Smoking never killed anybody...

[Maxone73]

...ok I am just joking, but sometimes it gets frustrating to see all observational, retrospective studies (and similar) being disregarded because they are not randomized double-blind controlled trials.

There has never been a randomized double-blind controlled trial about smoking...of course, it's because it would not be ethical, we can’t ethically force people to chain-smoke for science!

Yet we have assumed (rightfully it seems) that correlation in this case equals causation.

Of course I am not saying that all the observational studies are born the same or that all the publishers have the same level of control over the information published...and yes it happened that I also have published something that was not of the finest quality.

But sometimes, for various reasons, observational, retrospective, meta analysis and everything that is not interventional...is all we have!! 😀😀😀

Have a great one!

[Broccoli24]

totally agree - discounting everything, unless it’s been through a randomised control trial is ridiculous.

There have never been randomised control trials about being run over by a car… but being run over by a car and death are, despite being retrospective, very highly correlated.

[Maxone73 in reply to Broccoli24]

😀😀 randomized double-blind is the golden standard, no doubt about it...but we cannot always have gold! Sometimes a (hopefully) good observational/retrospective study is all we can count on.

[j-o-h-n in reply to Maxone73]

Smoking never killed anybody.

Yes it has..........One of my neighbors was crossing a busy street to buy a pack of cigarettes and was run over by a driver who was smoking a cigar.

Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.

j-o-h-n

[Maxone73 in reply to j-o-h-n]

oh don't get me started with all the guys died because of a smoky hot lady!

[j-o-h-n in reply to Maxone73]

I thing you mean all the European Nicos with their Tines......stabbing themselves in frustration due to those narcissistic hot ladies.

Now that's a stretch if I do say so myself.

Good Luck, Good Health and Good Humor.

j-o-h-n

[Maxone73 in reply to j-o-h-n]

😂😂

[petabyte]

For me it is important to balance the risk vs benefits. For example there is some weak evidence that some probiotics (I'm researching this at the moment) help with recurrence and castration resistance.

So the downside of taking them (if the evidence is wrong) is just the impact on your wallet and the effort taking them. Potential upside is important and so it seems like something I would try (still researching).

Same for most foods and some supplements (though not all supplements are benign).

But when a study makes extraordinary (and treatment altering) claims then there needs to be extraordinary evidence.

That conference paper posted recently showing superiority of agonists over antagonists was a particularly egregious example of bad science.

[Maxone73 in reply to petabyte]

Probiotics would help gut health, and THAT is proven to improve your immune system

[petabyte in reply to Maxone73]

I'll post the AI result since I have not looked at each source yet (many of which are not high quality and some have important conflicts of interest).

This started from a post on the forum.

perplexity.ai/search/someon...

It seems quite complex some bad bacteria may manufacture androgens... 🙁

[Maxone73 in reply to petabyte]

There are so many things you can do for gut health. But why not having a gut health test before starting with supplements? You might find that you need more of some probiotic instead of another (like fermented food, or fibers...by the way, there is also a lot about prostate cancer and fibers intake, we should aim for at least 35-40 grams of fibers per day)

[petabyte in reply to Maxone73]

Ofc. I intend to get it from (fermented) food as much as possible, I already eat a lot it and will add variety. Any more fibre in my diet would lead to divorce 😉.

I may try the Akkermansia supplement (but it is expensive EUR60 for 30 capsules)

I tried looking for a "gut health test" but they all seem to be research hospitals. Any commercial ones available?

[Maxone73 in reply to petabyte]

There are many at home tests (technically only the sampling is done at home), I have never tried to verify which ones are considered good or scam

[Maxone73 in reply to petabyte]

Check out Zoe, they offer also testing. I think it's rather complete but I am not sure you can do it if you are outside the UK. Anyway, too expensive for me! There are also local clinics here offering testing service, I don't know how complete yet.

[petabyte in reply to Maxone73]

My favorite fermented food

🍺

[Maxone73 in reply to petabyte]

I damn love belgian beer, even a Stella is better than most beer you can find in a supermarket....I used to go for chimay, agnus dei and pater noster, I must say that the old bottles were a masterpiece...in the summer instead it was hoegardeen all the time!

[petabyte in reply to Maxone73]

Mmmm Chimay❤️. Sadly in the past for now...

We are a bit spoiled here...

[Prostata in reply to petabyte]

What fermented food do you eat? For me mostly available are dairy products such as yohhurt, kefir... which are good source of bacteria, yet are not considered good for PCa... Beer is apparently also source of IGF and as such should be consumed not too often

[petabyte in reply to Prostata]

I was joking about the beer (did not know the IGF-1 connection). I no longer eat dairy except the occasional special cheese (and never liked yoghurt/kefir anyway).

We do eat kimchi and miso reasonably often. I just bought some natto, I've heard it is an acquired taste so will see.

You can make water kefir pretty easily with water kefir grains (but the bacteria are different). Kamboucha as well but with a different Starter. I plan to try water kefir.

Milk kefir grains can be used with soy/coconut milk a few times but you need to refresh them in milk frequently. May try this

An important thing is prebiotics, making sure the gut bacteria are well fed with resistant starches and inulin.

[petabyte in reply to petabyte]

Okay, here's my take on natto.

I'll start by saying I will try anything, including snake in China, crickets in Vietnam and Balut in Manila (a dare from colleagues).

So Natto. If you know Okra then you know that sticky and slimy texture, Natto is like that but double. Then there is the smell which I can only describe as "2 week old dirty dishcloth in a warm climate".

It is possible to eat Natto but you need to follow it with a large glass of water and wait between mouthfuls for the nausea to stop.

If you enjoy sucking on slimy, sticky dishcloths, then this is for you.

[petabyte in reply to Prostata]

I plan to try this using this product which is available in my local organic shop.

Making kefir from almond milk (using milk kefir). thefermentcompany.nl/amande...

They explain to use the last batch to make the new one. If you add lactose"milk sugar" it will work better since milk kefir feeds on this.

The site is in Dutch but google will translate it for you. You can no doubt get similar products near you.

[Maxone73 in reply to petabyte]

Why not water kefir? But you could cycle with milk kefir from time to time. It's the one with the biggest variety of probiotics.

[petabyte in reply to Maxone73]

I'm new to kefir so was relying on AI. I certainly prefer the taste of water kefir.

chatgpt.com/share/67c5e56c-...

[Prostata in reply to petabyte]

Good idea

[petabyte in reply to Prostata]

Also if you like pasta (I do), and are not a purist, cooling it and reheating it turns it into resistant starch. They don't state the proportion of resistant starch though.

bbc.com/news/magazine-29629761

Maxone73 as an Italian is that OK? Or is it like 🍍 on a 🍕?

😉

Mark

[Maxone73 in reply to petabyte]

Vade retro satana!

[Maxone73 in reply to petabyte]

Seriously, I prefer whole grain pasta to reheating it. But I do the reheat thing with potatoes.

[petabyte in reply to Maxone73]

Yes, it seems you probably get a similar % change with whole grain pasta but starting from a higher baseline, so whole grain is better (not really a surprise).

Some AI input. Quite different figures but similar conclusions. I like perplexity better.

This is from chatgpt o3-mini with Web Search and Reasoning

chatgpt.com/share/67c6d4aa-...

This is from perplexity.ai (deep research)

perplexity.ai/search/when-c...

[Maxone73 in reply to petabyte]

To me it's a matter of sensations in my mouth. As most Italians pastasciutta for me must be "al dente", re heating it would not allow for that. Pre-cooking it could still give it the right consistency but I think it would do nothing to starch (not sure). Pastasciutta is the "technical" name, it means simply dry pasta to distinguish it from stuffed pasta like tortellini or from pasta added to vegetable soup or pasta all'uovo like tagliatelle. Well, after all pasta literally means only...paste.

[kainasar]

One could do a study of tobacco smokers who used 1 pack a day for 30 yrs, Or emphesema patients who were heavy tobacco users.

[Maxone73 in reply to kainasar]

It would still be observational, not interventional, and that's exactly how they study tobacco, alcohol, cholesterol and so on