The Diet Myth

What Hacker News says

1. elliekellyJul 2021
   You might find Tim Specter’s “The Diet Myth” interesting. He’s a geneticist specializing in twin studies who sort of stumbled into the role of the microbiome in obesity. It’s been a while since I’ve read it but IIRC he points to pasteurizing as one of the contributors to America’s obesity compared to Europe.
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2. elliekellyMay 2019
   There's a great book about this called "The Diet Myth" by Tim Specter. IIRC he's a Professor of Genetics and specialized in twin studies and sort of stumbled into researching gut bacteria because he was fascinated by identical twins were one was obese and other was a healthy weight. It's mindblowing how little we know and understand about such an important topic.

   Edit: If you're interested, this talk[1] he gave at the Boston Science Museum is what made me read his book.

   [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEAdtGa549I

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3. fs111May 2016
   I can highly recommend "The diet myth" by Prof. Tim Spector, who does a good job in explaining why there are so many myths about nutrition, food, digestion etc:

   http://tim-spector.co.uk/

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4. PoogeSep 2025
   Gut microbes are only recently being studied as a potential weight gain cause, too.

   People having the exact same lifestyle and diet may have very different results.[1]

   [1]: The Diet Myth from Dr Tim Spector

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5. PoogeJul 2025
   I've read a few books on nutrition that are not in the same "ideological" agenda at all (e.g. How Not To Die, Why Proteins Don't Count).

   The book I'm going to read next is called The Diet Myth. I wonder if some people here read it and could share their opinions. It's mostly because I'm physically active and would like to understand more how the body works (including nutritionally).

   But, the more I read different ideas, the more I think that there is absolutely no consensus—for good reasons—on how to lose or gain weight. I'm expecting to get downvoted by the HN crowd because people don't want to hear anything beside "calories in - calories out", but I hope to start a polite discussion.

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6. noneeeedFeb 2022
   It seems to be a case of lots of variety in your diet, ideally lots of different vegetables, nuts, pulses etc, and cutting down/out highly processed foods. Variety seems to be the spice of life, quite literally.

   I've just finished reading Prof. Tim Spector's "The Diet Myth". The book's title is a little hyperbolic, but it works through all the major food groups and how we eat and talks about both the historic research and diet fads of the past (like Ansel Keys research that sparked the obsession with low fat foods) and how all these different foodstuffs tie into our gut bacteria, which in turn affects us.

   Tim's "thing" is the human biome, but I didn't read it as him touting it as a cureall, but as something that is more important than almost all of us are aware, and which has been seriously neglected to the point that it's having an impact on many aspects of our health. He's also pretty open that a lot of this is still very much up in the air at the moment, and lots more study is needed to really understand many of the effects. He also seems pretty sceptical of the medicallisation and the obsession with isolating one factor and packaging it up as a supplement or magic pill that will solve your health issues.

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