assay grade

Part 4 of 6 · The levers

Diet is the fourth lever, not the first

Ranked by the effect actually measured on inflammatory markers, food comes after fat mass, aerobic exercise and sleep. Nobody selling food lists can say that.

Almost everything sold in this category is about food. Ranked by the size of the effect actually measured on inflammatory markers, food comes fourth.

  1. 1

    Fat mass

    BModerate evidence

    −0.13 mg/L CRP per kilogram lost, roughly linear · PMID 17210875

  2. 2

    Aerobic exercise

    BModerate evidence

    SMD −0.83 across 54 randomised trials, n = 2,836 · PMID 42625625

  3. 3

    Sleep

    BModerate evidence

    Three or more short nights raise CRP at d = 0.76; one night changes nothing · PMID 40474574

  4. 4

    Diet

    AStrong evidence

    −0.37 to −1.04 mg/L for a whole pattern · PMID 40657695

Diet has the strongest evidence of the four — the only A — and the smallest measured effect. Those are different questions, and the grade answers only the first. The whole measured effect of a Mediterranean pattern is in the range of three to eight kilograms of body weight.

Open the chapter this comes from

Behind the paywall · part 4

The arithmetic that puts diet fourth

  • The calculation: a whole diet pattern, in kilograms of body weight
  • The confound nobody has separated — how much of the diet effect is weight
  • The honest priority order, with the measured size of each effect
  • Why this ordering is not published anywhere for free

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Diet is the fourth lever, not the first — Assay Grade