jimrandomh comments on Quantified Health Prize Deadline Extended - Less Wrong

3 Post author: alyssavance 05 January 2012 09:28AM

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Comment author: jimrandomh 05 January 2012 04:22:36PM *  1 point [-]

Nope. This comes from the fact that when you do proper studies about overdosing (which is what you do with needless supplementation) various micronutrients you find that it is at best useless and at worst harmful.

You slipped your conclusion into a premise, when you called it "needless supplementation". That's not what we're talking about; the goal here is to find which compounds, specifically, do need to be supplemented. And I think it ought to go without saying that if you overdose on anything harmful, you're doing it wrong.

Basically, nutrition and supplementation is really complex. If you try to take supplements without engaging with that complexity then you might get hurt; but if you do engage the complexity, you can achieve great benefits.

Comment author: MixedNuts 05 January 2012 04:29:04PM 1 point [-]

if you do engage the complexity, you can achieve great benefits

Surely the question is whether you can reduce the uncertainty enough (about nutrition in general and your own metabolism in particular) that it starts beating "eat like a sane person"?