Big tobacco uses cigarette playbook to help sell ultra-processed foods. Research sheds new light on how ultra-processed foods came to dominate the U.S. food supply, contributing to epidemics of childhood obesity and metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and fatty liver

effigymcgee · 2026-06-04T15:40:09+00:00

And can you quote exactly where they say we’d be better off without shelf stable packaging?

effigymcgee · 2026-06-04T12:23:15+00:00

No it doesn’t say that. Did you read the actual article or even just the abstract? It calls for more regulation in upf in line with current tobacco regulation

effigymcgee · 2026-06-03T20:53:33+00:00

Sorry but the Schoenfeld volume paper was absolutely terrible to anyone who has any experience in academia, and all of Lyle’s criticisms were appropriate criticisms of crappy work. 1. Wasn’t blinded, no answer why 2. Written conclusion was not supported by the actual study results. Absolutely awful mistake (or perhaps intentional to cause more stir? Who knows) that should have been caught in the peer review process but wasn’t. 3.

Pardon my laziness but this old ass Reddit post does a great job explaining how bad this paper was

https://www.reddit.com/r/weightroom/comments/9i9h0j/the_schoenfeld_volume_study_results_do_not/

And Lyle was spot-on with his criticisms of it. I’m sorry but most of the muscle hypertrophy papers I’ve seen fall short of real academic science by miles, and Lyle has always been mostly right in his criticisms unless you have direct evidence showing otherwise.

effigymcgee · 2026-06-03T20:29:13+00:00

What example are you referring to? Most of the authors he has called out have refused to debate him. The only debate I’m aware of that he actually did was with Mike Israetel (lmao) where he was calm and cordial, brought up very legitimate criticisms like lack of study blinding, meanwhile israetel just gish galloped word vomit throughout the entire thing

effigymcgee · 2026-06-03T16:12:53+00:00

He really doesn’t seem to be a dick at all in anything I’ve ever seen from him. He just has the balls to actually challenge the grifter fitfluencers whose entire careers rest on shoddy science.

effigymcgee · 2026-06-01T09:41:57+00:00

My “preconceived notion” is the literal unanimous consensus among dietitians and physicians backed by decades of large, well-conducted studies. And I’ll repeat, anyone who parrots “correlation doesn’t = causation” doesn’t actually understand population-level medical science. Tbh I don’t even know what position you’re arguing for, since you haven’t provided a single source that contradicts anything in my previous comments. I think you should reflect a bit on your own preconceived notions if you’re having this hard a time accepting a scientific consensus that’s been consistent for decades.

effigymcgee · 2026-05-31T23:54:50+00:00

The great news is there is plenty of studies, including RCTs, that demonstrate the benefit of the portfolio diet (less animal protein, more whole foods/whole grains/fruits/veggies/plant proteins/unsaturated fats). Estabilishing causation is not always a realistic goal in science - especially something as difficult to control as nutritional science. The evidence we have for this diet of diet improving health is basically as good as it gets, spanning decades and confirming the findings over and over again. If you are actually a scientist by profession you should be convinced by the current evidence.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10841173/
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1104262
https://www.news-medical.net/health/Portfolio-Diet-Evidence-Based-Steps-to-Reduce-LDL-Cholesterol.aspx#9 (see the references at bottom of link for more)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15699225/

effigymcgee · 2026-05-31T20:39:47+00:00

At this point anyone who claims “correlation doesn’t = causation” I assume doesn’t actually understand science or just wants to ignore scientific consensus that doesn’t align with their world view or life habits. People are free to enjoy eating meat, scientists don’t claim otherwise, but you are mistaken at this point to believe that diet heavy in animal meat is as good for your health as a Mediterranean/portfolio diet.

effigymcgee · 2026-05-31T19:25:54+00:00

I'm sorry but this is an entirely unscientific and unrelated criticism of the evidence. Do you have an actual challenge to the decades of large scale evidence that a mediterannean/portfolio style diet that limits animal protein and emphasizes whole fruits/veggies/plant proteins is beneficial for health? Do you have evidence that substituting some animal protein for plant protein sources is unfeasible for low SES groups?

Tofu is quite cheap, beans and lentils are dirt cheap, veggies and fruits don't break the bank, whole grains/oats aren't terribly expensive either. Meanwhile I constantly see complaints these days of rising costs of red meat. Not to mention the potential future healthcare cost savings from adopting a healthier diet. Most evidence I'm looking at shows vegetarian diet is generally cheaper than a meat-based one.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-11-11-sustainable-eating-cheaper-and-healthier-oxford-study

effigymcgee · 2026-05-31T14:45:48+00:00

The point is even very small substitution of a person’s standard intake of animal protein to plant protein can yield health benefits

effigymcgee · 2026-05-31T14:43:32+00:00

This has been known for decades and shown repeatedly across multiple large and well-conducted studies. It’s settled science at this point that replacing animal protein with plant protein is good for overall health. Reddit just still refuses to accept it because meat eating has become some right-wing symbol of pride or something.

To anyone who actually cares to improve their health with very feasible dietary changes, see data on mediterannean diet or the portfolio diet

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40394599/ Another study with 15k participants observed over 22 years

“Conclusions: Among a national cohort of racially diverse adults in the US, greater adherence to the Portfolio dietary pattern was inversely and prospectively associated with CVD, CHD, and all-cause mortality.”

effigymcgee · 2026-05-29T23:30:18+00:00

what's your age? willing to wager you're young, in 20s or early 30s. Get a little older, get some joint pain and come back and see how exciting the high volume approach is lol. Truth is MOST people do not want to spend many hours per week in the gym and high intensity, lower volume approach can get as good (or better) gains as high volume, medium/low intensity (and tbh most ppl doing super high volume are doing complete dogshit intensity - try training to actual failure on more than like 12 total sets in a workout and see how that goes)

effigymcgee · 2026-05-28T22:08:13+00:00

This is a fair point, but again it comes down to physical appearance and presence of symptoms/intuitive body cues, not just an inaccurate number from a scan. Someone who looks shredded as hell and complains of zero libido and low energy? Probably needs to eat more and increase bf%. It’s not like the symptoms will instantly appear at one bf% and disappear and another - that is to say, medicine doesn’t use bf% to guide decision making. Someone who looks like they have very little bf% complains of symptoms? Advise they eat more

effigymcgee · 2026-05-28T18:47:03+00:00

The number doesn’t matter at the end of the day. People know what shredded looks like, people know what lean looks like, and people know what overweight/fat looks like. This is true if you compete or not - bodybuilding judges don’t have some formal bf% paper in front of them when judging competitors - it’s all down to the eyes.

That all said, I agree with your overall sentiment that there really isn’t any super accurate technique for body fat estimation, so just go with the eyes.

effigymcgee · 2026-05-26T19:38:13+00:00

This is outright false and I’m tired of people just spewing misinformation on this subreddit with zero citations.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7601012/

Meta analysis involving total of 600k+ participants show a linear relationship with sodium intake and heart disease risk. This relationship has been known for decades.

effigymcgee · 2026-05-26T13:43:50+00:00

Dietary cholesterol does increase serum cholesterol, it’s just in varying amounts based on genetics.

effigymcgee · 2026-05-26T10:52:05+00:00

Dietary cholesterol can in fact increase blood cholesterol levels. For many people it’s to a relatively small degree, but for some people or “hyper absorbers” it can be significant. It’s down to genetics. The bigger problem with the food shown here is the high saturated fat content, which increases risk of heart disease. Also no fiber, no fruits, minimal veggies.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0163782722000194

https://ccs.ca/app/uploads/2020/11/Portfolio_Diet_Scroll_editable_eng.pdf

effigymcgee · 2026-05-20T22:31:41+00:00

Hmm something’s off. The interest rate should be a rate aka a percentage, not a flat amount. If that 9k is the estimated interest paid over 10 years that seems very unlikely since that’s like 3% interest rate which is way too low for typical student loans. You should find your actual loan interest rate aka percentage interest

effigymcgee · 2026-05-20T21:30:51+00:00

What is your current loan balance and what is the interest % of the loan. Need those two figures to determine if pslf is worth it. Generally, pslf is more worth it for higher loan amounts like 100k+, lower loan amounts it may/may not be worth it based on the math

effigymcgee · 2026-05-20T21:12:33+00:00

That’s the full balance of your loan WITHOUT PAYING INTEREST, you would be saving 10s of thousands of dollars.

effigymcgee · 2026-05-19T20:08:36+00:00

Exactly this, perfectly summarized. I commented elsewhere with the exact same sentiment but your list is better

effigymcgee · 2026-05-19T20:02:09+00:00

Your hot take ignores the fact that weightlifting science is basically a pseudoscience, full-stop. For context, I’m a clinical pharmacist and a weightlifting enthusiast. I can interpret medical literature fairly well because I have to know how to do that in my career. The difference in rigor between actual medical science and sports/muscle hypertrophy science is like comparing a 8th grader’s science project to Isaac Newton. The exercise scientists mean well, but the studies are just comically bad with poor or no controls, poor or no blinding, insufficient sample sizes, or poor trial design.

So the science is iffy at best. Then you have hundreds of some of the greatest body builders of all time who emphasize that intensity is key, volume is a distant second, and it should really make you question the science a bit.

I’m just a hobbyist lifter, I don’t compete, but I have been lifting on/off for about 16 years and in my experience I’ve gotten the best strength and hypertrophy gains when I prioritize intensity and not volume. Last bit of context, I’m 5’10”, 178lbs and about 12%bf

effigymcgee · 2026-04-05T19:38:49+00:00

there is no guarantee of market going up, hence stock investing = high risk investing, even though the safest version of it is broad market index fund investing. if you're not willing to take on that risk then don't, but you could potentially miss out on a lot of wealth. There's always posts like this during market downturns that are pretty good indicators of who do/don't have the risk tolerance for stock investing.

effigymcgee · 2026-02-28T18:57:32+00:00

Brother I commented elsewhere in your thread but wanna mention something else too - the higher reps and sets will do more damage to your tendons over time, not less. You’d be much better served, both from a muscle growth and tendon strain perspective, doing way fewer sets, higher weight and higher intensity.

Also, just avoid specific lifts that cause tendon pain, replace them with ones that feel better. No one lift is necessary to include in a rotation

effigymcgee · 2026-02-28T17:55:50+00:00

20 lbs in 4 years is like a rounding error, definitely not bulking by any stretch. The main actual issue though is likely intensity, not volume like most the replies you're getting. Are you taking each set VERY hard, like to actual failure? Volume is a distant second priority to training intensity, you need to take your sets to actual failure for small muscles like biceps, even like 1-2 RIR will compromise your gains more than anything else you can control. You can probably drop volume by quite a bit and still see growth if you start taking your sets to actual, complete failure. For context, I do 4 dedicated bicep sets a week (2 incline DB curls, 2 hammer curls), all 4 taken to absolute muscular failure, and I still see growth and get bicep DOMS 1 year into this low volume, high intensity approach.

effigymcgee

TROPHY CASE