Open Letter to Matt

[brimstoneSalad]

Ok, I read it and it seems to say the same things as I read elsewhere. Eating dietary cholesterol doesn't do much to raise your blood levels unless you have diabetes or are a special case.

The effect diminishes with increased consumption. e.g. Ten eggs isn't much worse than one egg, but one egg is much worse than zero eggs.
This is the case for a lot of things, including positive things like vitamins.
A little B-12 is good, but a lot isn't much better, because not much extra will be absorbed from an enormous dose than from a relatively small one.

Most relationships of consumption and absorption are not linear. So, this isn't a surprise.

[miniboes]

-------------------- Brimstone/Mr. Purple --------------------------

Ok, I read it and it seems to say the same things as I read elsewhere. Eating dietary cholesterol doesn't do much to raise your blood levels unless you have diabetes or are a special case.

The effect diminishes with increased consumption. e.g. Ten eggs isn't much worse than one egg, but one egg is much worse than zero eggs.

Good point, I forgot to add this article:
http://www.pcrm.org/nbBlog/index.php/th ... edible-egg

-------------------- Bobo --------------------------

In video uniformity is the Key to professionalism. Although the video's background reflects a massive improvement throughout the video, I cant help but feel the improvement would amplified if you where to use the same background throughout (if loop-able). This uniformity is sometimes also achieved by filters, lenses, and white balance, but you don't need to worry about that.

I could try that. Of the backgrounds displayed, which did you like best? Or should I make a new, more generally applicable one?

The section in which liar pops up in different locations on the screen has a white background. If the white background is connected to the image It may be worth doing it again, but I would suggest you use a range of titles. What program are you doing this in, because title are annoying in Adobe Premiere, which I am most accustomed to.

I liked the white background because "liar" gets many different colors, thus a colored background would make them look less good. I made it with Sony Vegas (or as I often accidently call it: Sony Vegan) though, so it's not very hard to remake. I'll play around with it.

For the most part the sound effects where spot on, and in some spaces maybe too low. When editing the audio try to work with speakers rather than a headset, especially buds, and confirm that the audio sounds right on a range of different outputs, so its audible with speakers, but not deafening with buds.

That's good to hear. I'll play around with that too. I went through dozens of sweeping, swooping, pushing, sliding and even inhaling sound effects until I found this one, which I funnily enough discovered accidentily. I was going to use it for the "not a big fish" segment, because originally it sounded like this:
http://freesound.org/people/murraysortz/sounds/192501/

When I sped it up it sounded like a very good transition sound, better than any of the others.

Again its looking great.

Thanks!

[Mr. Purple]

You guys are being surprisingly unconvincing. I'm a vegan wanting to confirm my beliefs, and you can't even get me. How do you expect to convince Matt? There seems like a lot of controversy around dietary cholesterol being anything significant to avoid. It even seems like the scientific consensus is starting to lean towards dietary cholesterol being fine. If im reading this correctly, it doesn't look like the government recognizes dietary cholesterol as a problem any more either: http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/201 ... mittee.pdf

Since the core of your argument in the audio was that matt was ignoring the scientific consensus, can you guys show me that your views about dietary cholesterol being bad to eat is in fact the scientific consensus? So far I was sent a wikipedia article that was basically only talking about saturated fat, and another article by a prominent vegan that seems to have a minority position among scientists with this. It shouldn't be this hard to convince someone already on your side :\

[brimstoneSalad]

You guys are being surprisingly unconvincing.

I don't know what you want.
There's not anything else to it. Absorption varies by person, some people more than other, and it's not increased much by increasing amounts. Diminishing returns.
Unless you eat virtually no cholesterol at all, it's not very useful to restrict it.

Is there something about that you disagree with?

Saturated fat consumption is more important than total cholesterol, so much so it gets hard to control for when factoring in dietary cholesterol, since they tend to come in a package. But you can give people high cholesterol with coconut or palm oils, so these should also be avoided (palm more so). And, of course, trans fats.

Cholesterol without saturated fat is hard to come by. But foods like shrimp may be a contender.
We would expect eating a lot of shrimp to only slightly increase the risk of CHD, because it is very low in fat.
Eggs are fairly high in fat and saturated fat (around 32% of fat), so they're more of a package deal.

There seems like a lot of controversy around dietary cholesterol being anything significant to avoid. It even seems like the scientific consensus is starting to lean towards dietary cholesterol being fine.

That's old news. Those are government recommendations.
The idea is that virtually nobody is going to eat no cholesterol at all. And because that's the case, there's no reason to worry about it. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Saturated fat is still known to be a serious issue, and cholesterol is known to be an issue and should still be restricted in certain cases -- but 300 mg is not enough restriction. It needs to flat line. Doing so is the only way to substantially reduce your risk from dietary cholesterol.

Ironically, this is actually a stronger message for veganism, although most people don't realize that.
Essentially: "If you're not going to go vegan and eat no cholesterol, you might as well not even bother because you're going to have a heart attack no matter what you do, so eat up, or don't, your dietary restriction (unless you go vegan) is futile."

So far I was sent a wikipedia article that was basically only talking about saturated fat,

This is the lipid hypothesis. It is not in contention.


The facts are such: More cholesterol is bad.
If you eat a tiny bit of cholesterol, your cholesterol will go up from your diet.
If you eat a LOT of cholesterol, your cholesterol won't increase much more.

Thus:
A tiny bit of cholesterol is bad for you. A lot really isn't much worse. So: Don't bother, unless you're going vegan.

"Nobody" is going to stop eating cholesterol entirely. So, it makes more sense to focus on saturated fat, where people can get more "bang for their buck" in terms of dietary change. It also might make sense to recommend things like shrimp which may have high cholesterol but have low fat.

[Mr. Purple]

What I'm gathering from a wikipedia once over is that the lipid hypothesis is talking about cholesterol in your blood and not really addressing how or if dietary cholesterol carries over into your blood. I wasn't saying that there was a controversy around it being bad once blood levels are raised. I would like to see information on that diminishing return of cholesterol though. I haven't seen anything about it.

Anyway, I tend to like this guy for vegan friendly information: http://nutritionfacts.org/video/debunki ... try-myths/ , but when the only information I can get on something is from vegan doctors to comfirm my beliefs, it makes me highly suspicious as a skeptic. For example, red meat being bad for health Is really easy to say has a scientific consensus, and I don't have to only look through vegan sites for the information because there is very clear cut evidence for it. This cholesterol stuff just doesn't strike me as nearly that strong. It worries me if it's being used as the main plan for criticism against matt ignoring consensus, since in this case, I would have a hard time blaming him for thinking it's still at least a controversy.

[miniboes]

http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/201 ... mittee.pdf

The USDA, sadly, is not a good source of nutrition advice. It has a massive conflict of interest: its tasks are not only to give dietary advice, but also to promote agricultural business. Often, if they follow the science, they are not protecting the agriculture industry. Therefore, they sometimes choose industry over science. In my book, you cannot trust such an organization.

Have you looked at this? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1534437
It's not a prominent vegan, and it proves what Brimstone is saying. It is shown quite clearly in this graph:



The problem with cholesterol is that it is VERY easy to set up a study where it looks a non-issue. I could do it.
1. select people that eat a lot of eggs
2. measure serum cholesterol
3. give eggs
4. measure serum cholesterol
5. increase is small.
Voila, cholesterol is harmless!

I could do the same with smoking, though, and that makes it no less bad:
1. select smokers
2. measure lung cancer risk
3. select other smokers, give them more cigarettes
4. measure lung cancer risk
5. increase in risk is small
Voila, smoking is harmless!

@Brimstone:
Perhaps we should make our point more clear in the letter?
Is cholesterol even relevant? Can we not just talk about saturated fat instead, as it is a way more obvious concensus?

[brimstoneSalad]

@Brimstone:
Perhaps we should make our point more clear in the letter?
Is cholesterol even relevant? Can we not just talk about saturated fat instead, as it is a way more obvious concensus?

If you think it can be edited out easily without confusing people, sure.
Although cholesterol is still very much an issue, and it appears to be virtually impossible to reverse heart disease without lowering cholesterol much more than is possible with the 300 mg (or unlimited) dietary recommendations even without saturated fat consumption.

[bobo0100]

I could try that. Of the backgrounds displayed, which did you like best? Or should I make a new, more generally applicable one?

My preference is 3:35 but I also like 3:54.

[brimstoneSalad]

Maybe we should write a script all about cholesterol? There's so much to be said on it, that we basically have to remove it from this, or go on a HUGE tangent explaining it.

[miniboes]

Maybe we should write a script all about cholesterol? There's so much to be said on it, that we basically have to remove it from this, or go on a HUGE tangent explaining it.

We could refer to a seperate video, yes. A good strategy, I think, would be to say that saturated fat is obviously harmful and then link to a video/letter explaining why cholesterol is too, as it is less obvious and easier to hide.