Talk:Diet and longevity

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: withdrawn by nominator, closed by Bruxton (talk) 15:06, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

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• Article history

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• ... that researchers have determined that fasting may increase longevity? Source: Multiple scientific studies in the article. 2000
  • ALT1: ... that research on animals has shown that restricting calories over a lifetime increases lifespan? Source: Animal research shows that caloric restriction over a lifetime, such as with intermittent fasting, increases lifespan.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Hard Rock (exercise)

Moved to mainspace by Bruxton (talk). Self-nominated at 18:34, 14 March 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Fasting and longevity; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• Drive by comment The article appears to rely heavily on individual studies (a primary source), against the guidelines of WP:MEDRS (see also replication crisis). While Fontana & Partridge (2015) is a literature review that was widely cited, the remainder of the studies appear to be individual studies with low impacts. :3 F4U (they/it) 08:40, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@Freedom4U: Thank you for the link to WP:MEDRS I have understood your point. I have tried to find a variety of studies to maintain neutrality and have only described conclusions made by the sources. There are many available secondary sources which discuss the results of the included studies which I can add. Several studies were undertaken 2021-2022 so those will likely not have secondary analysis. Bruxton (talk) 16:41, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

• This article is not well sourced and relies on animal studies. It cannot be used to make any claims about fasting in humans. CarlFromVienna (talk) 08:23, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
• - 1) This article reads and is cited like it was written at the level of a high school biology class. 2) The sources are cherry-picked, primary research with misleading conclusions derived from early-stage, unconfirmed animal studies. See WP:MEDMOS, Trivia and Wikipedia is not a medical primary resource. 3) The lead sentence reveals that the article is speculative, and therefore unencyclopedic. 4) The Background section was misinformation from each sentence, so has been removed. 5) The Studies section was a high school-like recitation of individual experiments with no review citations and considerable offtopic content, thereby not fulfilling WP:MEDSCI, so has been removed. 6) None of the references is usable in an article representing a human condition, so all have been removed, and a medical citations banner provided. 7) The references were not formatted to be within the text line; see WP:INCITE. 8) The See also topics were offtopic for longevity, so have been removed. 9) The External links were not MEDRS-based, so were removed. 10) The writing quality, syntax or spelling in some cases, and use of punctation were illiterate. 11) The article remaining is a stub that may be developed with attention to MEDRS reviews, but otherwise is a candidate for deletion. Zefr (talk) 18:02, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

@Zefr: Scathing. And you more than stubbed this. You removed the entire article including every reference. It is hard to have a rationale conversation with an editor who says such things about another volunteer's efforts. I am going to withdraw this DYK nomination and try to decide how to move forward. As you know WP:INCITE is a guideline and there are many citation and reference styles. This inline citation style is the one I have used since I began editing here. Please continue any comments you may have on the article's talk page. Bruxton (talk) 15:06, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Stub

The stubbing of an article and erasing it in it's entirety is not acceptable. An editor who thinks the article should be deleted needs to get consensus. Per our actual policy of WP:CONSENSUS Bruxton (talk) 15:10, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

The weak content and absence of good sources are not acceptable. You have an outline of 11 topics to improve to convince other editors this article has merit. In the form you presented, it does not have a single useful MEDRS review, and the content is too preliminary to justify an article. Zefr (talk) 15:16, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

@Zefr: I went to your talk page. I note that you have a very strong opinion and have hurled many insults. I am trying to read between them. Please nominate it for deletion if you feel strongly. But you may not remove the entire article and then tell me I need to get consensus. It is the other way. Bruxton (talk) 15:19, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

@Zefr and CarlFromVienna: I see that CarlFromVienna requested that Zefr come to the article on a talk page. CarlFromVienna stated in the DYK nomination that It cannot be used to make any claims about fasting in humans and Zefr stated None of the references is usable in an article representing a human condition. Please note that the DYK nomination does not claim "humans" and there is no only one mention of "humans" is in the article. I also removed the category "Eating behaviors of humans" and a diet template. I would like to get help from other editors as I have no desire to run afoul of our guidelines and policies. It just did not seem helpful to load the article with templates and erase all of it. If we are to stub the article I hope that we can work together in a collegial manner to accomplish that. I thought the topic was relevant when I found SIGCOV. Bruxton (talk) 15:47, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

The topic may be eligible by WP:SIGCOV, but you didn't prepare well for starting this article. 1) the topic already exists in the calorie restriction article which might be expanded if reviews are used; alternately, there is an article on fasting where a longevity section - if supported by reviews, not individual experiments - might be justified. 2) the topic is inevitably about human fasting and speculations on longevity; the studies you chose are just publications of individual experiments on animals (which commonly precede further studies going up the chain to humans; WP:MEDANIMAL), with no reviews used. Here are several reviews that might be applicable, but the quality of evidence is insufficient to suggest in an encyclopedia article that fasting enhances longevity - see the left pyramid of WP:MEDASSESS and review WP:MEDSCI for significant scientific agreement on whether this concept is acceptable to experts. Note: if fasting had significant effects on lifespan, then clinical organizations would be publishing guidelines to recommend it - see the quality scale in WP:MEDORG. 3) your article organization doesn't follow WP:MOS, WP:MEDMOS or MOS:LEAD for section titles, content flow and emphasis. 4) editors who follow topics on fasting or longevity are unlikely to see the motivation for this article you created. Although the topic may be in the public discourse, it does not meet the standards for WP:WEIGHT based on WP:MEDRS sources to be a stand-alone article. As stated above, addition as a sentence or paragraph may be warranted in existing articles, if review literature supports including it.

As my deletion in the article implied, you should erase the weak content and sources you have, and start over using Wikipedia guidelines for content organization and medical sourcing, if keeping this article is justified. I think it is not, and will recommend the article for WP:SPEEDY if there is no constructive progress. Zefr (talk) 17:12, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

@Zefr and CarlFromVienna: Thank you for the helpful response. Please ping as I do not page watch. I think I favor a redirect (which would preserve article history); in that way a redirect could be converted in the future. This article does not fit and speedy rationale, and I would contest it. AfD will be protracted and a toss up. So as a compromise I would support a redirect to your target Calorie_restriction#Life_extension. Without objection, I will redirect it. Bruxton (talk) 18:00, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

No, Bruxton, the present content and sources give misleading information and do not comply with MEDRS review literature. Erase what you have and rewrite in MOS style with the best reviews to support the calorie restriction article, if a redirect is warranted at all. Zefr (talk) 18:19, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

@Zefr: Erasure still leaves the article history and reasonable editors will either leave it out, or use it based on future research or MEDRS review literature. A redirect seems like a great compromise and you have pointed to a target where the subject exists; that made sense to me. Bruxton (talk) 18:36, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

The article was very poor, the stubbing quite justified. Should that article as it stood go on the front page as a DYK? Of course not. it would make the project look foolish. - Roxy the dog 18:51, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

@Roxy the dog: I have received the message and I am now trying to collaborate with Zefr in order to find the way forward. I believe a redirect solves most of our problems. Bruxton (talk) 19:11, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Page move

@Zefr, Psychologist Guy, BD2412, and Bruxton: Please be notified about the subject page move and kindly help in improving the article. Thank you. RV (talk) 08:40, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

I read the deletion discussion and I think the move (listed below) is worse. The evidence for fasting on increased lifespan is better than the evidence for diet, among people with normal health (i.e., obviously a diet resulting in non-obesity is better than a diet resulting in obesity, non-normal health). There is poor evidence that certain diets contribute to longevity in humans. We really have very little idea, some initial educated guesses. However, there is ample evidence, e.g., long-term RCTs in apes, that fasting increases longevity in humans. "Diet" does not necessarily include fasting: diet is considered to be what you eat, whereas fasting is the timing of eating. Therefore the page was moved from something which had moderate scientific support to weak scientific support.

-Fasting and longevity to Diet and longevity

-"The effect of fasting on lifespan" to "The effect of various dietary practices on health and lifespan" Chamaemelum (talk) 12:06, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Controlled trials will almost never be able to tell us if there is any evidence for diets increases lifespan because the trials are always short-term i.e. weeks or under 8 months. Most trials are usually around 4 weeks or 2 months. The data might yield some interesting biomarker data but it will never be able to give strong evidence for longevity because the trials are not long enough. The statement "there is no clinical evidence that any dietary practice contributes to longevity" is accurate because there is no long-term clinical data and no strong trials that have been done. However, there is some good evidence that vegetarian and Mediterranean diets increase longevity but this data is taken from epidemiological studies such as case control or observational. I have not seen any strong evidence from clinical studies that fasting increases lifespan, there is no evidence at all for that. What long-term RCTs in apes are you referring to? I doubt these trials were longer than 8 months. That is not long-term nor human data. Long-term health is decades and the only type of study that can look at this are epidemiological studies. Psychologist Guy (talk) 13:09, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm referring to two multi-decade long RCTs in apes. There is a review that looks at both of them. One is closer to null, the other is a stronger finding. I believe that for diet in particular, observational evidence is extremely weak and that non-human primate RCT data is better. Example: observational data found red meat --> bad health outcomes, for a long time. Now, 2 red meat RCTs are published showing it has no effect and the original correlations were spurious. The apes were in a zoo I believe, hence the ability to do the study for decades. Here are the studies I was referring to, though I haven't read these in years:

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14063 (this one is the review of both)

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms4557 Chamaemelum (talk) 13:18, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Apparently there is also a third one. I haven't read it, though, just the two and the meta-analysis. Chamaemelum (talk) 13:28, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

The primate studies you cite above looked at a lot of cohort data from what I could see and they are on calorie restriction, not fasting. This isn't good evidence per WP:MEDANIMAL. There is not any clinical evidence that fasting increases longevity. The only long-term human data we have is epidemiological and we can use the Bradford Hill criteria so it is not weak. But I agree there is no point in citing it on this article as there is not enough total data, we need another 10 or 20 years research. Your claim about red meat is false, we have already had at that on the red meat talk-page and users ended up getting banned in the past. There is a strong medical consensus that red meat causes bowel cancer but that is not the place to discuss that here. I appreciate your interest in this but you seem to have some fringe views. I think you are going to run into some serious problems in this area on Wikipedia. I wouldn't add non-human studies like you did here as experienced medical users will just revert your edits [1]. Psychologist Guy (talk) 13:41, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Specifically red meat and cardiovascular outcomes, I think (not bowel cancer). I'd have to double check. Good point about the CR, which can fall under diet and isn't necessarily separate. Mostly negates my original point about the move, though there is fasting-specific benefits in apes (besides the point, though). There are a bunch of very low quality sources on this article, so it will be interesting to see what gets removed and what doesn't as time progresses. Chamaemelum (talk) 13:54, 7 July 2023 (UTC)