Those people often link to papers that directly contradict the claims they make, assuming no one is going to check them. This won't make a difference.

yea example now there are guys in this comment section claiming keto has cured their adhd/autism. Helped reduce symptoms, sure, but cure? (I've got both of them been on keto, like crazy strict ensuring i was in ketosis every two days type, and it only reduced brain fog personally)

Whenever you get an HN story that even remotely brushes up against health, fitness, or nutrition, you inevitably get all the wacky exercise, supplements, and diet commenters coming out of the woodwork to tell you all about "what worked for me". It's a constant that you can 100% count on every time.

On reddit challenging intermittent fasting or keto can easily get you insulted, then banned.

These fitness yahoos just won't stop.

I also want to take a moment to call out all the deadlifters. Virtually 100% of people I know that have done substantial deadlifting eg. over 300lbs (give or take), for extended periods of time (several months to years) has wound up with either stress injuries or traumatic injuries; often it's both.

Meanwhile the deadlift crowd will insist they are just idiots, doing the exercise wrong. The point was that many people have poor coordination and don't have teams to watch over them and correct mistakes. Even mentioning this will lead to mass ridicule from bros that will insist that heavy deadlifts can only make your body feel minty fresh.

I'm not actually anti-deadlift, btw. I personally saw big improvements in the early stages. These problems seem to occur when the body starts fighting you, and you still want to keep going. Variation can help.

Or you could just do vertical loading and/or more moderate exercise and don't worry about proving your worth.

You can also add agriculture to that list, apparently we should give up the wins of the green revolution and go back to living in this idealized world of Permaculture food forests and tree houses (George Monbiot has some great takes on these ideas).

I really wonder why HN goes off the rails when these topics come up. Is it just a weak science education, combined with the relative accessibility (and acceptability) of health/fitness/exercise self experimentation? Though I also see gut microbiome discussions being shoehorned to any discussion in this space aswell.

I guess I just don't get it, probably the 'tism.

For stuff like this, overfitting is a given.

Probably, but it's hardly a requirement. There have been some doing it for decades, partly fueled by Wakefield's "autistic enterocolitis" pseudoscience and partly the usual organic/vegan/raw/paleo/keto bullshit.

My only and immediate reaction as well.

Does this mean that they'll start getting their kids vaccinated?

I fear it will be both that crowd and the anti-covid vaccine blind trust of joe rogan guest crowd