The incidence of crohn’s, IBD, celiac, etc going on out there. Some people want to throw obesity into that ring as well. Inflammation certainly causes weight gain.

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griffzhowl 8 days ago | parent [-]

Ah ok, well, obesity incidence is probably almost entirely explained by the amount of sugar and fats in modern diets. I wouldn't have thought of it as pertaining to gut health specifically, but no doubt there can be relationships there.

The other things seem more plausible. Purely anecdotally, my step-dad always thought he was intolerant to gluten because of his reactions to British bread, but when he spent a lot of time in France and tried bread there, he was fine.

Could be there's something about the production process of the standard British "Chorleywood loaf" that aggravates some bowels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorleywood_bread_process

In general, I find it quite easy to believe that a lot of mass-produced foods contain what are essentially poisons, but I'm curious about evidential links (and I'm also aware that lots of naturally-occurring foods can be poisons if eaten too much, but that's a different question)

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astrange 8 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Ah ok, well, obesity incidence is probably almost entirely explained by the amount of sugar and fats in modern diets.

The obesity epidemic started rapidly around 1980, but it's unlikely diet changed for the worse since then.

Also, it happened to lab animals and pets as well.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspb.2010...

Also, it appears to be correlated with low altitudes and interventions that cause you to move to higher altitudes cause weight loss.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

> Purely anecdotally, my step-dad always thought he was intolerant to gluten because of his reactions to British bread, but when he spent a lot of time in France and tried bread there, he was fine.

The American equivalent of this (people who go to Europe and think the bread is healthier because it's easy to digest) is because we fortify wheat and the extra nutrients esp. iron cause stomach discomfort.

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XorNot 8 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You need to define "spent some time". Was he working? On sabbatical or holiday?

"I travelled somewhere and things improved" has the serious complication that you changed almost everything at once and possibly removed major stress sources. You were even outside of your own home - and buildings have ecosystems themselves anyway as well as just systemic faults.

	▲	griffzhowl 8 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah ok, but it's just an anecdote so it doesn't count as generalisable evidence in any case. I would just add that when he got back to Britain and tried baguette style bread there he found that he could tolerate it in Britain too. Again, I'm just reporting a story as it was told to me because I was reminded of it in response to the previous comment.

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DaveZale 8 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I believe that ultraprocessed foods are recognized as borderline poisons. Esp if they contain trans fats or hydrogenated fats, which arw described as "slow acting poisons" - but the same goes for "extruded foods" - stuff that is processed to the point where it can be molded or squeezed into funny looking shapes.