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How does the coronavirus kill?

sciencemag.org

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Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#41

Post by danenania »

jajag wrote: post #36
danenania wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know nothing about medicine, but is there any way to skip the lungs and give patients oxygenated red blood cells directly?

Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracorporeal_membrane_oxygen...

Interesting, thanks. Apparently it's already being used to treat covid-19. But the potential side effects seem to be nasty and the survival rate not great, so I guess it's only really a last resort treatment.

Human bodies are just too damn complex. Even when the problem is clearly identified--a lack of oxygen in the blood--there's no way to just insert more that doesn't cause a hundred new problems :-/ Natural selection seems to be really bad at modular design.

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#42

Post by wollstonecraft »

webappguy wrote: post #31

I am putting this here to help others. Fry me whateveter. I'm no medical or WHO but I also prepared and knew it was coming week 1 of Jan. I have made many accurate predictions weeks or months ahead this while time so time it for what you paid. It's pulmonary edima 'esque yes, but it's an underlying issue that I think is a big determining factor in who lives and who dies. Lung capacity sure is important BUT the lungs…

Short term, calorie deficit will deplete the immune system. But long term getting to a healthy weight and less diabetic will make you less susceptible to SARS2.

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#43

Post by bodeadly »

jniedrauer wrote: post #35
webappguy wrote: post #31

I am putting this here to help others. Fry me whateveter. I'm no medical or WHO but I also prepared and knew it was coming week 1 of Jan. I have made many accurate predictions weeks or months ahead this while time so time it for what you paid. It's pulmonary edima 'esque yes, but it's an underlying issue that I think is a big determining factor in who lives and who dies. Lung capacity sure is important BUT the lungs…

Proposing intermittent fasting as a cure for COVID-19 with no clinical research is dubious. This is the same as any other quack medicine. Ironically carb consumption is important to maintain immune function in very active individuals.

The poster did not claim it was a "cure". The way I read it was that if you're gut biome is dysfunctional because you eat too much, that is a factor in the immune response to SARS-CoV-2. That is actually possible. Resetting your gut biome with a 72 hour fast is known to provide significant health benefits. Clearly the poster is not a medical professional and states that fact. But everything stated is reasonable advice. It's certainly not "quack medicine".

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#44

Post by ycombobreaker »

danenania wrote: post #41
jajag wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracorporeal_membrane_oxygen...

Interesting, thanks. Apparently it's already being used to treat covid-19. But the potential side effects seem to be nasty and the survival rate not great, so I guess it's only really a last resort treatment. Human bodies are just too damn complex. Even when the problem is clearly identified--a lack of oxygen in the blood--there's no way to just insert more that doesn't cause a hundred new problems :-/ Natural select…

> Natural selection seems to be really bad at modular design.

Or the other way around, modular design does not appear to be a requirement for "success.". We like it for the reduction in complexity but that is ultimately a tradeoff.

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#45

Post by DennisP »

danenania wrote: post #41
jajag wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracorporeal_membrane_oxygen...

Interesting, thanks. Apparently it's already being used to treat covid-19. But the potential side effects seem to be nasty and the survival rate not great, so I guess it's only really a last resort treatment. Human bodies are just too damn complex. Even when the problem is clearly identified--a lack of oxygen in the blood--there's no way to just insert more that doesn't cause a hundred new problems :-/ Natural select…

Biology is layers and layers of legacy code and technical debt and it never gets refactored.

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#46

Post by refurb »

ajross wrote: post #16
ramraj07 wrote: post #7

Only one thing is clear about our immune system: it's extremely complex and even after a century of prodding it, we still don't know it well enough to prod it in targeted ways and know what to expect. Especially, suppressing the immune system is always dicey, since its not just one variable you tune up or down. However, there _is_ a magic bullet of sorts out there, Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG). IVIG is just conc…

I don't see how that's going to be meaningfully useful in a pandemic. We don't have anywhere near the infrastructure required to harvest plasma on that scale. It's possible it might be a useful treatment once we get back down to a stable baseline but before a vaccine is available. I just don't see how the number of lives this will save is going to be significant vs. other more obvious mitigation strategies. There's a…

I think you'd be surprised at the infrastructure that out there for plasma collection. I was doing due diligence on one of these companies a few years back and was surprised to learn that the pharmaceutical company owns thousands of plasma collection clinics. The IV Ig market is quite large.

That said, you're right, this could never be used with every infected patient, but companies could probably produce enough for the sickest patients.

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#47

Post by danenania »

ycombobreaker wrote: post #44
danenania wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, thanks. Apparently it's already being used to treat covid-19. But the potential side effects seem to be nasty and the survival rate not great, so I guess it's only really a last resort treatment. Human bodies are just too damn complex. Even when the problem is clearly identified--a lack of oxygen in the blood--there's no way to just insert more that doesn't cause a hundred new problems :-/ Natural select…

> Natural selection seems to be really bad at modular design. Or the other way around, modular design does not appear to be a requirement for "success.". We like it for the reduction in complexity but that is ultimately a tradeoff.

Well, it’s successful until it’s not. Nature’s primary approach to debugging seems to be: you die. We clearly weren’t intended to open up the hood and fix things.

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#48

Post by cowboysauce »

cblum wrote: post #33
ramraj07 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was very true for the H1N1 epidemic but it's not clear something like this is happening with Covid. If anything, the opposite might be happening where prior infection with a related virus makes the current infection much worse.

Do you have any sources for that last sentence?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7102551/

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#49

Post by cblum »

cowboysauce wrote: post #48
cblum wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any sources for that last sentence?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7102551/

Thank you, that is super interesting.

I wonder how valid this bit still is:

> the discrepancy between the severity of cases observed in the Hubei province of China and those occurring elsewhere in the world

I think at this point we’ve already seen very severe cases in many other countries, no? I don’t have proper sources though, just thinking of misc news articles I’ve read.

Re: How does the coronavirus kill?

#50

Post by nradov »

darkerside wrote: post #29
dharma1 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. You can get a fitness band that measures SpO2 among other things for 30 bucks or so

Most recent Samsung Galaxies have one built in. You just need to enable it in the Samsung Health app.

I have a Samsung Galaxy myself but it's less accurate than a real medical device. Readings depend on how you hold your finger against the sensor.
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