this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world.  About 1C of total warming.  Second chart:  about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability.  Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases.  About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

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[–] veganpizza69@lemmy.vg 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (36 children)

I guess I'm a ghost, having been vegan for so long. If this is the afterlife, people like you must be why it's Hell, as you're spreading egg industry misinformation about choline - a substance which, in those animal-based regular concentrated doses, is correlated with a greater risk of cancers 1 2 3. Also heart disease.

Despite large parts of the population being under the "adequate intake", a common worry for choline deficiency is about dementia. If plants were so low in choline, you'd expect AD to be a big issue for those who ate more plant-based (as a spectrum) than animal-based food.

Effects of intensive lifestyle changes on the progression of mild cognitive impairment or early dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease: a randomized, controlled clinical trial | Alzheimer's Research & Therapy | Full Text

Here's a trial with an intervention of:

This lifestyle intervention includes (1) a whole foods, minimally processed plant-based diet low in harmful fats and low in refined carbohydrates and sweeteners with selected supplements; (2) moderate exercise; (3) stress management techniques; and (4) support groups.

and the conclusion:

in persons with mild cognitive impairment or early dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease, comprehensive lifestyle changes may improve cognition and function in several standard measures after 20 weeks.

Too short? Perhaps something on the Mediterranean diet, which is a heavily plant-based diet (if you don't know what the MD score is, look it up):

Mediterranean diet adherence is associated with lower dementia risk, independent of genetic predisposition: findings from the UK Biobank prospective cohort study | BMC Medicine | Full Text

We used Cox proportional hazard regression models to explore the associations between MedDiet adherence, defined using two different scores (Mediterranean Diet Adherence Screener [MEDAS] continuous and Mediterranean diet Pyramid [PYRAMID] scores), and incident all-cause dementia risk in 60,298 participants from UK Biobank, followed for an average 9.1 years. The interaction between diet and polygenic risk for dementia was also tested.

...

In this large population-based prospective cohort study, higher adherence to a MedDiet was associated with reduced dementia risk.

Is the MD bad in this way?

Frontiers | Dietary adherence to the Mediterranean diet pattern in a randomized clinical trial of patients with quiescent ulcerative colitis

Results: Participants’ diets were analyzed (MDP n = 15, CHD n = 13). The MDP (n = 10, 67%) achieved a high level of adherence (MDSS score between 16 and 24) vs. CHD (n = 3), (p = 0.030). HEI-2015 significantly increased from baseline to week 12 (p = 0.007) in the MDP and was significantly higher at week 12 compared to the CHD (p = 0.0001). The SIBDQ (bowel domain) showed reductions in the passage of large amounts of gas (p = 0.01) and improvements in tenesmus (p = 0.03) in the MDP. Despite enhanced diet quality and adherence in the MDP, females had inadequate intakes of calcium, iron, vitamin D, vitamin E, and choline and males had inadequate intakes of fiber, vitamin D, vitamin E, and choline. No adverse events were reported.

You'll find that studies on dementia and diets tend to recommend more plant-centered diets.

Hmmmm... if you actually check the literature for choline, it's an "Adequate Intake" recommendation, not an RDA. There isn't enough data for it.

Dietary intake and food sources of choline in European populations | British Journal of Nutrition | Cambridge Core

In most of the population groups considered, the average choline intake was found to be below the AI set in 1998 by the IOM in the USA. Given the definition of AI, no conclusion can be drawn regarding the adequacy of choline intake.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone -2 points 4 months ago (35 children)

Too long, didn't read. I have a medical condition that requires a higher intake of choline or trimethylglycine than the advised 550mg.

Failure to do so makes me feel terrible, get weak and have dangerously low cholesterol.

Given the advised quantity is impossible to achive, I'd never have a chance so you can spare the vegan preaching

[–] stray@pawb.social 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

I also have medical and economic issues that make it unreasonable to be completely vegan, but that doesn't mean the world shouldn't shift towards it. Factory farming isn't a practice needed to help my conditions, and I doubt you benefit from it either. They could probably use humane and sustainable methods to provide plenty of meat/dairy for medical purposes and pet foods.

And besides, according to this chart, soybeans have higher choline content than most meats. Google also says there's a shitton of trimethylglycine in wheat. And both come in supplement form. (Not sure how they make them though, so maybe not vegan.)

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone -1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Coeliac disease and a broken folate cycle pretty much makes it impossible.

By the chart, the average male would need to consume about 3 cups of soybeans per day? I'd probably be up for double that. If it's even possible to eat 6 cups of soy bean per day, you'd likely soon end up with copper toxicity or toxic amounts of some metals if your gut can even digest it. In addition to all the other balanced food you'd have to eat, would be unsustainable.

We don't have factory farming here

[–] stray@pawb.social 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Factory farming exists pretty much everywhere though. If just 50% of people reduced their meat intake to an occasional treat, that would go a long way to reducing suffering, improving sustainability, and increasing the availability and affordability of vegan products. That doesn't mean that any given individual needs to be vegan, just that encouraging widespread veganism is beneficial to everyone.

I'm sorry if my post came off as "Just eat s bunch of soy beans," because that isn't what I meant. Rather, it seems viable to eat a lot of plants and supplement with animal products where needed, especially given that there's also a pill form.

Also I don't think the 550mg figure is meant to be a recommended minimum intake, but rather a figure where it's impossible to be deficient. It's my understanding that a minimum intake of choline hasn't been established. From Wikipedia:

Insufficient data is available to establish an estimated average requirement (EAR) for choline, so the Food and Nutrition Board established adequate intakes (AIs). For adults, the AI for choline was set at 550 mg/day for men and 425 mg/day for women. These values have been shown to prevent hepatic alteration in men. However, the study used to derive these values did not evaluate whether less choline would be effective, as researchers only compared a choline-free diet to a diet containing 550 mg of choline per day. From this, the AIs for children and adolescents were extrapolated.

Twelve surveys undertaken in 9 EU countries between 2000 and 2011 estimated choline intake of adults in these countries to be 269–468 milligrams per day. Intake was 269–444 mg/day in adult women and 332–468 mg/day in adult men.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 0 points 4 months ago

I had a look into factory farming here. Seems to only apply to caged chickens and some pork. I only buy free range eggs, grass fed meat and don't really eat pork

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