Sibiriak

It's humans that make the value-judgment "life is a good in itself". Who else?

"life is a good " is a value- judgment, which, as you say, most people make since life is the basis of all human values.

Which is to say life has no meaning. Meaning is a relational concept X means Y. Signifier and signified. "X means X" is essentially meaningless. Life is "full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing."

Thanks Ron! There's also a downloadable full pdf text here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2019/09/01/751115.full.pdf

One more reason for Ron Put to avoid cold exposure: How extreme environmental conditions affect the human brain Study from the Antarctic Neumayer-Station III https://www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/en/media/2019/12/how-extreme-environmental-conditions-affect-the-human-brain

Here's an important passage from the study cited by Al Pater above: ( On T5KO mice, see https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S155041311500515X ) (Also note that according to the study's authors, "the adverse effects of fermentable fiber [are] not restricted to inulin alone, but broadly applicable to other types of soluble fibers, including pectin and FOS.") I'm highly skeptical that in a normal healthy human dietary context (WFPB), consuming a moderate amount of chicory is going to be carcinogenic.

Thanks ras. Are there any practical implications?

For me, that comparison is rather misleading in that the prisoner has at least some chance, however small, of permanently escaping imprisonment and execution, while you, no matter what you do, have absolutely zero chance --zero! -- of escaping aging and death. The best you could hope for with your experimental met-stat-rapa drug cocktail would be some slight slowing of aging and some slight extension of life expectancy (assuming you don't have some specific disease apart from being just "old" on which that drug cocktail might reasonably be expected to have a more dramatic effect.) So I too would be interested in knowing the details of your "more realistic cost/benefit analysis", as Dean put it, and would ask the same critical questions that he did.

And the closely related concept of arterial stiffness as well.

Metformin + statins + rapamycin, apparently.

Sorry to hear about this, Todd. I haven't ever looked into lead poisoning in particular, but I did post a couple of articles on general heavy metal detoxification here. Dietary Strategies for the Treatment of Cadmium and Lead Toxicity Arsenic, Cadmium, Lead, and Mercury in Sweat: A Systematic Review

Yes. Animal products such as meat, poultry, and seafood contain both heme and non-heme iron. I don't know how the percentage of heme iron in the iron from red meat compares to that in clams etc. Plant foods contain only non-heme iron. While heme iron is better absorbed, it has also been associated with negative health effects. That may or may not be a concern--I'm just mentioning the issue. Developing a heme iron database for meats according to meat type, cooking method and doneness level (2012) Iron intake, body iron status, and risk of breast cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis (2019) Shellfish is also known for high heavy metal content. For example: Consumption of seafood and its estimated heavy metals are associated with lipid profile and oxidative lipid damage on healthy adults from a Spanish Mediterranean area: A cross-sectional study (2017) Perhaps our heavy metals expert McCoy would care to mussel in on this topic.

Some ideas on how to increase iron absorption in vegan diets:

Mccoy, apart from your high cocoa powder intake, are there any foods you are particularly worried about in terms of heavy metals?

To be consistent, it should be pointed out that the author of the study you cite, Mark Messina, works for the soy industry. Not that that automatically discredits his many papers in support of soy, but it does suggest that his work is likely biased to some extent and that one should be sure to review research and arguments from other sources as well.