Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease

uth.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 159 posts

Re: Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease

#91

Post by tyingq »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #35
i_love_limes wrote: post #26

Epidemiologist in training here... There are quite a few comments in this thread already jumping on the 'correlation != causation' train. While that is true, I'd like to clarify a couple things: 1. The journal article didn't suggest it was causal. But such a correlation with such a large population warrants publication and further research into causation. 2. literally the first thing that any epidemiologist would con…

I do not remember where I read it (probably xkcd) but it was that correlation is not casuation, though the numbers are doing big winks to you (or something like that) As a physicist who had to endure helping biologists with statistics and cooling down their enthusiasm: it make sense to have a deeper thought about the experiment. As parent wrote, there may be various reasons for the correlations, sometimes you have ra…

Access to, and willingness to take, flu vaccinations is the first thing that comes to mind for me. It does narrow the set somewhat to people with certain habits.

Re: Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease

#92

Post by Jedd »

DarkmSparks wrote: post #88

While this would be lovely, I think it just proves people with dementia are less likely to remember to get a flu vaccine.

> I think it just proves people with dementia are less likely to remember to get a flu vaccine.

I think you may have misread the fine article.

Symptoms were observed to develop (or not develop) after a flu vaccination shot.

Re: Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease

#93

Post by RagnarD »

The connection between Alzheimers and viral disease has been known and studied for some time, particularly but not exclusively for Herpes Simplex 1. The dead end pursuit of amyloid plaques as causative has delayed other research for decades. (In fact one hypothesis is that the plaques are a natural antiviral defense mechanism in the brain to try to slow down viral infection.) It's time to take a much closer look at viral disease, possibly including influenza, as a fundamental cause.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26967229/

Re: Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease

#95

Post by Izkata »

threatofrain wrote: post #40
blagie wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scientists said it was causation. "We found that flu vaccination in older adults reduces the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease for several years. The strength of this protective effect increased with the number of years that a person received an annual flu vaccine – in other words, the rate of developing Alzheimer’s was lowest among those who consistently received the flu vaccine every year" Yes, that's in a…

I've always read "protective effect" to be making a predictive statement and not a causal one.

"Reduce" is also an action verb that means causation.

Re: Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease

#96

Post by Izkata »

kelnos wrote: post #65
bilsbie wrote: post #33

I posted this exact link two days ago. What gives?

I wouldn't think anything nefarious happened. A few possibilities: * You posted it during a time of day when the site receives less traffic, and it scrolled too far down or off the New page for people to see it and vote it up. (Looks like you posted during lunch time on the US west coast, so maybe this isn't likely.) * When you posted, there was other big news or something going on that people were absorbed in, and d…

> * You posted it during a time of day when the site receives less traffic, and it scrolled too far down or off the New page for people to see it and vote it up. (Looks like you posted during lunch time on the US west coast, so maybe this isn't likely.)

Looks like it's UTC, so early Saturday morning vs after lunch Monday.

> * When you posted, there was other big news or something going on that people were absorbed in, and didn't notice your post.

Roe v Wade

Re: Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease

#97

Post by HKH2 »

wonderwonder wrote: post #5

Never gotten the flu vaccine before. Biggest fear in life is alzheimers. Guess I will get the flu vaccine annually going forward.

You could learn another language if you haven't already. That apparently helps slow the onset of Alzheimer's.

Re: Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease

#99

Post by ncmncm »

Back in April 2021, another study using >100,000 US Veterans Administration patients over 6 years found the same effect and effect size (42%) for Tdap vaccination.

They then checked a completely disjoint population, in a different health-care system, and got the same number.

I went out and got an over-the-counter Tdap vaccination at a local pharmacy, because how good does your reason for a vaccine booster need to be?

Re: Flu vaccination linked to 40% reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease

#100

Post by bumbledraven »

spandrew wrote: post #69
blagie wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scientists said it was causation. "We found that flu vaccination in older adults reduces the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease for several years. The strength of this protective effect increased with the number of years that a person received an annual flu vaccine – in other words, the rate of developing Alzheimer’s was lowest among those who consistently received the flu vaccine every year" Yes, that's in a…

This is a mischaracterization of even the words you've quoted. The team did indeed find that flu vaccines reduced the risk of Alzheimers. But he specifically doesn't say they know why the flu vaccine lowers the risk . Ie. They can't claim causation if they don't understand the underlying reason for the change. That's not how science works. In fact in the article in question he says the opposite: That the immune syste…

“The team did indeed find that suntan lotion reduced the risk of rain. But he specifically doesn't say they know why the suntan lotion lowers the risk.” - spandrew, probably
Post reply on HN