Scientific studies and your own health journey͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
| For this week's Sunday with Sisson, I want to discuss a critical concept that often gets overlooked in the world of science reporting and online health and fitness: the idea that you can't map an individual's health trajectory based solely on scientific studies. We have tens of thousands of human health studies to pore over, but the reality is that these studies offer general trends and probabilities for populations—they're not crystal balls that can predict your personal health future. Even with meticulous controls for environment, diet, and genetics, these studies only paint a part of the picture. Remember, you are an individual, not a statistic. The studies we read can give us an idea of what to expect, but they are most accurate at a population level. Every single data point that makes up the results of these studies blend into each other to form an average. They become a monolith, but the monolithic average doesn't necessarily represent you. Whenever they report a result, they also give a range. For instance, the "low-carb diet reduced body fat percentage by 10 (range of 4-19)." 10 percentage points was the average reduction, but there were people who only reduced it by 4 and some who reduced it by as many as 19. Those are huge differences for those people who represent those data points. Furthermore, study designs can't ever fully encapsulate the lifestyle designs of a dedicated ancestral health individual. They're inherently limited to what they can fund, what they can get a hundred participants to do, or what their supervisors will permit. You are not. You can be as extreme as you want. You can try anything and get as weird and obscure as you want. They can't truly push the envelope like a person committed to living a healthier life can push the envelope. There are potential drawbacks to this, of course, but it also gives you incredible leverage to get bigger, bolder results that the studies will never discover. Use studies as tools and stepping stones, but never lose sight of your own experience, your own body, your own individuality, and your own health journey. Don't allow them to write your health story. The Primal Blueprint, as I've been espousing for years, is a set of guidelines, not a one-size-fits-all solution. You have the ability to tweak, adjust, and modify based on what you find works best for you. The beauty of being human is our remarkable adaptability and resilience—and our freedom to explore and experiment. Harness this and let it drive your journey towards health and wellness. Keep going, my friends, and let your freak flag fly. How do you use studies to inform your approach to health? Let me know in the comment section of this week's New and Noteworthy. |
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