constipation had all been instructed “to eat a high-fiber diet.” Those constipated patients were consuming less than one fourth of the recommended fiber intake.
Conclusions. This survey underscored the difficulties in beginning and in maintaining high-fiber diets in children. When families receive advice to administer a high-fiber diet, they are unable to accomplish this unless they receive intensive and ongoing dietary counseling. Even among health-conscious families, only half of the children received the recommended amounts of dietary fiber. Further public education in this regard is warranted."
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/59/5/1242S
"Health benefits and practical aspects of high-fiber diets
JW Anderson, BM Smith and NJ Gustafson
Medical Services, Veterans’ Affairs Medical Center, Lexington, KY 40511.
Over the past 20 y dietary fiber has emerged as a leading dietary factor in the prevention and treatment of chronic diseases. High fiber intakes are associated with lower serum cholesterol concentrations, lower risk of coronary heart disease, reduced blood pressure, enhanced weight control, better glycemic control, reduced risk of certain forms of cancer, and improved gastrointestinal function. Dietary fiber can be categorized into water-soluble and water-insoluble components. Dried beans, oat products, and certain fruits and vegetables are good sources of soluble fiber. Most plant foods are good sources of insoluble fiber and wheat bran is a concentrated form of insoluble fiber. Current guidelines advise a doubling of dietary fiber intake for Americans. Inclusion of ample servings of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and dried beans and peas will help individuals meet these guidelines. "
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/75/5/834
“Conclusions: The reduction in serum lipid risk factors for cardiovascular disease supports the FDA’sapproval of a health claim for a dietary fiber intake of 4 servings/d. Although relatively small in terms of patient treatment, the reduction in cardiovascular disease risk is likely to be significant on a population basis.”
A good general cite from the FDA:
http://www.aafp.org/afp/20051201/2277.html
"In clinical practice, constipation is generally defined as fewer than three bowel movements per week. "
Really, I could go on for pages. FIBER IS GOOD. YOU NEED FIBER.
You are simply wrong. Spreading ignorance- especially about medical matters- is a bad thing.
Alright, but to what degree? My assertion is that not getting fiber is nowhere on the level of not getting protein or not getting vitamins and minerals. Also, the importance of fiber seems to be as a specific ratio of food intake. If you’re going to eat less overall, you don’t need to maintain the same level of fiber.
In general I do not have problems with constipation, cholesterol, or weight control. So at least for me, fiber isn’t too important. However, I’ll keep in mind that if I get frequent conspiation I should reach for the fiber. Overall, though, it still seems that fiber is something for old people. And I still maintain that much of its popularity is related to the victorian-era fixation on bowel movements.
“In Soviet Russia, professional hires YOU!”
I’ve always wanted to do that.
<Commander Cody>
Two triple cheese, side order of fries!
Two triple cheese, side order of fries!
</Commander Cody>
I would watch out there, fibre is pretty important for keeping the bowels moving, diverticulitis is not pleasant, and it is reckoned that bits of it get into the blood stream.
Of course all the cereals that have added fibre are just rubbish, a bag of jumbo oats from a health shop is dirt cheap and does not contain added rubbish. Normal un-mucked about muesli is slightly more interesting.
The macrobiotic stuff that I mentioned earlier require a heck of a lot of preparation. Here is a Wiki article on it, it looks pretty good. The bit about people dying of starvation had me laughing, one eats huge quantities of food, a lot of vegetable protein but very little animal protein.
I know people who went on it, and of others, and they became a darn sight heathier as a result. Personally I think faddy diets are daft, but there are some things that make sense, provided one does not ‘buy’ into things entirely.
I agree with your sceptism about doctors, even been mod-swatted for expressing my opinion.
Personally I would not go for junk diet and try to make up for it with supplements, it is a bit like putting crap oil in the car and using additives to compensate.
Do you have a cite that says you won’t?
And I bet you expressed it in GQ without a cite to back it up. Am I close?
Ahh, the cite defense. Your opponent is wrong if they do not come up with some guy saying something that is more likely right and which somehow relates to the current topic in some uncertain way.
Cites aren’t bad. Cites aren’t that great. But they do quite often excuse people from critically thinking.
And that’s why people on this board need to come up with a new catchphrase. Such as, “I shall present a probabilistic argument why your probabilistic lines of thinking are false, and do it with weighed emphases.” I keep waiting for civilization move away from simplistic “yes/no” “up/down” “correct/wrong” thinking. Yet I guess in light of a plethora of “screw reasoning I’m right” opponents, it barracades itself and possibly for good reason. Yet pinned for long in the mud it retorts with, “screw reasoning I want a cite.”
Pity.
Virtually all people who dismiss the need for actual evidence to back up claims that their statements are factual are ignorant.
The burden of proof falls on you. I can claim that I can levitate and it is not up to everyone else to prove me wrong, nor to “critically think” about how it may be possible. It is not an opinion - it is a fact - either I can levitate or I cannot. If I make that claim, the onus is on me to back it up.
That is just asinine. Either your claims are true or they aren’t. No manner of advanced futuristic thinking will change that. Claims that you are beyond notions of evidence and stating that there is no such thing as things being correct or wrong only really indicates to us critical thinkers that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
As others have offered, most doctors keep up. Can you offer a cite that "his main source of advice…is brochures from pharmaceutical companies? Maybe you have a quack as a doctor. Most people don’t.
I’ll take your bet. I’ll bet that the average GP knows more about what supplements you should take than the sum total of posters on this site. (excluding real-life docs)
Maybe posters here have “equal intelligence with doctors” but don’t have the specialized knowledge that a doctor does. That would be my opinion.
–asshole out.
Maybe Sam, on your side of the pond, doctors are Ok.
However in the UK, my experience, and that of most people I know, is that they are a bunch of irresponsible gits, with very limited analytical skills.
The GPs have 15 minute appointment slots, the specialists are one trick ponies, you don’t want to get ill in the UK. The hospitals are MRSA petri farms.
Someone’s been reading too many tabloids. Perhaps your opinion might change were you to realise that said tabloids almost exclusively used a man called Chris Malyszewicz to conduct their “swabs”. This was a man with a correspondence PhD from a non-accredited American “institution” who operated out of his garden shed, using equipment utterly incapable of distinguishing MRSA from any number of other, benign bacteria. Oh, and who just so happened to sell cleaning agents “guaranteed” to remove the inevitably-detected infestations.
Although it seems to be becoming a habit, I shall once more plug the estimable Dr Ben Goldacre’s coverage on this issue.
I am talking about the UK - but I see you are too
No, I just happen to know a guy whose foot got infected, a surgeon who recommended using a small private hospital, a few nurses - and reports from people about what they’ve seen. Not solid cites - but this is the Pit.
A very amusing link - Chris Malyszewicz sounds a real chancer