Seth's Blog

Cure Together has acne treatment statistics: Comparisons of the effectiveness of about a dozen treatments. Only two treatments rate high for effectiveness and both have only a few raters. Neither of the high-rated treatments (Roaccutane and Dr. Hauschka Skin Care) was part of Stone-Age life. Because of the absence of acne in at least a few groups of people living more Stone-Age-like (stoneagesque?) lives, it is likely that something about modern life causes acne. When whatever that is is figured out, it should be possible to eliminate acne cheaply and safely.

Regardless of the future, this table is a big step forward in dealing with the problem. It is the first unbiassed look at the effectiveness of different treatments I have seen and it tests a lot of everyday treatments (e.g., face-washing). Academic papers on the subject usually study prescription drugs and the authors usually favor one of the treatments being studied.

How are they similar? Kenneth Anderson at The Volokh Conspiracy writes:

I have shaved my head completely, as I have discovered from long experience that even if it doesn’t help me discover my spiritual side, it weirdly helps me concentrate. I highly recommend it. I have much coffee, good stuff from Antigua Guatemala. Yerba mate from Paraguay. I have my extralight olive oil re the Seth Roberts diet – to which, although I realize I’m just bragging here – I sincerely credit the loss of 25 pounds [emphasis added] and a wholly unmedicated cholesterol score last week of 128 total and 66 good (!).

All three help you concentrate. (SLD helps you not be distracted by hunger.)

It causes dye to run. I took some homemade kombucha with me while traveling and it leaked onto two shirts. The dye ran. Unfixable. Now if I think I might have gotten kombucha on a shirt, I wash it immediately.

My friend with acid reflux — who used to have acid reflux — contacted me today:

My stomach is so much better [since I started drinking kombucha]. I rarely have problems. Every once in a while I might be a little uncomfortable. Then I drink a little kombucha, it gets better within an hour. I got up in the middle of the night the other night and I felt the usual kind of pain, took some sips of the kombucha, felt better, and fell back asleep. Hardly ever have pain now. The kombucha is much more effective than the Asiphax medicine I took. That was $60 for a 10-day course. It might even be more effective than Prilosec. (Which cleared up the problem but then it came back.)  I’ve been drinking kombucha for about three weeks. I really like the grape, guava, and strawberry flavors of the Synergy brand. The grape flavor is like sangria that’s just started to go bad. A couple of people I’ve tried to turn on to it but they just can’t stand the taste. My levels of stress haven’t decreased. I’m drinking less than half a bottle a day. Now the problem is that I forget I’m supposed to have stomach trouble so I forget to drink it.

If you know of anything (data, anecdotes, whatever), positive or negative, that sheds light on whether kombucha cures acid reflux, please let me know.

In an article in Slate about restrictive diets, Daniel Engber noted that

Celiac patients have almost twice the normal risk of cancer, and one-third of them suffer from another autoimmune disease, like Type 1 diabetes, lupus, or multiple sclerosis.

Does celiac disease cause cancer, Type 1 diabetes, lupus, and multiple sclerosis? Not very plausible. Does cancer cause celiac disease? Does lupus cause celiac disease? Not very plausible. Much more plausible is that all five have a common cause. I believe that common cause is a malfunctioning immune system due to not enough bacteria in the diet (the umami hypothesis).