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BTW, serious scientists in the aging field are concerned about micro- & nanoplastics. Eg this recent LinkedIn post from a Buck professor: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/furmanbios_the-potential-impacts-of-micro-and-nano-plastics-activity-7177242451944828928-nnS0?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Do crooked teeth have negative long-term health consequences? Crooked teeth cause more tooth chipping, but the rate of these tiny chips even with very crooked teeth, and even with grinding, isn't so high that one is going to wear teeth away to the point where their cease to function. Thus, is orthodonture actually a health issue or mostly one of aesthetics? Aligners (metal braces alternatives the best known of which is Invisalign) are made of plastic & are known to leach micro- & nanoplastics (MNPs) into the mouth and are worn for 12-24months essentially continuously except during meals. And those & usually most metal braces are typically followed by plastic or metal + plastic retainers overnight for life. MNPs are known to accumulate in arterial plaques & higher amounts in their plaques are associated with higher CVD risk. MNPs also cross into the brain. There's insufficient research yet to quantify absolute risk rise from plastic aligners or retainers, so it's an unknown but likely nonzero risk vs an aesthetic issue + what other risk on the crooked teeth side? Thoughts? PS It is possible to use metal or ceramic braces without any plastic and use bonded lingual retainers aka fixed retainers that are essentially similar to lingual braces (braces that are put on the inside of the teeth so that they can't be seen). All of these options make flossing & keeping the teeth clean more difficult (flossing because one has to use a floss threader & general cleaning because food gets stuck more due to the metal wire & the less smooth surface due to the bonding & other material to connect that to the wire) so there is either a time penalty or a higher risk of decay. So that's a different set of trade-offs vs the unknown plastic risk. (And these are the reasons people often choose removable aligners & retainers.) PPS To go back to the original question about crooked teeth: Some sites suggest crooked teeth make cleaning harder & thus are more likely to lead to decay and/or gum diseases and certainly crookedness can make flossing a bit harder than having straight perfectly spaced teeth, but relative to the increase in cleaning difficulty of having braces or lingual braces slightly crooked teeth doesn't make flossing nearly as hard & the braces/permanent-retainers are more likely to trap food. Plus, I suspect most of the web sites that come up when asking Google about the health consequences of crooked teeth are not unbiased sites.

I worry about heated water & the plastic of the aeropress & I'm clearly not the only one judging by the number of threads about it. With the new quantification of microplastics found in BPA-free water containers I think the worry is justified until proven otherwise by specifically quantifying the amount of microplastic in a cup brewed in it vs all-metal/glass/porcelain options. I got my wife pour-over equipment that is all porcelain & metal. I myself favor cold brewed coffee which is then heated to taste. I absolutely love to drink mine in an Ember mug at the perfect temperature each sip. If you think the aerpress is quick, my regular 2.7-3oz mini-cup of cold-brewed coffee is ready at 130F in about 45sec (fridge to lips) each morning.

What's the threshold for human CR? For animals CR's def'd wrt adlib cals but that's a noisy approx to a ref intake for its genes. We shouldn't view gene twins as at diff CR lvl if 1 ate more b4. CR thresh should be a function of tot Cals (& maybe hght) or weight or BMI achieved. Where should the line be? On Cals, BMI, or other func? Should a big % of BMI< 22/22.5 be considered in (at least mild) CR? 2500 Cal/d for men (2000 women) cited as norm. Not sure origin but quoted in papers, eg https://"For the average male to maintain his body weight, he should eat 2500 calories per day" So could take anything below this as CR. Eg male 2000 = 20%CR. CALERIE study 2467cal baseline tx group achieved ~2175 2yr avg & was called ~12%CR. It was 1987 ie 20%CR 1st 6mo then 2233 ie 9% for 1.5y. Tx grp achieved BMI 22.3 @ 12mo, 22.6 @ 2yr so 9%CR stabilized at BMI ~22.5. But cohort 70% female so these numbers diff v above 2500/2000 ref. 1900s Okinawans estimated to eat 1785 cal. BMI 21. Biosphere 2 male BMI 24.6 -> 20.4 female 21.4 -> 19.0 Some papers say 1750-2100 cal. Others 2200. My notes of Fontana's papers on CRSociety members say 1800 cal 15yrs BMI 24.5 -> 19.5 What other cohorts are relevant? Should human CR threshold be based on calories or BMI or other? Where do you think the line should be? (Clinically drs can test other markers of course, but I'm talking here primarily about an easy to judge test.)

Cronometer tells me that 30 calories of Navitas, Organic Cacao Powder would be 7.5g. Are you consuming that little? Is the amount of chocolate-specific polyphenols in that little really likely to move the needle on health by a lot? I'm skeptical that the effect size is such that the dose response gives that much benefit from such a small amount. Cronometer also tells me the 30 calories would come with 0.5g of saturated fat. If I added that to a 2250 calories day of high-nutrient WFPB food with 3.8g of total sat fat, those 30 extra calories would be equivalent to about 1% of the rest of the calories but would have more sat fat than 1/8th of the other calories. Maybe something about the kind of saturated fat makes that kind less bad as was also just suggested, but the data suggesting this kind of fat is less bad seems somewhat thin/preliminary, not like a firm fact that can be trusted completely.

(I.e., what's the best evidence to weigh against the evidence for low-fat WFPB eating, eg Ornish's many papers.)

I stopped eating chocolate in all forms sometime in the past year in order to reduce overall fat (& sat fat) intake to improve LDL & apoB, & peripherally to reduce overall calories. Chocolate is calorie dense, almost all from fat, and quite a high portion of the fat being saturated: ~60% of the fat is sat, which is 3-6x higher than most other plant foods (other than coconut, which I also avoid). I know chocolate has some beneficial chemicals, and I fully believe that relative to the background of a standard-american-diet, replacing 50-100 calories of SAD with high quality 100% cacao/chocolate could well be net health beneficial. But I think the case that replacing 20-50 or 100 calories of WFPB or CRON diet w/ nibs/powder is less clear. It clearly has less micronutrients or fiber per calorie vs veggies or most other whole plant foods. So what's the best evidence that adding it for its unique chemicals provides meaningful health benefits relative to the baseline of a CRON or low-cal WFPB diet?

Mike, I posted here just for completeness. I don't check these forums often but above in this thread you wrote, "Arguably the most important data in that study is that the DunedinPACE test is the only epigenetic test to identify a biological age reduction for people on CR, relative to other epigenetic tests" which gives the impression that only DunedinPACE was "good" (if one believes in CR, as many here do), so I thought it was important for those here to have a pointer to that Twitter thread in which these issues were well hashed out. Twitter thread forks make it hard to find the exact right Tweet to link to so I did best I could linking to one where the key points were right below but one could scroll up for full context. The key points in the next few Tweets from the one I linked were Olafur agreeing with the Tweet I linked that PCGrimAge wouldn't be able to detect a real CR effect in this trial design, me saying 'So doesn't that invalidate the "I think the fact that PC GrimAge was not improved by 24 month of CR is strongly indicative of that clock not being good" sentiment?' in response to an upthread Tweet and then him agreeing. That was the main point.

The idea that only the DunedinPACE test detected the benefit is wrong or at least misleading. The effect size was so small that detecting it via point-estimates (the kind of other tests used) was within the noise. Ie, such a small benefit is not detectable by point-estimate tests. One would need a bigger effect size (eg by doing the intervention longer or using higher % CR or using a better intervention). See this thread on Twitter (which Mike was also a participant in):