I think this, and other takedowns of a chemical hunger, focus too mch on the lithium part.
They did a very convincing job arguing that the issue is an environmental contaminant. That part is not refuted anywhere I know of.
Then they listed all environmental contaminants they could think of, and decided that out of that list, the most likely one was lithium. And the takedowns mostly show that it's probably not lithium.
But that just makes it likely that the actual contaminant is something unknown.
I believe that it is more likely to be something related to modern food processing than an environmental contaminant.
I had been obese for a long time, for more than a decade. During that time I did many failed attempts to lose weight, but eventually I did it in the right way and after about a year I had a weight more than 1.5 times lower than before.
That was more than a decade ago, and since then I kept whichever weight I desired. Nonetheless, to avoid gaining weight again, it was essential that I switched to eating only food that I cook myself from raw ingredients.
With the food that I cook myself, I plan the amount that I would eat and after eating that quantity I am satiated and I am not hungry during all day (I eat only twice daily, a breakfast after waking up and then the second meal in the evening).
On the other hand, if I eat food from a restaurant or ready-to-eat food from a supermarket, I am not satiated even after eating much greater quantities, and I become hungry again after a few hours.
The food that I cook myself has a greater percentage of protein and fat than typical for commercial food, only moderate salt, and most of it has no added sugar, but beyond that I have no clue where is the difference.
More protein and fat and less salt and sugar is likely to matter, but it cannot be a complete explanation, because there is a great difference even between the bread that I bake and commercial bread. My bread contains nothing else except flour, water, salt and yeast, but it is very tasty and after eating it I am satiated, while after eating a greater amount of commercial bread I would still want to eat more.
It is the internet, so sometimes it is hard to tell what is serious vs ironic. The "environmental contaminant" that is making everyone fatter is sugar.
The article handwaves working patterns away with one sentence: "Many of them were farmers or laborers, of course, but plenty of people in 1900 had cushy desk jobs, and those people weren’t obese either."
I can't find good numbers on it, but 3-5% had a desk job in the year 1900, seems like there was an entire article's worth of points here but the author wasn't interested which is a shame. At the very least there's definitely more to debate there than with the altitude example.
Explanation of why this hypothesis is unlikely to be correct: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7iAABhWpcGeP5e6SB/it-s-proba...
I think this, and other takedowns of a chemical hunger, focus too mch on the lithium part.
They did a very convincing job arguing that the issue is an environmental contaminant. That part is not refuted anywhere I know of.
Then they listed all environmental contaminants they could think of, and decided that out of that list, the most likely one was lithium. And the takedowns mostly show that it's probably not lithium.
But that just makes it likely that the actual contaminant is something unknown.
I believe that it is more likely to be something related to modern food processing than an environmental contaminant.
I had been obese for a long time, for more than a decade. During that time I did many failed attempts to lose weight, but eventually I did it in the right way and after about a year I had a weight more than 1.5 times lower than before.
That was more than a decade ago, and since then I kept whichever weight I desired. Nonetheless, to avoid gaining weight again, it was essential that I switched to eating only food that I cook myself from raw ingredients.
With the food that I cook myself, I plan the amount that I would eat and after eating that quantity I am satiated and I am not hungry during all day (I eat only twice daily, a breakfast after waking up and then the second meal in the evening).
On the other hand, if I eat food from a restaurant or ready-to-eat food from a supermarket, I am not satiated even after eating much greater quantities, and I become hungry again after a few hours.
The food that I cook myself has a greater percentage of protein and fat than typical for commercial food, only moderate salt, and most of it has no added sugar, but beyond that I have no clue where is the difference.
More protein and fat and less salt and sugar is likely to matter, but it cannot be a complete explanation, because there is a great difference even between the bread that I bake and commercial bread. My bread contains nothing else except flour, water, salt and yeast, but it is very tasty and after eating it I am satiated, while after eating a greater amount of commercial bread I would still want to eat more.
It is the internet, so sometimes it is hard to tell what is serious vs ironic. The "environmental contaminant" that is making everyone fatter is sugar.
The article handwaves working patterns away with one sentence: "Many of them were farmers or laborers, of course, but plenty of people in 1900 had cushy desk jobs, and those people weren’t obese either."
I can't find good numbers on it, but 3-5% had a desk job in the year 1900, seems like there was an entire article's worth of points here but the author wasn't interested which is a shame. At the very least there's definitely more to debate there than with the altitude example.
Related:
A Chemical Hunger: Mysteries - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27796557 - July 2021 (198 comments)
(Reposts are fine after a year or so; links to past threads are just to satisfy extra-curious readers)