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Lumifer comments on Open thread, Jan. 18 - Jan. 24, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion
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So, I only recently decided to start taking Vitamin D after reading Gwern's discussion of it here, and I've been wondering if there are other easy wins for extending one's healthspan/life expectancy/lifespan cheaply that we're collectively missing.
On one level, it seems like having individual LWers go out, read a number of research papers, and then do a cost-benefit analysis on an intervention has produced good research before, but this approach feels a bit unorganized to me.
So, part of me wonders if it might be a good idea to just pay someone (say, Gwern, or someone who used to work for MetaMed--not that I asked Gwern if he'd be up for the task before writing this) to go and see if there are any obvious interventions that we're not aware of. The writer could try to write a more complete version of Lifestyle Interventions to Increase Longevity, or they could just look for new interventions that we LWers have collectively overlooked, and publish a short summary of their findings, if any.
I'm mainly asking about this now to see if people think this is a good idea, but I hope that, in a year or so, I'd actually be able to put up a chunk of money for something like this to be done, if I still thought it was a good idea.
Averages are pretty useless -- go to a doctor, ask for a full set of blood tests. And when I say "full", I mean ridiculously all-encompassing, if your doctor is OK with this. The printout of your results should take a couple of dozen pages.
Ask for copies of the lab results. Study them carefully and they will tell you personally what would be a good idea for your health.
Is that working under the assumption that normalizing is better for your health? I don't think that I would trust myself or my doctor to optimize supplements based simply on what I am low in.
For example, normal vit. D3 levels are often set by the healthy level for Caucasians, with the result that Asians with healthy, normal levels for their genotype are flagged as dangerously low. This is not something that you can assume that your doctor is aware of.
However, the tests would give you some starting points for research. Also, I suspect that most doctors are not likely to offer much more than a chem-20, which I think is pretty useful across populations (IANAD) -- but also is probably not what you are recommending.
No. That's working under the assumption that more information is better than less information.
I didn't say "listen to your doctor". I said "study them carefully".
Ask for specific, comprehensive panels. Do not go in saying "You think I should maybe get some tests?" :-/