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Attributes and predictors of long Covid

nature.com

61–70 of 77 posts

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#61
post #35

One of the biggest risk factors for COVID and especially for poor outcomes is Vitamin D deficiency, but this study apparently didn't even check Vitamin D levels. That seems like a serious oversight.

Low levels of Vitamin D are correlated with a lot of bad things, but only for a few of them vitamin D supplementation seems to lead to betterment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Use_of_supplements

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the cadaver studies.

Cadavers from Covid 19 have (by definition) not had very much time to recover from long covid.

Strawman. That's not the point. The point is the permanent damage SARS-CoV-2 has on numerous organ systems. People also survive COVID-19 illness and die from other things.

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#63
post #50
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fast-tracked vaccines It would be accurate to say that these vaccines have been developed in the optimal time, and vaccines are usually 'slow-tracked'. Nothing has been rushed here in the sense of cutting clinical corners. The development of these vaccines has gone through the same phases of testing that every other vaccine has. Things that slow down all vaccine development: funding, finding volunteers for testing…

> Nothing has been rushed here in the sense of cutting clinical corners. The development of these vaccines has gone through the same phases of testing that every other vaccine has. They were approved for emergency use, which means skipping tests for long-term side-effects, because those usually take around two years. Every other vaccine has been around for a while and gone through this.

> because those usually take around two years

As I said in my parent comment, COVID vaccines appear 'fast tracked' because all the bureaucracy was removed to expedite them.

Every phase of clinical trials have been followed otherwise the MHRA (and the EMA) would not have approved them.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/clinical-trials/

All vaccines have been through phases 1-3.

> skipping tests for long-term side-effect

That would be the standard phase 4 being "The safety, side effects and effectiveness of the medicine continue to be studied while it's being used in practice." "Only carried out on medicines that have passed all the previous stages and have been given marketing licences – a licence means the medicine is available on prescription."

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#64
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a dynamic not entirely confined to quantum physics in the 1930s, and there's a range of graciousness involved. It's a side effect of the paradigm shifts described by Kuhn: What happens to the old guard? Some will adapt to the new paradigm, some will enjoy tenure and let their students carry the new torch, and some will join the church in denouncing these heretics who deny the primacy of the earth. (And will happ…

Not to completely disagree, but Einstein won the 1921 Nobel prize for photoelectric effect which demonstrates the quantum nature of light. I was using him as one of those pioneers which where faced with the universe acting strangely rather than anything to do with relativity. So, yes some people will object long term, but it’s important to keep their objections in context. Plate tectonics is a slightly more recent re…

"I was using him as one of those pioneers which where faced with the universe acting strangely rather than anything to do with relativity."

Yeah, all I'm saying is that his total collection of contributions wasn't at stake here, so it was probably a bit easier to back down.

FWIW, my 'motivating anecdote' in this discussion is an old prof describing the earlier years of algebraic topology, which he had been very active in. There were apparently a number of older topologists who were pretty resistant to algebraization of the field. Which possibly had a lot to do with Poincare's attitudes about logic and proof.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9#Character

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#66
post #63
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing has been rushed here in the sense of cutting clinical corners. The development of these vaccines has gone through the same phases of testing that every other vaccine has. They were approved for emergency use, which means skipping tests for long-term side-effects, because those usually take around two years. Every other vaccine has been around for a while and gone through this.

> because those usually take around two years As I said in my parent comment, COVID vaccines appear 'fast tracked' because all the bureaucracy was removed to expedite them. Every phase of clinical trials have been followed otherwise the MHRA (and the EMA) would not have approved them. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/clinical-trials/ All vaccines have been through phases 1-3. > skipping tests for long-term side-effect T…

Phase 3 under normal circumstances from that link:

> Trials often last a year or more and involve several thousand patients.

Also this seems to be a US/UK difference, as over here phase 3 includes long-term safety before it's approved for use, with emergency use authorization to skip that being the exception: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/vaccines/timeline

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#67
post #66
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because those usually take around two years As I said in my parent comment, COVID vaccines appear 'fast tracked' because all the bureaucracy was removed to expedite them. Every phase of clinical trials have been followed otherwise the MHRA (and the EMA) would not have approved them. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/clinical-trials/ All vaccines have been through phases 1-3. > skipping tests for long-term side-effect T…

Phase 3 under normal circumstances from that link: > Trials often last a year or more and involve several thousand patients. Also this seems to be a US/UK difference, as over here phase 3 includes long-term safety before it's approved for use, with emergency use authorization to skip that being the exception: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/vaccines/timeline

> Trials often last a year or more and involve several thousand patients.

Agreed. Though not all last a year, and the COVID trials had large numbers of volunteers.

I defer to someone that works in the industry to say whether vaccine trials last longer than regular medicine (e.g. Parkinsons or Alzheimers drugs).

But I suspect that vaccines need less time for trials because vaccines are made using standardised processes that are tweaked to produce the expected responses, vs. novel drugs that have never been synthesized before.

This one [0] in the UK famously went wrong: "The German company that developed the drug hoped it would revolutionise treatment of leukaemia and rheumatoid arthritis.

But within minutes of having the drug administered, all of the test subjects began feeling unwell."

0. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35766627#:~:text=When%20....

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#68
post #35

One of the biggest risk factors for COVID and especially for poor outcomes is Vitamin D deficiency, but this study apparently didn't even check Vitamin D levels. That seems like a serious oversight.

My new PCP doctor threw shade on why I was taking 5000 IU of Vitamin D3 per day. I asked him why he wasn't considering Fauci and others take it for COVID outcome prophylaxis.

Note that very high levels of vitamin D supplements are possibly linked to reduction of volumetric bone density[0]. Low levels make sense given most people are more housebound during the pandemic.

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31454046/

"Conclusions and relevance: Among healthy adults, treatment with vitamin D for 3 years at a dose of 4000 IU per day or 10 000 IU per day, compared with 400 IU per day, resulted in statistically significant lower radial BMD; tibial BMD was significantly lower only with the 10 000 IU per day dose. There were no significant differences in bone strength at either the radius or tibia. These findings do not support a benefit of high-dose vitamin D supplementation for bone health; further research would be needed to determine whether it is harmful."

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#69
post #10

> For the reduced logistic regression model, the score was given by the following formula: S = 0.259503 × NumberSymptoms + 0.055457 × age − 0.633310 × sex − 3.20 (where sex is encoded as 1 − female/2 − male) Where ‘NumberSymptoms’ corresponds to the sum of different symptoms experienced over the first week among the list of 14 symptoms reported on daily logs. This score was then transformed to a probability using the…

No. A woman, at any age and number of symptoms, has twice the risk of a man. Which was already well-known before.

I find that particularly interesting considering that men are more at risk of dying from Covid.

Maybe women have a somehow weaker immune response, making it harder to clear the infection, but lowering the risk of a deadly overreation.

I wonder if there is serious research about that.

Re: Attributes and predictors of long Covid

#70
post #35

One of the biggest risk factors for COVID and especially for poor outcomes is Vitamin D deficiency, but this study apparently didn't even check Vitamin D levels. That seems like a serious oversight.

Low levels of Vitamin D are correlated with a lot of bad things, but only for a few of them vitamin D supplementation seems to lead to betterment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D#Use_of_supplements

Because Vitamin D is involved in so much physiology there are many related factors. Low sleep and sleep debt are common and getting enough sleep is associated with higher Vitamin D levels. Stress is common and finding ways handle stress is associated with increased Vitamin D levels. Vitamin D is present in eggs, oily fish, and organ meats. One of the most effective ways of increasing Vitamin D is to get some sun close to mid day. This is another example of cascading factors as making time to be outside at mid day tends to result in a range of other changes opening up diet options, increasing exercise, improving mood, and so on.

So your knee jerk reaction is strictly speaking true yet also a distraction.

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