Stephan Guyenet
Article
Stephan Guyenet is a recurring person in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 8 times across 8 issues between March 26, 2021 and August 13, 2024. The archive places it in contexts such as “I’ve previously quoted Stephan Guyenet on the motivational system of lampreys”; “H/T Stephan Guyenet: meta-meta-analysis finds that “there is scant scientific evidence that low-[glycaemic index] diets are superior to high-[glycaemic index] diets”; “A Voxsplainer in spirit (actually on Works In Progress) by Stephan Guyenet on new weight loss drug semaglutide”. It most often appears alongside Bryan Caplan, Tyler Cowen, ACX.
Metadata
- Category: People
- Mention count: 8
- Issue count: 8
- First seen: March 26, 2021
- Last seen: August 13, 2024
Appears In
- Toward A Bayesian Theory Of Willpower
- Links For August
- Links For September
- Links For October
- Links For November
- Mantic Monday: Let Me Google That For You
- Issue Two Of Asterisk
- Why Does Ozempic Cure All Diseases?
Related Pages
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- Bryan Caplan (3 shared issues)
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- Tyler Cowen (3 shared issues)
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- ACX (2 shared issues)
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- dopamine (2 shared issues)
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- Henrich (2 shared issues)
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- QAnon (2 shared issues)
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- Richard Hanania (2 shared issues)
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- Robin Hanson (2 shared issues)
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- Secret Of Our Success (2 shared issues)
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- semaglutide (2 shared issues)
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- Twitter (2 shared issues)
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- 4chan (1 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
I've previously quoted Stephan Guyenet on the motivational system of lampreys (a simple fish used as a model organism). Guyenet describes various brain regions making "bids" to the basal ganglia, using dopamine as the "currency" - whichever brain region makes the highest bid gets to determine the lamprey's next action. "If there's a predator nearby", he writes "the flee-predator region will put in a very strong bid to the striatum".
Inline links: motivational system of lampreys
8: H/T Stephan Guyenet: meta-meta-analysis finds that “there is scant scientific evidence that low-[glycaemic index] diets are superior to high-[glycaemic index] diets for weight loss and obesity prevention.”
Inline links: meta-meta-analysis finds that
31: A Voxsplainer in spirit (actually on Works In Progress) by Stephan Guyenet on new weight loss drug semaglutide. Although it is excellent, I find it raises more questions than it answers. The drug was originally designed to increase insulin secretion, but apparently its weight-loss-related effects are completely separate from that and involve some action in the hypothalamus? And it decreases alcoholism and generally improves impulse control? I’m really curious what lever it’s pressing here and I hope that - despite already being one of the biggest science stories of the decade - it eventually leads to even more mental health applications.
Inline links: semaglutide
16: Early in the COVID pandemic, I linked to a theory that getting a smaller dose of virus meant less severe disease (so, for example, a mask that blocked 95% of viruses would still be useful, even though 5% of viruses is enough to infect you). NEJM recently published an evidence-free article vaguely against this, and Stephan Guyenet says it doesn’t always apply for other diseases.
Inline links: vaguely against this, other diseases
32: Last spring Robin Hanson and others mooted the idea that viral load affected disease severity; eg if you inhaled one coronavirus particle, you’d get a mild coronvirus case, but if you inhaled 100,000, you’d get a severe case. I hadn’t realized that the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published an article in October saying maybe this might be true (though not providing any new evidence). This sparked responses by other people saying maybe it might be false (also not providing evidence) - honestly the whole thing was weirdly centered around PR (“if we say this is true, it might make people like masks more!”, “but if we say it’s false, that could make people like vaccines more!”). The only useful thing I got out of this is that Stephan Guyenet looked into a pathogen load/severity correlation for diarrhea and found there was none.
Inline links: saying maybe this might be true, Stephan Guyenet looked into
Nutritionist Stephan Guyenet has a great article out on the new generation of weight loss drugs. He thinks that semaglutide is only the beginning, and we’re entering a brave new world of diet pills that really work.
Read This, Not That, by Stephan Guyenet. I’m a big fan of Stephan’s scientific work (including his book The Hungry Brain), and although I’m allergic to anything framed as “fight misinformation”, I will grudgingly agree that perhaps we should not all eat poison and die.
Inline links: Read This, Not That, The Hungry Brain
Thanks to Stephan Guyenet, who reviewed an earlier draft of this post. As always, any mistakes are mine alone.