https://pinboard.in/u:jm/public/ recent bookmarks from jm 2026-05-05T10:22:08+00:00 https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-paradox-of-medical-ai-implementation?r=8tdk6&triedRedirect=true jm[Deep learning-based] AI for medical images, with extensive research dating back more than a decade ago, is not being implemented. Whether it’s a mammogram, a CT scan, a retinal image, or colonoscopy, that have all been extensively studied, their value to improve accuracy and risk assessment in medicine is being missed and essentially disregarded. On the other hand, tens of millions of Americans are using AI chatbots for medical support, as are a substantial proportion of physicians. There are many reasons to use AI here that are easy to support, because they represent an extension of a web/Google search. Just with much more specificity and depth of response, not something that would be subject to regulatory oversight. But when it comes to making a diagnosis or providing a treatment plan there needs to be proof that LLMs are improving accuracy and outcomes. ]]> medicine deep-learning ai genai llms healthcare science imaging chatbots eric-topol https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:cb4c6dfe95b0/ 2025-11-26T11:56:54+00:00 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/25/shameful-attacks-covid-inquiry-right-anti-science-delusion-lockdowns jm That number will stay fixed for ever in public memory: 23,000 people died because Boris Johnson resisted locking the country down in time. As Covid swept in, and with horrific images of Italian temporary morgues in tents, he went on holiday and took no calls. With the NHS bracing to be “overwhelmed” by the virus, he rode his new motorbike, walked his dog and hosted friends at Chevening. Nothing is surprising about that: he was ejected from Downing Street and later stepped down as an MP largely for partying and lying to parliament about it. Everyone knew he was a self-aggrandising fantasist with a “toxic and chaotic culture” around him. But this is not just about one narcissistic politician. It’s about his entire rightwing coterie of libertarians and their lethally dominant creed in the UK media. I'm glad the science side kept their receipts but I fear this argument will be relitigated indefinitely by anti-lockdown libertarians.]]> lockdowns covid-19 history uk uk-politics medicine health pandemics boris-johnson https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:9fe828e5ca76/ 2025-05-12T15:54:05+00:00 https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1186/s12941-025-00793-9.pdf jm long-covid research health medicine covid-19 papers diseases https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:0250a0bb67d0/ 2024-12-18T09:57:36+00:00 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-35457-6 jmTwenty years after the thalidomide disaster in the late 1950s, Blaschke et al. reported that only the (S)-enantiomer of thalidomide is teratogenic [jm: causing birth defects]. However, other work has shown that the enantiomers ["mirror" molecules] of thalidomide interconvert in vivo, which begs the question: why is teratogen activity not observed in animal experiments that use (R)-thalidomide given the ready in vivo racemization (“thalidomide paradox”)? Herein, we disclose a hypothesis to explain this “thalidomide paradox” through the in-vivo self-disproportionation of enantiomers. Upon stirring a 20% ee solution of thalidomide in a given solvent, significant enantiomeric enrichment of up to 98% ee was observed reproducibly in solution. We hypothesize that a fraction of thalidomide enantiomers epimerizes in vivo, followed by precipitation of racemic [equally mixed between R/S forms] thalidomide in (R/S)-heterodimeric form. Thus, racemic thalidomide is most likely removed from biological processes upon racemic precipitation in (R/S)-heterodimeric form. On the other hand, enantiomerically pure thalidomide remains in solution, affording the observed biological experimental results: the (S)-enantiomer is teratogenic, while the (R)-enantiomer is not. ]]> chirality thalidomide molecules drugs medicine papers chemistry https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:16cfd0723d05/ 2024-08-29T08:46:18+00:00 https://www.phc.ox.ac.uk/news/the-scale-of-long-covid-new-study-highlights-the-widespread-impact jmIn the new paper, researchers from the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, in collaboration with colleagues from the Universities of Leeds and Arizona, analysed dozens of previous studies into Long COVID to examine the number and range of people affected, the underlying mechanisms of disease, the many symptoms that patients develop, and current and future treatments.   They found: Long COVID affects approximately 1 in 50 people in UK and a similar or higher proportion in many other countries; People of any age, gender and ethnic background can be affected; Long COVID results from complex biological mechanisms, which lead to a wide range of symptoms including fatigue, cognitive impairment / ‘brain fog’, breathlessness and pain; Long COVID may persist for years, causing long-term disability; There is currently no cure, but research is ongoing; Risk of Long COVID can be reduced by avoiding infection (e.g., by ensuring COVID vaccines and boosters are up to date and wearing a well-fitted high filtration mask) and taking antivirals promptly if infected. ]]> long-covid covid-19 medicine health disease uk trish-greenhaigh https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:76d871843419/ 2024-08-28T11:39:01+00:00 https://rachel.fast.ai/posts/2024-08-13-crowds-vs-friends/ jm Homo Sapiens first evolved some 300,000 years ago, yet crowd infections are believed to have only developed in the last 12,000 years, a small blip in human history. Humans living in dense cities is a relatively recent development. An even more recent development is that of sealed indoor spaces and frequent international air travel. Many crowd infections, such as measles, mumps, chickenpox, colds, and flu, are airborne, spreading when humans talk and breathe in close contact, with poor ventilation. These infections could not widely spread until the last few hundred years of human history. When I began studying immunology, something that surprised me is how much of the immune system is focused on fighting parasites. There is an entire branch, including several cell types, devoted to this. It seems like such a mismatch to the modern, industrialized world. “Can I have a few more immune cell types focused on viruses or intracellular bacteria?” I thought, “in exchange for some of these parasite-focused cells that I’m not using?” Our “old friends” are quite different from the crowd infections that plague us now – it would be bizarre to assume that research based on one of these categories will apply to the other! Our “old friends”, parasitic worms and beneficial microbes, are associated with a reduced risk of allergies and autoimmune diseases. No such relationship exists for crowd diseases. In fact, the opposite is true. Crowd diseases contribute to allergies and autoimmune diseases. Comparing the immune system to a muscle that gets stronger with use is overly simplistic and, in many cases, inaccurate. There is huge variety in how various pathogens impact us. Being precise in considering different types of microbes and infections will allow us to better understand human health. ]]> articles health medicine immunology old-friends hygiene-hypothesis allergies autoimmune disease parasites https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:53af160e3f0e/ 2024-07-15T10:26:25+00:00 https://longcovidtheanswers.com/ jmNavigating the complexities of long Covid can feel overwhelming amidst the sea of conflicting and mis- information. That's why we've built Long Covid The Answers: to provide clarity and credible insights. We're proud to have a Certified CPD Podcast for Educating Medical Staff.  Earn certified up to 15 Mainpro+® credits for the podcast series! Earn Certified CPD credits indirectly using the site in your clinical practice. We're dedicated to providing hand-curated, credible information and relief for individuals battling Long COVID. We're proud to have a team of esteemed Doctors, Professors, Scientists, and individuals directly affected by long Covid and their caregivers onboard. Given the decent profile of the experts involved, this could be handy for anyone attempting to receive treatment for LC and facing ignorance from their healthcare providers. ]]> long-covid covid-19 medicine health https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:795687302ac6/ 2024-05-20T10:11:59+00:00 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/you-dont-really-need-10-000-daily-steps-to-stay-healthy/ jmIn the 1960s a company in Japan invented an early pedometer. Because the Japanese character for “10,000”, 万, looks like a person walking, the company called its device the Manpo-kei, "the 10,000-step meter". “It was just sort of a catchy phrase,” says I-Min Lee, an epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Taking that many steps daily is challenging but doable for many people. “Sure, if you get 10,000 steps, it seems like a good goal. But there was not really any basis to it.” It turns out that about 8,000 steps is probably grand.]]> manpo-kei pedometers walking health fitness medicine marketing https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:4b83a7a059c9/ 2024-05-15T13:50:20+00:00 https://headachejournal.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/head.14692 jm migraine health medicine cgrp ahs headaches https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:727ff3c91aef/ 2024-05-15T10:08:03+00:00 https://thesicktimes.org/2024/05/14/should-people-with-long-covid-be-donating-blood/ jmLeading Long Covid and ME researchers and patient-advocates who spoke with The Sick Times largely agreed that blood donation could worsen a patient’s symptoms. However, they also cited concerns about a growing body of research that shows a variety of potential issues in the blood of people with Long Covid which could make their blood unsafe for recipients. “Based on the levels of inflammatory markers and microclots we have seen in blood samples from both Long Covid and ME/CFS, I do not think the blood is safe to be used for transfusion,” said Resia Pretorius, a leading Long Covid researcher and distinguished professor from the physiological sciences department at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. ]]> me-cfs long-covid covid-19 blood-transfusion medicine https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:99e2854ee8ac/ 2024-04-19T10:05:47+00:00 https://takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/how-to-use-nhs-data-for-scientific?r=2bac6x&triedRedirect=true jm privacy data-protection nhs medical-records medicine research python sql opensafely uk https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:5500273f58a5/ 2024-03-07T17:33:15+00:00 https://erictopol.substack.com/p/theres-plastic-in-my-plaque?publication_id=587835&post_id=142359342&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=3awpb&triedRedirect=true jm microplastics plastic sustainability health medicine atherosclerosis papers via:eric-topol https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:1053c53daef5/ 2024-01-24T19:49:42+00:00 https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/05/25/1073634/brain-implant-removed-against-her-will/ jmLeggett received her device during a clinical trial for a brain implant designed to help people with epilepsy. She was diagnosed with severe chronic epilepsy when she was just three years old and routinely had violent seizures. The unpredictable nature of the episodes meant that she struggled to live a normal life, says Frederic Gilbert, a coauthor of the paper and an ethicist at the University of Tasmania, who regularly interviews her. “She couldn’t go to the supermarket by herself, and she was barely going out of the house,” he says. “It was devastating.” [....] While trial participants enjoyed varying degrees of success, the [experimental brain implant] worked brilliantly for Leggett. For the first time in her life, she had agency over her seizures—and her life. With the advance warning from the device, she could take medication that prevented the seizures from occurring. “I felt like I could do anything,” she told Gilbert in interviews undertaken in the years since. “I could drive, I could see people, I was more capable of making good decisions.” [...] She also felt that she became a new person as the device merged with her. “We had been surgically introduced and bonded instantly,” she said. “With the help of science and technicians, we became one.” Gilbert and Ienca describe the relationship as a symbiotic one, in which two entities benefit from each other. In this case, the woman benefited from the algorithm that helped predict her seizures. The algorithm, in turn, used recordings of the woman’s brain activity to become more accurate. [...] But it wasn’t to last. In 2013, NeuroVista, the company that made the device, essentially ran out of money. The trial participants were advised to have their implants removed. (The company itself no longer exists.) Leggett was devastated. She tried to keep the implant. “[Leggett and her husband] tried to negotiate with the company,” says Gilbert. “They were asking to remortgage their house—she wanted to buy it.” In the end, she was the last person in the trial to have the implant removed, very much against her will. “I wish I could’ve kept it,” Leggett told Gilbert. “I would have done anything to keep it.” Years later, she still cries when she talks about the removal of the device, says Gilbert. “It’s a form of trauma,” he says. “I have never again felt as safe and secure … nor am I the happy, outgoing, confident woman I was,” she told Gilbert in an interview after the device had been removed. “I still get emotional thinking and talking about my device … I’m missing and it’s missing.” Leggett has also described a deep sense of grief. “They took away that part of me that I could rely on,” she said. If a device can become part of a person, then its removal “represents a form of modification of the self,” says Ienca. “This is, to our knowledge, the first evidence of this phenomenon.” ]]> bioethics brain science capitalism ethics medicine epilepsy implants body-modification self-modification https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:659738b001c0/ 2024-01-10T12:29:43+00:00 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-023-00939-z jmLLMs are being proposed for use in the healthcare setting, with some models already connecting to electronic health record systems. However, this study shows that based on our findings, these LLMs could potentially cause harm by perpetuating debunked, racist ideas. [...] We assessed four large language models with nine different questions that were interrogated five times each with a total of 45 responses per model. All models had examples of perpetuating race-based medicine in their responses. ]]> ai medicine racism race llms bard chatgpt nature via:markdennehy https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:e93eda21540c/ 2024-01-05T16:52:49+00:00 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.29.23285160v1 jmPersistent severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections may act as viral reservoirs that could seed future outbreaks, give rise to highly divergent lineages, and contribute to cases with post-acute [covid] sequelae (Long Covid). However, the population prevalence of persistent infections, their viral load kinetics, and evolutionary dynamics over the course of infections remain largely unknown. We identified 381 infections lasting at least 30 days, of which 54 lasted at least 60 days. These persistently infected individuals had more than 50% higher odds of self-reporting Long Covid compared to the infected controls, and we estimate that 0.09-0.5% of SARS-CoV-2 infections can become persistent and last for at least 60 days. In nearly 70% of the persistent infections we identified, there were long periods during which there were no consensus changes in virus sequences, consistent with prolonged presence of non-replicating virus. Our findings also suggest reinfections with the same major lineage are rare and that many persistent infections are characterised by relapsing viral load dynamics. Furthermore, we found a strong signal for positive selection during persistent infections, with multiple amino acid substitutions in the Spike and ORF1ab genes emerging independently in different individuals, including mutations that are lineage-defining for SARS-CoV-2 variants, at target sites for several monoclonal antibodies, and commonly found in immunocompromised patients. This work has significant implications for understanding and characterising SARS-CoV-2 infection, epidemiology, and evolution. ]]> long-covid infection viruses covid-19 sars-cov-2 evolution medicine health uk epidemiology https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:674914a0c0af/ 2023-11-29T13:22:18+00:00 https://yle.fi/a/74-20062381 jm Use of air purifiers at two daycare centres in Helsinki led to a reduction in illnesses and absences among children and staff, according to preliminary findings of a new [year-long] study led by E3 Pandemic Response. "Children were clearly less sick in daycare centres where air purification devices were used — down by around 30 percent," Sanmark explained. On average, daycare centre-aged children suffer 10-13 infectious illnesses every year, with each illness lasting from one to three weeks, according to the research. Meanwhile, kids between the ages of 1-3 come down with flu-like symptoms between five to eight times a year — and children also often suffer stomach bugs, on top of that. Kids are particularly prone to catching colds after returning to daycare after their summer break. Those illnesses are often shared by the kids' parents and daycare staff, prompting absences from work. Sanmark said that employers face costs of around 370 euros for one day of an employee's sick leave. "It would be a big savings if we could get rid of 30 percent of sick days spread by children, as well as the illnesses that go home to parents," Sanmark said. (via Fergal)]]> air-quality air health medicine childcare children disease air-filtration https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:be3f6c98bc83/ 2023-11-13T11:20:11+00:00 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/12/private-uk-health-data-donated-medical-research-shared-insurance-companies jmWhen the project was announced, in 2002, Biobank promised that data would not be given to insurance companies after concerns were raised that it could be used in a discriminatory way, such as by the exclusion of people with a particular genetic makeup from insurance. In an FAQ section on the Biobank website, participants were told: “Insurance companies will not be allowed access to any individual results nor will they be allowed access to anonymised data.” The statement remained online until February 2006, during which time the Biobank project was subject to public scrutiny and discussed in parliament. The promise was also reiterated in several public statements by backers of Biobank, who said safeguards would be built in to ensure that “no insurance company or police force or employer will have access”. This weekend, Biobank said the pledge – made repeatedly over four years – no longer applied. It said the commitment had been made before recruitment formally began in 2007 and that when Biobank volunteers enrolled they were given revised information. ]]> biobank uk politics health medicine data-privacy insurance discrimination science https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:4c79e5371f73/ 2023-09-26T14:01:06+00:00 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06651-y jm covid-19 diagnosis biomarkers long-covid putrino-lab akiko-iwasaki papers preprints nature medicine cortisol https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:aebdb46ffabc/ 2023-08-16T13:31:38+00:00 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.08.06.23293706v1 jm 18.2% (n=2,130) of respondents met case definition for Long COVID. Female sex, being 50-69 years of age, pre-existing health issues, residing in a rural or remote area, and receiving fewer vaccine doses were significant independent predictors of Long COVID (p < 0.05). Persons with Long COVID reported a median of 6 symptoms, most commonly fatigue (70.6%) and difficulty concentrating (59.6%); 38.2% consulted a GP and 1.6% reported hospitalisation in the month prior to the survey due to ongoing symptoms. Of 1,778 respondents with Long COVID who were working/studying before their COVID-19 diagnosis, 17.9% reported reducing/discontinuing work/study. [...] Long COVID was associated with sustained negative impacts on work/study and a substantial utilisation of GP services 2-3 months after the acute illness. ]]> covid-19 long-covid australia omicron medicine papers preprints via:danny-altmann https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:d5965d9a6a14/ 2023-05-26T09:18:59+00:00 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2805540 jm long-covid covid-19 pasc papers medicine disease https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:7365cf0c9bde/ 2023-05-03T16:52:08+00:00 https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-heightened-risk-of-autoimmune jm Previously we knew there were many features of autoimmunity engendered by Covid, but the link to manifesting important autoimmune diseases has not been established. There are still many dots not connected—it’s fuzzy. We need to better understand how the dysregulation of our immune system that can occur from a Covid infection (or even more rarely from a vaccine) can be linked with a serious autoimmune condition. While we’ve fully recognized that people with autoimmune diseases are more vulnerable to Covid and adverse outcomes, the flip of that — that Covid can make some people vulnerable to autoimmune diseases — is what’s new. (from the always excellent Eric Topol.)]]> covid-19 long-covid pasc autoimmune diseases health medicine research eric-topol https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:762abd01196b/ 2023-04-20T09:15:56+00:00 https://archive.is/20230420034907/https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2023/04/long-covid-symptoms-invisible-disability-chronic-illness/673773/#selection-643.0-647.321 jmMost Americans simply aren’t thinking about COVID with the same acuity they once did; the White House long ago zeroed in on hospitalizations and deaths as the measures to worry most about. And what was once outright denial of long COVID’s existence has morphed into something subtler: a creeping conviction, seeded by academics and journalists and now common on social media, that long COVID is less common and severe than it has been portrayed—a tragedy for a small group of very sick people, but not a cause for societal concern. This line of thinking points to the absence of disability claims, the inconsistency of biochemical signatures, and the relatively small proportion of severe cases as evidence that long COVID has been overblown. “There’s a shift from ‘Is it real?’ to ‘It is real, but …,’” Lekshmi Santhosh, the medical director of a long-COVID clinic at UC San Francisco, told me. Yet long COVID is a substantial and ongoing crisis—one that affects millions of people. However inconvenient that fact might be to the current “mission accomplished” rhetoric, the accumulated evidence, alongside the experience of long haulers, makes it clear that the coronavirus is still exacting a heavy societal toll. ]]> long-covid ed-yong covid-19 health medicine society healthcare https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:9d759bf853c5/ 2023-03-28T08:58:35+00:00 https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1640594589705723906 jmIve written SARS-CoV-2 is a “textbook virus” • Textbook does NOT mean mild; • Textbook viruses kill people; • Textbook viruses harm long-term immunity; • Textbook viruses cause dizzying amounts of poorly understood debilitating problems I explain w examples here! ]]> virology covid-19 sars-cov-2 viruses medicine https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:04bb6d4dd486/ 2023-01-31T15:00:01+00:00 https://www.sciencealert.com/study-of-500000-medical-records-links-viruses-to-alzheimers-again-and-again jm Around 80 percent of the viruses implicated in brain diseases were considered 'neurotrophic', which means they could cross the blood-brain barrier. "Strikingly, vaccines are currently available for some of these viruses, including influenza, shingles (varicella-zoster), and pneumonia," the researchers write. "Although vaccines do not prevent all cases of illness, they are known to dramatically reduce hospitalization rates. This evidence suggests that vaccination may mitigate some risk of developing neurodegenerative disease." The impact of viral infections on the brain persisted for up to 15 years in some cases. And there were no instances where exposure to viruses was protective. ]]> viruses health medicine vaccines vaccination alzheimers parkinsons diseases https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:9ed436edbf2c/ 2023-01-23T12:42:59+00:00 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-022-00846-2?s=03 jmLong COVID is an often debilitating illness that occurs in at least 10% of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections. More than 200 symptoms have been identified with impacts on multiple organ systems. At least 65 million individuals worldwide are estimated to have long COVID, with cases increasing daily. Biomedical research has made substantial progress in identifying various pathophysiological changes and risk factors and in characterizing the illness; further, similarities with other viral-onset illnesses such as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome have laid the groundwork for research in the field. In this Review, we explore the current literature and highlight key findings, the overlap with other conditions, the variable onset of symptoms, long COVID in children and the impact of vaccinations. Although these key findings are critical to understanding long COVID, current diagnostic and treatment options are insufficient, and clinical trials must be prioritized that address leading hypotheses. ]]> long-covid covid-19 health medicine reviews nature papers https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:d6b66ddeccdb/ 2023-01-23T12:39:20+00:00 https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-bivalent-vaccine-booster-outperforms jm sars-cov-2 covid-19 vaccines eric-topol medicine health https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:a26e76c524c6/ 2022-12-13T10:52:06+00:00 https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/12/unsafe-at-any-speed/#this-is-literally-your-brain-on-capitalism jmWhat about when the [bricked] device is inside your body? Earlier this year, many people with Argus optical implants – which allow blind people to see – lost their vision when the manufacturer, Second Sight, went bust. Nano Precision Medical, the company's new owners, aren't interested in maintaining the implants, so that's the end of the road for everyone with one of Argus's "bionic" eyes. The $150,000 per eye that those people paid is gone, and they have failing hardware permanently wired into their nervous systems. Having a bricked eye implant doesn't just rob you of your sight – many Argus users experience crippling vertigo and other side effects of nonfunctional implants. The company has promised to "do our best to provide virtual support" to people whose Argus implants fail – but no more parts and no more patches." ]]> health implants cyberpunk future grim neurotechnology brain right-to-repair open-hardware open-source medicine capitalism ip ethics https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:811f3469d1f9/ 2022-11-14T18:04:08+00:00 https://globalnews.ca/news/9272293/immunity-debt-covid-19-misinformation/ jmThe term “immunity debt” is circulating widely online as an explanation for a significant surge in respiratory illness in Canada [... This] hypothesis suggests people’s immune systems are weaker now, due to a lack of exposure to viruses while observing COVID-19 public health measures over the last two-and-a-half years. But this notion [...] is simply not true, says Colin Furness, an infection control epidemiologist and assistant professor in the faculty of information at the University of Toronto. “That is, in my estimation, and any immunologist will tell you this, nonsense,” he said. Dr. Samira Jeimy, an allergist and clinical immunologist at St Joseph’s Health Care London, agrees, saying the idea that one’s immune system can be weakened due to lack of exposure to illness “shows a basic lack of understanding of how the immune system works.” “There’s almost like an old wives tale, that you need to get sick to develop a healthy immune system. That’s actually not true.”]]> immunity immunology covid-19 rsv viruses health medicine immunity-debt misinformation https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:841a2cc1d747/ 2022-09-22T16:53:06+00:00 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02001-z jmOur results show that in the postacute phase of COVID-19, there was increased risk of an array of incident neurologic sequelae including ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, cognition and memory disorders, peripheral nervous system disorders, episodic disorders (for example, migraine and seizures), extrapyramidal and movement disorders, mental health disorders, musculoskeletal disorders, sensory disorders, Guillain–Barré syndrome, and encephalitis or encephalopathy. We estimated that the hazard ratio of any neurologic sequela was 1.42 (95% confidence intervals 1.38, 1.47) and burden 70.69 (95% confidence intervals 63.54, 78.01) per 1,000 persons at 12 months. The risks and burdens were elevated even in people who did not require hospitalization during acute COVID-19. ]]> covid-19 veterans papers via:eric-topol neurology health medicine disease long-covid https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:10c32763039c/ 2022-08-15T10:12:12+00:00 https://erictopol.substack.com/p/some-light-on-long-covid jmI’m going to briefly review here the new reports on (1) prevalence; (2) mechanisms and biomarkers; and (3) potential treatments [...] Much new information for Long Covid was reported in a matter of days. It would be great to keep up this momentum, now that we are pushing onto 3 years of the pandemic. I have many colleagues who have been severely affected, and have seen multiple patients in my clinic in recent weeks who are debilitated. I wish I had something to offer them, but hopefully over time we’ll build on this recent spurt of knowledge. While we have no treatment or biomarker, the CDC relaxation of Covid guidelines is totally unhelpful— staying Covid cautious is the right move, and we desperately need better tools to block infections and transmission. There’s some hope that the first completed 4,000 participant nasal vaccine randomized trial could be the start of patching up the leak of vaccines against the Omicron subvariants (currently BA.5). Prof Iwasaki and I have called for an urgent Operation Nasal Vaccine initiative. There’s only one surefire way to prevent Long Covid: not to get Covid. ]]> long-covid covid-19 treatments health medicine research https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:4bd4369ce518/ 2022-07-11T17:14:20+00:00 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-91017-4_8 jmThe Covid-19 pandemic has offered some notable examples of how public communication may backfire, in spite of the best intentions of the actors involved, and what role poor argumentative design plays in such failures, in the context of the current digital media ecology. In this chapter, I offer some preliminary considerations on the ongoing struggle to make sense of the new communication technologies in our media reality, analyze a concrete example of argumentative failure in anti-Covid vaccine communication in the European Union, and leverage this case study to issue a call to arms to argumentation scholars: argumentative competence is sorely needed for an effective response to the pandemic, yet argumentation theory will need to join forces with other areas of expertise to realize its societal impact. When it comes to arguments, self-isolation is not a viable strategy to fight Covid-19. ]]> memes social-media medicine public-health argumentation communication covid-19 society https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:acf09c3ff457/ 2022-07-11T17:12:31+00:00 https://sleephq.com jm cpap sleep-apnea health sleep medicine https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:580e34fafc67/ 2022-06-20T10:14:27+00:00 https://www.science.org/content/article/what-causes-long-covid-three-leading-theories jmIncreasingly, researchers want to fine-tune how they classify people with Long Covid, differentiating subsets based on symptoms, biology, or both. In a way, “the biggest obstacle that we are facing is we gave it one name, we gave it the name of Long Covid, which implies that it is one disease,” says Chahinda Ghossein, a physician and heart disease researcher at Maastricht University and co-leader of a 15,000-patient Long Covid study in the Netherlands. “All the studies being performed show us that it is not.” ]]> covid-19 long-covid health medicine disability https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:c44c30ebb840/ 2022-06-02T10:57:16+00:00 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/01/two-million-people-in-uk-living-with-long-covid-say-studies jm“They put to rest any vestige of hope that long Covid would somehow be just a thing of the early waves, would diminish in times of vaccination or ‘milder’ variants, or would just trail off. We’ve now created a far larger cohort of the chronically unwell and disabled than we previously had, say, within the entire national burden of rheumatoid arthritis, its healthcare costs, associated loss to quality of life and to the workplace. This couldn’t be further from ‘living with Covid’. It does necessitate some policy discussions, nationally and internationally.” Sadly, I think the same applies here in Ireland too.]]> epidemic health medicine covid-19 sars-cov-2 long-covid disability https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:fa212e64eaee/ 2022-05-26T11:49:18+00:00 https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2200413119?af=R jm There is growing evidence that pre-existing autoantibodies neutralizing type I interferons (IFNs) are strong determinants of life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia. It is important to estimate their quantitative impact on COVID-19 mortality upon SARS-CoV-2 infection, by age and sex, as both the prevalence of these autoantibodies and the risk of COVID-19 death increase with age and are higher in men. Using an unvaccinated sample of 1,261 deceased patients and 34,159 individuals from the general population, we found that autoantibodies against type I IFNs strongly increased the SARS-CoV-2 infection fatality rate at all ages, in both men and women. Autoantibodies against type I IFNs are strong and common predictors of life-threatening COVID-19. Testing for these autoantibodies should be considered in the general population. I would have thought that type I interferons are a fairly critical part of the immune system, and the idea that people are happily walking about with autoantibodies to them is pretty crazy, but that seems to be the implication here.]]> autoantibodies interferon health medicine disease covid-19 papers ifns interferons sars-cov-2 https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:07cd12ad8c48/ 2022-05-25T09:50:14+00:00 https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7121e1.htm?s_cid=mm7121e1_w jm long-covid pasc covid-19 cdc mmwr medicine health https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:d2e0e7b7163c/ 2022-05-13T08:57:24+00:00 https://www.biospace.com/article/researchers-answer-how-and-why-infants-die-from-sids/?hss_channel=fbp-10530620221 jmSIDS refers to the unexplained deaths of infants under a year old, and it usually occurs while the child is sleeping. According to Mayo Clinic, many in the medical community suspected this phenomenon could be caused by a defect in the part of the brain that controls arousal from sleep and breathing. The theory was that if the infant stopped breathing during sleep, the defect would keep the child from startling or waking up.  The Sydney researchers were able to confirm this theory by analyzing dried blood samples taken from newborns who died from SIDS and other unknown causes. Each SIDS sample was then compared with blood taken from healthy babies. They found the activity of the enzyme butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) was significantly lower in babies who died of SIDS compared to living infants and other non-SIDS infant deaths. BChE plays a major role in the brain’s arousal pathway, explaining why SIDS typically occurs during sleep.  Previously, parents were told SIDS could be prevented if they took proper precautions: laying babies on their backs, not letting them overheat and keeping all toys and blankets out of the crib were a few of the most important preventative steps. While safe sleep practices are still important for protecting infants, many children whose parents took every precaution still died from SIDS. These parents were left with immense guilt, wondering if they could have prevented their baby’s death. Dr. Carmel Harrington, the lead researcher for the study, was one of these parents. Her son unexpectedly and suddenly died as an infant 29 years ago. In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Harrington explained what she was told about the cause of her child’s death.  "Nobody could tell me. They just said it's a tragedy. But it was a tragedy that didn't sit well with my scientific brain.”  Since then, she’s worked to find the cause of SIDS, both for herself and for the medical community as a whole. She went on to explain why this discovery is so important for parents whose babies suffered from SIDS.  "These families can now live with the knowledge that this was not their fault," she said. (via Damien) ]]> healthcare medicine parenting science via:damienmulley sids diseases neurochemistry https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:fc646fefc553/ 2022-05-02T22:01:39+00:00 https://twitter.com/LucaFerrettiEvo/status/1520858546845675520 jm“Living with COVID” has been a lie. Not because it isn’t possible, or because it isn’t the right goal. But in practice it has clearly morphed into "let's stop talking about COVID, and the problem will disappear by itself". A dangerous and irresponsible bet. Most of the political & health authorities have implicitly chosen to rely mainly on vaccination to control COVID. A reasonable choice... if only the vaccination campaign would have aimed at protecting the entire population with sterilising vaccines adapted to the new variants. Instead, despite hundreds of vaccines in the pipeline, there are no next-generation or sterilising vaccines on the horizon... little large-scale clinical trials (apart from Israel)... and few updated vaccines against variants (Moderna's Omicron-Delta booster and little else). Of course, protection for children has been repeatedly delayed (English kids between 5-11 were vaccinated only last month) and kids under 5 are still unprotected worldwide, with the laudable exception of Cuba. Everybody’s waiting for the US FDA, whose intentions are unclear. It is truly depressing to see so little and slow concrete progress on what is meant to be "the ultimate weapon" against SARSCoV2. It seems to suggest that we don't really rely so much on it, and that we're satisfied with postponing the problems until the next not-so-mild variant. Simple precautionary public hygiene measures - face masks and ventilation - are mostly ignored. Testing and surveillance, downsized or limited. And the growing stress on the healthcare system is being swept under the carpet, even as we risk paying the price for it for years. This is not the product of any large conspiracy. It is simply the result of a combination of neglect, inertia, bureaucracy, selfishness, careerism, lack of long-term perspective and so on, among some (though not all!) politicians, doctors, academics, bureaucrats and others... ]]> covid-19 sars-cov-2 public-health medicine healthcare pandemics vaccination https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:7892789747d9/ 2022-04-08T10:28:32+00:00 https://www.icgp.ie/go/library/catalogue/item?spId=C8102425-1BA5-4020-857E1062873DA01C jm migraine headaches medicine icgp health diagnosis cgrp https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:75d4ae3c3553/ 2022-03-09T12:11:43+00:00 https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/03/covid-us-death-rate/626972/ jm covid-19 ed-yong us-politics death disease medicine public-health pandemics economy capitalism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:4b8143d6904b/ 2022-02-10T10:06:54+00:00 https://www.science.org/content/article/covid-19-takes-serious-toll-heart-health-full-year-after-recovery jmIn an analysis of more than 11 million U.S. veterans’ health records, researchers found the risk of 20 different heart and vessel maladies was substantially increased in veterans who had COVID-19 1 year earlier, compared with those who didn’t. The risk rose with severity of initial disease and extended to every outcome the team examined, including heart attacks, arrhythmias, strokes, cardiac arrest, and more. Even people who never went to the hospital had more cardiovascular disease than those who were never infected. The results are “stunning … worse than I expected, for sure,” says Eric Topol, a cardiologist at Scripps Research. “All of these are very serious disorders. … If anybody ever thought that COVID was like the flu this should be one of the most powerful data sets to point out it’s not.” He adds that the new study “may be the most impressive Long Covid paper we have seen to date.” [...] “In the post-COVID era, COVID might become the highest risk factor for cardiovascular outcomes,” greater than well-documented risks such as smoking and obesity, says Larisa Tereshchenko. ]]> covid-19 health medicine long-covid sars-cov-2 heart stroke https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:6dcdd8f2e6a1/ 2022-01-20T11:07:59+00:00 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/12/long-covid-trial-britain-short-term-virus?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other jmAn outdated classification distinguishes diseases as “organic” or “functional”. Organic conditions, such as heart attacks, rheumatoid arthritis and bowel cancer are those that cause changes detectable by investigations such as blood tests or scans. Functional conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome, do not necessarily cause changes detectable by tests, or the right test may not yet be available. Stigma and misconceptions arising from this classification may lead to functional conditions being overlooked, which is surely familiar to many with long Covid. ]]> long-covid disease medicine uk health me-cfs gaslighting https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:6afb963504e0/ 2022-01-17T11:20:46+00:00 https://curiousclinicians.com/2021/04/28/episode-24-how-does-fever-help-us/ jmFever is preserved evolutionarily, suggesting benefit; There is a metabolic cost to fever which may partly explain why we’re not just evolving to be hotter; The benefit relates to its direct anti-pathogen effects and its ability to augment innate and adaptive immunity; Antipyretics are overused. In particular, a randomised controlled trial of fever treatment in trauma ICU patients was halted early, due to a significant difference in deaths during the trial!]]> fever temperature body health medicine rcts metabolism trials https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:a3c5cd1f3f44/ 2022-01-17T10:09:10+00:00 https://twitter.com/VirusesImmunity/status/1482768652055326725 jm neurology long-covid papers medicine health me cfs inflammation cytokines https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:2bf9d8ee0eb5/ 2022-01-11T09:55:50+00:00 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.15.21265038v1.full.pdf jm covid-19 long-covid papers medicine norway preprints https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:70046f597444/ 2022-01-02T15:09:13+00:00 https://www.texaschildrens.org/texas-children%E2%80%99s-hospital-and-baylor-college-medicine-covid-19-vaccine-technology-secures-emergency jmCORBEVAX™, a protein sub-unit COVID-19 Vaccine, whose technology was created and engineered at its Center for Vaccine Development (CVD), has received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) to launch in India with other underserved countries to follow. Dubbed “The World’s COVID-19 Vaccine”, it uses a traditional recombinant protein-based technology that will enable its production at large scales making it widely accessible to inoculate the global population. The initial construct and production process of the vaccine antigen was developed at Texas Children’s Hospital CVD, led by co-directors Drs. Maria Elena Bottazzi and Peter Hotez and in-licensed from BCM Ventures, Baylor College of Medicine’s integrated commercialization team, to Hyderabad-based vaccine and pharmaceutical company Biological E. Limited (BE). CORBEVAX™ after completing two Phase III clinical trials involving more than 3000 subjects was found to be safe, well tolerated and immunogenic. Well-established method of making the stuff, good results, and best of all, the team have chosen not to patent it, Salk-style. Fantastic stuff. ]]> corbevax vaccines covid-19 sars-cov-2 patents india medicine https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:781584942d95/ 2021-12-15T12:03:12+00:00 https://www.kqed.org/news/11898991/it-saved-my-life-depression-treatment-turns-lives-around-in-five-days jmA recent randomized control trial, published in The American Journal of Psychiatry, shows astounding results are possible in five days or less. Almost 80% of patients crossed into remission — meaning they were symptom-free within days. This is compared to about 13% of people who received the placebo treatment. Patients did not report any serious side effects. The most common complaint was a light headache. [...] “This study not only showed some of the best remission rates we've ever seen in depression,” said Shan Siddiqi, a Harvard psychiatrist not connected to the study, “but also managed to do that in people who had already failed multiple other treatments.” Siddiqi also said the study’s small sample size, which is only 29 patients, is not cause for concern. “Often, a clinical trial will be terminated early [according to pre-specified criteria] because the treatment is so effective that it would be unethical to continue giving people placebo,” said Siddiqi. “That's what happened here. They'd originally planned to recruit a much larger sample, but the interim analysis was definitive.” ]]> depression fmri health neuroscience medicine rtms brain rcts https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:0a321106fe1d/ 2021-08-02T21:17:22+00:00 https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/07/30/1030329/machine-learning-ai-failed-covid-hospital-diagnosis-pandemic/ jm via:doctorow covid-19 ai ml fail data health medicine statistcs https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:a882f38826ec/ 2021-06-28T09:40:40+00:00 https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/wx5z5y/why-is-the-intellectual-dark-web-suddenly-hyping-an-unproven-covid-treatment jm conspiracy-theories hcq hydroxychloroquine laetrile ivermectin treatments covid-19 medicine big-pharma miracle-cures https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:2f84cdef68b1/ 2021-06-27T21:58:41+00:00 https://twitter.com/BeSciMary/status/1409153937459064833/photo/3 jm vaccination covid-19 sars-cov-2 symptoms medicine health https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:52368a1e86a0/ 2021-05-27T13:01:34+00:00 https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-03-28-tetris-used-prevent-post-traumatic-stress-symptoms jm'Our hypothesis was that after a trauma, patients would have fewer intrusive memories [from post-traumatic stress] if they got to play Tetris as part of a short behavioural intervention while waiting in the hospital Emergency Department,' says Professor Holmes. 'Since the game is visually demanding, we wanted to see if it could prevent the intrusive aspects of the traumatic memories from becoming established i.e. by disrupting a process known as memory consolidation.' The study involved 71 motor vehicle accident victims, of whom half received the intervention (recalled the trauma briefly and then played Tetris) while waiting in the hospital emergency department, and half performed another task, all doing so within six hours of the accident. Results showed that the researchers’ hypothesis was right: those who had played Tetris had fewer intrusive memories of the trauma in total over the week immediately following the accident than the controls. The researchers also found that the intrusive memories diminished more quickly. Amazing! The paper is at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28348380/ ; follow-up trials with more participants are underway. ]]> brain neurochemistry memory long-term-memory memory-consolidation ptsd trauma medicine gaming tetris https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:f9df57fa47bc/ 2021-05-10T10:34:26+00:00 https://twitter.com/jljcolorado/status/1391111720526024708 jm aerosols airborne medicine history covid-19 droplets infection transmission science https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:33dd3e4b4f45/ 2021-04-27T08:52:07+00:00 https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/regular-hiit-exercise-enhances-health-via-histamine-68697?hss_channel=tw-18198832 jmThe precise molecular mechanisms connecting regular activity to improved health have been unclear. A study published April 14 in Science Advances makes major gains in this understanding. Building off previous work on single bouts of exercise, researchers at Ghent University in Belgium found that when humans perform long-term training, histamine receptors are activated, improving a variety of cardiometabolic risk factors, from insulin sensitivity to aerobic capacity and blood vessel health. “It’s awesome, it’s a very cool paper,” says University of Oregon exercise physiologist John Halliwill, who was not involved in the study. “This is one of a few studies out there finally looking at these molecular transducers, and this is the only one out there on histamine that showed that it has this lasting impact on how we adapt to exercise. . . . It’s not just a signal associated with allergies and asthma, wound healing. It seems to have a hand in everything related to exercise, which is quite amazing.” ]]> histamine health medicine exercise hiit training https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:920cf716596e/ 2021-04-14T20:07:08+00:00 https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/immunization/national-advisory-committee-on-immunization-naci/extended-dose-intervals-covid-19-vaccines-early-rollout-population-protection.html jm canada vaccines covid-19 sars-cov-2 medicine https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:ac316cc19504/ 2021-03-11T10:52:25+00:00 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01292-y jmFor individuals who had a positive swab for COVID-19 (n = 4,182 from the UK, the US and Sweden), the overall median symptom duration was 11 (interquartile range (IQR), 6–19) days, with 558 (13.3%) people who met the LC28 definition (median (IQR), 41 (33–63) days). Of those, 189 (4.5%) met the definition for LC56 (duration ≥ 56 d) and 108 (2.6%) for LC84 (duration ≥ 84 d; all percentages were calculated with respect to the overall sample, n = 4,182). ]]> covid-19 nature science medicine long-covid papers https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:a5dbb4e9f7b3/ 2021-02-17T12:39:01+00:00 https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/classic-triad-symptoms-misses-positive-covid-19-cases jmTesting people with any of the three ‘classic’ symptoms would have spotted 69% of symptomatic cases, with 46 people testing negative for every person testing positive. However, testing people with any of seven key symptoms - cough, fever, anosmia, fatigue, headache, sore throat and diarrhoea - in the first three days of illness would have detected 96% of symptomatic cases. In this case, for every person with the disease identified, 95 would test negative. Researchers also found users of the Symptom Study App were more likely to select headache and diarrhoea within the first three days of symptoms, and fever during the first seven days, which reflects different timings of symptoms in the disease course. Data from the ZOE app shows that 31% of people who are ill with COVID-19 don’t have any of the triad of symptoms in the early stages of the disease when most infectious. ]]> covid-19 symptoms medicine diseases https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:f62c3f005c23/ 2021-01-28T11:43:19+00:00 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/01/27/coronavirus-brazil-variant-manaus/ jmGalvão, the lead physician in the coronavirus ward at a public hospital in the Brazilian city of Manaus, had been haunted by the wave that crashed last spring. In less than 10 days, it ruptured the city’s bewildered medical system. Sick patients were turned away. The dead were piled into mass graves. So Galvão’s hospital organized contingency plans. Additional beds were reserved, and a detailed schedule for opening them was created. But the new surge, when it came, was different. The virus had mutated, with a suite of alterations that probably made it more transmissible — and perhaps more lethal. Manaus was hit by what scientists call the P.1 variant. This time, it didn’t take 10 days to overwhelm Galvão’s hospital. It took 24 hours. ]]> p.1 variants covid-19 manaus brazil medicine https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:1b1c6cff9638/ 2021-01-20T11:20:55+00:00 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.11.21249461v1 jm Adjusting for patient-level factors, mortality was higher for admissions during periods of high occupancy (>85% occupancy versus the baseline of 45 to 85%) [OR 1.19 (95% posterior credible interval (PCI): 1.00 to 1.44)]. In contrast, mortality was decreased for admissions during periods of low occupancy (<45% relative to the baseline) [OR 0.75 (95% PCI: 0.62 to 0.89)]. [...] The results of this study suggest that survival rates for patients with COVID-19 in intensive care settings appears to deteriorate as the occupancy of (surge capacity) beds compatible with mechanical ventilation (a proxy for operational pressure), increases. Moreover, this risk doesn’t occur above a specific threshold, but rather appears linear; whereby going from 0% occupancy to 100% occupancy increases risk of mortality by 92% [...] As Andrew Kunzmann noted - "To aid interpretation, the difference in risk for a 70-year-old man with no comorbidities being admitted during a period of high versus low occupancy is equivalent to the risk if they were approximately a decade older".]]> risk icu hospitals covid-19 pandemics medicine papers preprints mortality https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:88166faf42a9/ 2021-01-07T23:34:09+00:00 https://twitter.com/MedCramVideos/status/1345500084679524357 jmPractical tips from Dr. Seheult if you test positive for COVID-19: - Use of a pulse oximeter at home; - Who gets monoclonals? - Immune boosting vitamins: D, NAC, C, Quercetin, Zinc; - The data on sleep (& melatonin); - Data on core temp. elevation (Sauna etc) ]]> medcram medicine covid-19 treatment immunity https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:8801f2e4f8cf/ 2021-01-06T23:20:03+00:00 https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/01/04/variants-and-vaccines jmThe delayed-dose idea had been floated before, and I wasn’t exactly an early adopter, but the more contagious [B. 1.1.7] version of the virus has made me reconsider. But as I was going on about on Twitter the other day, we have to be clear that this is, in fact, an experiment on the population. It seems likely that delaying these doses will likely work out OK. But we don’t have much evidence either way. I’m in favor of doing it, but I’m not happy about ending up in that position. I don’t trust immunology to always work the way that I think it should work, but it seems that we have little choice. ]]> vaccines b117 covid-19 vaccination immunology derek-lowe medicine https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:706da4174556/ 2021-01-06T10:28:04+00:00 https://twitter.com/dazult_pdempsey/status/1346583436811759621/photo/1 jm covid-19 travel flying medicine sars-cov-2 pcr twitter graphs https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:1846d78634e0/ 2020-12-28T17:42:11+00:00 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.24.20248802v2 jm35 weeks was 91.8%'; 'Most frequent lingering symptoms reported after 6 months were: fatigue 77.7%, post-exertional malaise* 72.2% and cognitive dysfunction 55.4%.' ]]> long-covid covid-19 health medicine papers https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:494306f901e1/ 2020-12-28T12:03:28+00:00 https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/27/consultant-infectious-diseases-long-covid-not-mild-illness-seriously-debilitated-new-clinics jmWith the excitement of the Covid vaccine’s arrival, it may be easy to forget and ignore those of us with “long Covid”, who are struggling to reclaim our previous, pre-viral lives and continue to live with debilitating symptoms. Even when the NHS has managed the herculean task of vaccinating the nation, Covid-19 and the new mutant variants of the virus will continue to circulate, leaving more people at risk of long Covid. Data from a King’s College London study in September suggested as many as 60,000 people in the UK could be affected, but the latest statistics from the Office for National Statistics suggest it could be much higher. (via Shane Dempsey)]]> via:sdempsey long-covid covid-19 health medicine https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:9fe72251caf9/ 2020-12-23T09:53:02+00:00 https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/interviews/potential-origin-migraines jmMice that get migraines have helped scientists in the US to uncover what might be going on in the more than 10 per cent of us who suffer from the condition. What K.C. Brennan at the University of Utah has done is to make a genetic change in his mice, so they mimic the make-up of one group of humans who suffer regular migraines. By watching the brains of these animals, they’ve found that, periodically, surges appear of an excitatory nerve signal called glutamate. This, they speculate, causes overstimulation of the nearby nerve cells, starting the neurological equivalent of a Mexican wave that ripples across the brain. As it does so, it activates pain pathways that cause the ensuing headache. ]]> glutamate neurotransmitters neurology brains health medicine mice migraines headaches https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:36bdf0dbee54/ 2020-09-09T10:56:15+00:00 https://www.thejournal.ie/how-many-people-have-died-from-covid-19-in-ireland-5198763-Sep2020/ jm covid-19 medicine ben-gilroy conspiracies qanon the-journal fact-checking debunking https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:80e3fc509a27/ 2020-09-06T11:22:54+00:00 https://suddenlyathome.net/this-week-in-virology/ jm podcasts twiv virology covid-19 science medicine https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:3d1e38852523/ 2020-08-20T12:05:00+00:00 https://twitter.com/richardneher/status/1293857065425866754 jm covid-19 winter medicine https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:da9dfbf15f30/ 2020-08-20T12:03:36+00:00 https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/08/long-haulers-covid-19-recognition-support-groups-symptoms/615382/ jm long-haulers covid-19 health medicine ed-yong https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:9b3fc45042a2/ 2020-08-20T11:58:17+00:00 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.25.20079103v3 jm via:andrewflood covid-19 asymptomatic papers preprints medicine https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:ce1cde8f9194/ 2020-08-04T10:03:03+00:00 https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/07/28/nisreen-a-alwan-what-exactly-is-mild-covid-19/ jmWhat is now becoming clear is that mortality is not the only adverse outcome of this infection and our surveillance systems must keep up and reflect that. I am advocating for precise case definitions for covid-19 morbidity that reflect the degree of severity of infection and allow us to measure moderate and long term health and wellbeing outcomes. At this stage of the pandemic, it is vital that we accurately measure and count all degrees of infection, not only in research cohorts, but as part of population-based routine surveillance systems. This includes people like me who were not tested at the time of their initial infection. Death is not the only thing to count in this pandemic, we must count lives changed. We still know very little about covid-19, but we do know that we cannot fight what we do not measure.  ]]> covid-19 diseases fatigue symptoms medicine bmj https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:jm/b:026514c749b4/