I absolutely have a sulphite intolerance, but I don't think it caused my various metabolic problems, I think it's somehow secondary to them or all part of the same thing. They all came on at roughly the same time though, so who can say?
It did take me a few years to notice it, mainly because I just thought my hangovers were getting worse as I got older, but it's not been lifelong, I used to deal with sulphites just fine!
It could be, sulphite oxidase contains molybdenum I think, but I thought that molybdenum deficiency was a very rare thing indeed? I'll keep it in mind though, thanks!
Hard to say, you used to get it from things like legumes but I've heard in recent times there's no guarantee. Fortunately you don't need huge amounts and supplementing is easy.
I didn't know he was regularly taking time off to starve himself, that is quite extreme. From your interactions, do you know if he's tried extracting himself from the American food environment? That seems like an obvious thing to try if you're going to such lengths.
We don't even know if it's the food itself, but it does seem likely, and I've found 'not eating anything with ingredients that weren't around before modern times' surprisingly easy. It all just tastes so much better!
Once you have forsworn the polyunsaturated abomination, mostly you can find non-chemical versions of the remaining things without too much trouble.
Well I mean that's kind of the point, you don't have to know anything beyond: Americans getting fat, Vietnamese staying lean (or are they? I'm not up to date).
Conclusion, go to Vietnam for three months. Doesn't matter if it's PUFAs or something in the air, extraction from the environment that's causing problems seems like an obvious thing to at least try!
Haha that's certainly an interesting idea. Although it might differ a bit if you think it's the food - after all you could go to Vietnam and only eat KFC there, vs. eating local cuisine.
I think they commonly report that people moving from America to Japan lose the "Japanese 15" or whatever it's called without trying, within a couple of months. But not sure it's been studied directly.
Exactly, you would have to live as much as a local as possible, to get the local effect (whatever that is!)
Which is why I think it's surprising the Yudkowsky (presumably having the means and will, considering the aforementioned starving himself) doesn't just go to Japan or whatever for 3 months.
Crikey, do you know if Eliezer's off the oilz of evil? I know he's had major metabolic problems, including non-24 since childhood, but I didn't know how many different things he'd tried to fix them.
A poor man's method of checking for polyunsaturates is to see if they go hard in the fridge. Butter straight out of the fridge needs slicing, anything that stays spreadable in a fridge is right out as far as I'm concerned.
On the other hand, why would anyone who fears PUFAs eat avocado oil anyway? Butter (and coconut oil) work well for most purposes, and stay solid at most room temperatures.
It could certainly make things worse. I personally literally cannot go to the extremes he does, like 1,000kcal for a month straight. My body won't even let me lol. So I can only imagine what it does to your metabolism..
Yeah, I really don't think it's a good idea to do calorie restriction every day, I think it's a fundamental mistake, the body needs some days of "normal" or "maintenance" calories. Better to do harsher restriction some days and no restriction on other days imo, so ADF or 5:2 or similar.
I've noticed something similar. I would say I'm the tough cases part, but not as bad as you. Elizer and other super tough cases like him, with a lot of related neurodiversity type things, I think, have larger systemic issues in various systems that are just not working correctly. It reminds me a lot of https://x.com/ultimape , who ultimately solved a lot of his problems with a dog FMT. With Elizer, it will probably be something like that.
Great post! As a parent of two autistic children, I definitely am on board with the "whatever did autism is what's doing obesity" argument. I also liked the idea of the tail moving to the right over time as more environmental stuff gets messed up.
You did leave out the part where American farmers spray glyphosphate on their wheat fields just to "dry out the crop" before harvest time.
I also find the phrase "non-communicable diseases" especially humorous when used to refer to "diseases of civilization" / "Western diseases."
I feel a bit icky to be in the "5% lucky" group, but am grateful you'll accept me into the community just the same.
I do have people in my close friend group / family who are definitely at your level of complexity, or just below. I felt bad when I first read Eliezer's thread and still feel bad for him. Reading your chronicles and those of others' has made me much more sympathetic with their plights.
Well, I would say “Amish but let’s keep modernity’s surgical knowledge/procedures, antibiotics, and infant/maternal mortality rates.” And some vaccines, too.
I do like Ice Cream for Bears’ slogan that “the future of food is in the past.”
I used to shop at an ALDI that had a lot of Amish customers. They would load up on the white flour and white sugar and all of it. They weren't eating organic, unless it was vegetables from their own gardens - those might have been organic. But as far as I know, they didn't grow or use any organic grains.
People who talk about the Amish being healthier and having low-to-non-existent rates of autism really, really don't want to talk about the fact that they simply say NO to vaccines. It's the elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about because it's so verboten.
Sometimes it's not that simple. But if you can't even look at it, maybe it is. Maybe it's the vaccines, and keeping "just some modern things, like vaccines" is part of the problem. It's not like society is just keeping a few, either. At least in America, they keep adding more and more and more to the "necessary at an extremely young age" list and you're a heretic if you question it or want to slow down or (gasp) say NO.
I used to shop at an ALDI that had a lot of Amish customers. They would load up on the white flour and white sugar and all of it. They weren't eating organic, unless it was vegetables from their own gardens - those might have been organic. But as far as I know, they didn't grow or use any organic grains.
People who talk about the Amish being healthier and having low-to-non-existent rates of autism really, really don't want to talk about the fact that they simply say NO to vaccines. It's the elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about because it's so verboten.
Sometimes it's not that simple. But if you can't even look at it, maybe it is. Maybe it's the vaccines, and keeping "just some modern things, like vaccines" is part of the problem. It's not like society is just keeping a few, either. At least in America, they keep adding more and more and more to the "necessary at an extremely young age" list and you're a heretic if you question it or want to slow down or (gasp) say NO.
I absolutely have a sulphite intolerance, but I don't think it caused my various metabolic problems, I think it's somehow secondary to them or all part of the same thing. They all came on at roughly the same time though, so who can say?
It did take me a few years to notice it, mainly because I just thought my hangovers were getting worse as I got older, but it's not been lifelong, I used to deal with sulphites just fine!
Wonder if it'll disappear one day :) Like my Non-24 lol.
I do hope so! I really miss beer.
Could be a molybdenum deficiency.
It could be, sulphite oxidase contains molybdenum I think, but I thought that molybdenum deficiency was a very rare thing indeed? I'll keep it in mind though, thanks!
Hard to say, you used to get it from things like legumes but I've heard in recent times there's no guarantee. Fortunately you don't need huge amounts and supplementing is easy.
Should be easy enough to test, then? Supplement it and drink a bunch of sulphites and see if the effect still occurs?
Eliezer Yudkowsky! What an unexpected crossover.
I didn't know he was regularly taking time off to starve himself, that is quite extreme. From your interactions, do you know if he's tried extracting himself from the American food environment? That seems like an obvious thing to try if you're going to such lengths.
He's pretty aware of PUFAs, but since we otherwise don't really know which part of the American food environment is so bad, it's difficult heh.
We don't even know if it's the food itself, but it does seem likely, and I've found 'not eating anything with ingredients that weren't around before modern times' surprisingly easy. It all just tastes so much better!
Once you have forsworn the polyunsaturated abomination, mostly you can find non-chemical versions of the remaining things without too much trouble.
Well I mean that's kind of the point, you don't have to know anything beyond: Americans getting fat, Vietnamese staying lean (or are they? I'm not up to date).
Conclusion, go to Vietnam for three months. Doesn't matter if it's PUFAs or something in the air, extraction from the environment that's causing problems seems like an obvious thing to at least try!
Haha that's certainly an interesting idea. Although it might differ a bit if you think it's the food - after all you could go to Vietnam and only eat KFC there, vs. eating local cuisine.
I think they commonly report that people moving from America to Japan lose the "Japanese 15" or whatever it's called without trying, within a couple of months. But not sure it's been studied directly.
Exactly, you would have to live as much as a local as possible, to get the local effect (whatever that is!)
Which is why I think it's surprising the Yudkowsky (presumably having the means and will, considering the aforementioned starving himself) doesn't just go to Japan or whatever for 3 months.
Haha I wonder if he's tried it
Crikey, do you know if Eliezer's off the oilz of evil? I know he's had major metabolic problems, including non-24 since childhood, but I didn't know how many different things he'd tried to fix them.
He's very aware of the PUFA issue and mentions it frequently, so I assume he's avoiding them where he can.
The idea of reading Eliezer's thoughts on all this is almost enough to get me to make a twitter account. But not quite!
He mentions linoleic acid offhand pretty frequently but I don't think he's actually written anything unique about it https://x.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1866327052837863911
Yeah, he's got better things to do I guess. I gave up on the whole AI control problem a long time ago, but Eliezer's relentless optimism is admirable.
A poor man's method of checking for polyunsaturates is to see if they go hard in the fridge. Butter straight out of the fridge needs slicing, anything that stays spreadable in a fridge is right out as far as I'm concerned.
On the other hand, why would anyone who fears PUFAs eat avocado oil anyway? Butter (and coconut oil) work well for most purposes, and stay solid at most room temperatures.
When I read the Twitter thread with Mr Yudkowsky my first thought was that it was his regular fasting was messing up his metabolism.
But who knows. These things are complicated.
It could certainly make things worse. I personally literally cannot go to the extremes he does, like 1,000kcal for a month straight. My body won't even let me lol. So I can only imagine what it does to your metabolism..
Yeah, I really don't think it's a good idea to do calorie restriction every day, I think it's a fundamental mistake, the body needs some days of "normal" or "maintenance" calories. Better to do harsher restriction some days and no restriction on other days imo, so ADF or 5:2 or similar.
I've noticed something similar. I would say I'm the tough cases part, but not as bad as you. Elizer and other super tough cases like him, with a lot of related neurodiversity type things, I think, have larger systemic issues in various systems that are just not working correctly. It reminds me a lot of https://x.com/ultimape , who ultimately solved a lot of his problems with a dog FMT. With Elizer, it will probably be something like that.
Yea from what I can tell anecdotally, you're probably a little bit "easier" than me around the half or 3/4 point of "slightly complicated?"
Great post! As a parent of two autistic children, I definitely am on board with the "whatever did autism is what's doing obesity" argument. I also liked the idea of the tail moving to the right over time as more environmental stuff gets messed up.
You did leave out the part where American farmers spray glyphosphate on their wheat fields just to "dry out the crop" before harvest time.
I also find the phrase "non-communicable diseases" especially humorous when used to refer to "diseases of civilization" / "Western diseases."
I feel a bit icky to be in the "5% lucky" group, but am grateful you'll accept me into the community just the same.
I do have people in my close friend group / family who are definitely at your level of complexity, or just below. I felt bad when I first read Eliezer's thread and still feel bad for him. Reading your chronicles and those of others' has made me much more sympathetic with their plights.
> You did leave out the part where American farmers spray glyphosphate on their wheat fields just to "dry out the crop" before harvest time.
I will become Amish... funny how the endgame seems to be essentially to reject modernity lol. Everything is trying to kill us.
Well, I would say “Amish but let’s keep modernity’s surgical knowledge/procedures, antibiotics, and infant/maternal mortality rates.” And some vaccines, too.
I do like Ice Cream for Bears’ slogan that “the future of food is in the past.”
I used to shop at an ALDI that had a lot of Amish customers. They would load up on the white flour and white sugar and all of it. They weren't eating organic, unless it was vegetables from their own gardens - those might have been organic. But as far as I know, they didn't grow or use any organic grains.
People who talk about the Amish being healthier and having low-to-non-existent rates of autism really, really don't want to talk about the fact that they simply say NO to vaccines. It's the elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about because it's so verboten.
Sometimes it's not that simple. But if you can't even look at it, maybe it is. Maybe it's the vaccines, and keeping "just some modern things, like vaccines" is part of the problem. It's not like society is just keeping a few, either. At least in America, they keep adding more and more and more to the "necessary at an extremely young age" list and you're a heretic if you question it or want to slow down or (gasp) say NO.
I used to shop at an ALDI that had a lot of Amish customers. They would load up on the white flour and white sugar and all of it. They weren't eating organic, unless it was vegetables from their own gardens - those might have been organic. But as far as I know, they didn't grow or use any organic grains.
People who talk about the Amish being healthier and having low-to-non-existent rates of autism really, really don't want to talk about the fact that they simply say NO to vaccines. It's the elephant in the room nobody wants to talk about because it's so verboten.
Sometimes it's not that simple. But if you can't even look at it, maybe it is. Maybe it's the vaccines, and keeping "just some modern things, like vaccines" is part of the problem. It's not like society is just keeping a few, either. At least in America, they keep adding more and more and more to the "necessary at an extremely young age" list and you're a heretic if you question it or want to slow down or (gasp) say NO.
Speaking of which; Seed Oil Scout’s newsletter talked about the Amish today and how much better they are metabolically.
Oh interesting, is there a web link where I could check it out?
Sorry, I forgot about this. Just emailed it to you