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

151–159 of 159 posts

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

#151

Post by nazka »

srvmshr wrote: post #58
nazka wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But virtual HN karma points are so juicy! /s Sometimes HN can do this or turn simple topics into some crazy meta stuff… I’m telling you so many times some comments look like what I will find in a parody of HN and/or bring no real value to the discussion but are so articulated and counter arguing and expanding and what not. Heck half of the times those comments start a new paragraph mid comment with « Heck… ». And the…

Maybe you should look into specifics of what exactly I am asking as the question, before terming it "crazy meta stuff". I am trying asking valid questions, which may be wrong or someone will explain it better clearing my misconception. I will learn something new & be grateful. Win-win What is your contribution by this rant exactly, except making yourself look absurd?

I was just renting and being sarcastic. I was talking in general about how HM comments can be. When I wrote the crazy meta stuff it was not about your comment. I agree that it is great to ask questions and learn. So if I hurt you in any way I’m sorry.

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

#152

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

native_samples wrote: post #143
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just being facetious though. We've all seen that website with funny correlations. This line of argument while an important lesson to look deeper into systems before claiming a correlation doesn't really add much here. Loads of people get the flu vaccine. Enough that I'd imagine the sample size is representative of the population at large. A large number of people also don't get the flu vaccine. So this is a su…

It's not facetious. It's quite the stretch to say that if you assume literally any injection could cure any disease, it's OK to describe any found correlation as a "link". This sort of intellectual looseness is not free. People are learning to treat claims by scientists as untrue, and it's partly because of this sort of press release/paper hacking. Finding a correlation between two random medical data sets does not m…

> It's not facetious. It's quite the stretch to say that if you assume literally any injection could cure any disease, it's OK to describe any found correlation as a "link".

I don't see it that way. Nick Cage has nothing to do with Alzheimers. We're not finding correlations with Nick Cage movies and then saying "Nick Cage linked to reduction in Alzheimers".

They are suggesting that flu vaccination may have some 2nd order effect beyond protecting you from the flu. Which could be reasonable, science reporting and poor research notwithstanding.

Either way, the refrain "Correlation does not imply causation" is over used in my view. And I'd rather learn the specific ways the research is flawed.

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

#153

Post by thaumasiotes »

Symmetry wrote: post #138
thaumasiotes wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In theory you could have A and B that were naturally correlated and add a causal relationship between the two that exactly canceled that correlation but that would be infinit[el]y unlikely to happen by chance. That hardly seems relevant, since we're talking about causal relationships and chance is the opposite of causation.

I have no idea what you were saying by "Causation frequently removes correlations that would otherwise exist" then.

Just that. Variables that are causally related frequently show no correlation, or a weak correlation with the opposite sign from the one you would expect. There's already an example sidethread from me - the correlation between the temperature outside a house and the temperature inside a house would ordinarily be close to 1. But a normal modern house tampers with the indoor temperature, reducing the correlation to something close to 0 instead. This is as dramatic of a change in correlation as it's possible to see, altering "basically the same thing" (the correct answer) to "basically unrelated" (correct in an observational sense, but wildly off in a causal sense).

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

#154

Post by Jedd »

DarkmSparks wrote: post #148
Jedd wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly impressive that you thought up this profound and fundamental flaw in their study in just a few minutes pondering this on the couch and after briefly skimming a summary article published in a pop-media publication ... yet the fleet of scientists and researchers didn't consider this, factor it in, describe their control processes to cater for this and other confounding effects etc, for a study that spann…

the online paper is here https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-alzheimers-... They controlled by excluding patients if: "they had a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), encephalopathy, or dementia of any cause during the look-back period, or if they filled a prescription for a medication indicated for AD" Therefore they didnt exclude patients with early signs of cognitive impairment (because it is…

Right, so in an experiment to see who acquires AD through the decade the trial runs, they initially excluded people who may already have it. This seems a reasonable part of the method, given what they were looking for.

If your position continues to be that their numbers are skewed - and this is a HUGE correlation here - exclusively because people with dementia will forget to get a flu vaccination, then a) I think you are making unsupported claims, and b) you're arguing with the wrong person.

Perhaps throw the authors of the study a line and suggest this alternative hypothesis for the numbers they saw across their sample set of ~ 1 million people.

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

#155

Post by native_samples »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #152
native_samples wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not facetious. It's quite the stretch to say that if you assume literally any injection could cure any disease, it's OK to describe any found correlation as a "link". This sort of intellectual looseness is not free. People are learning to treat claims by scientists as untrue, and it's partly because of this sort of press release/paper hacking. Finding a correlation between two random medical data sets does not m…

> It's not facetious. It's quite the stretch to say that if you assume literally any injection could cure any disease, it's OK to describe any found correlation as a "link". I don't see it that way. Nick Cage has nothing to do with Alzheimers. We're not finding correlations with Nick Cage movies and then saying "Nick Cage linked to reduction in Alzheimers". They are suggesting that flu vaccination may have some 2nd o…

It could be reasonable but like I said, it's a massive stretch. Flu vaccines are not designed to stop Alzheimer's. There is no argued or known biological pathway through which that might happen. Alzheimer's experts have not previously identified flu vaccines as doing anything that might help. And it probably isn't flu itself causing Alzheimer's because, as I've noted elsewhere in this thread, flu vaccines don't appear to have actually reduced overall flu mortality and some studies show negative effectiveness.

https://www.healio.com/news/primary-care/20200302/flu-vaccin...

I don't think there's a really killer argument here in the abstract: I personally find it unreasonable to imply causation from any medical intervention to any possible outcome based on just a correlation. Yes, it's more reasonable than Nick Cage being associated, but not reasonable enough. That's a judgement call however. I am guided in it by the massive costs and problems created when scientists claim vaccines are miracle cures without sufficiently robust data.

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

#156

Post by DarkmSparks »

Jedd wrote: post #154
DarkmSparks wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the online paper is here https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-alzheimers-... They controlled by excluding patients if: "they had a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), encephalopathy, or dementia of any cause during the look-back period, or if they filled a prescription for a medication indicated for AD" Therefore they didnt exclude patients with early signs of cognitive impairment (because it is…

Right, so in an experiment to see who acquires AD through the decade the trial runs, they initially excluded people who may already have it. This seems a reasonable part of the method, given what they were looking for. If your position continues to be that their numbers are skewed - and this is a HUGE correlation here - exclusively because people with dementia will forget to get a flu vaccination, then a) I think you…

Thing is, like I said, it would be lovely.

But I also said, all they "proved" is that people who dont forget to get the flu vaccine are less likely to develop full blown dementia.

Just to bear that in mind if you think it brings us any closer to preventing/treating/curing dementia.

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

#157

Post by acdha »

native_samples wrote: post #155
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not facetious. It's quite the stretch to say that if you assume literally any injection could cure any disease, it's OK to describe any found correlation as a "link". I don't see it that way. Nick Cage has nothing to do with Alzheimers. We're not finding correlations with Nick Cage movies and then saying "Nick Cage linked to reduction in Alzheimers". They are suggesting that flu vaccination may have some 2nd o…

It could be reasonable but like I said, it's a massive stretch. Flu vaccines are not designed to stop Alzheimer's. There is no argued or known biological pathway through which that might happen. Alzheimer's experts have not previously identified flu vaccines as doing anything that might help. And it probably isn't flu itself causing Alzheimer's because, as I've noted elsewhere in this thread, flu vaccines don't appea…

> Flu vaccines are not designed to stop Alzheimer's. There is no argued or known biological pathway through which that might happen.

You might want to read the paper before saying untrue things like that so confidently:

“Mounting evidence indicates that systemic immune responses can have lasting effects on the brain and can influence AD risk and/or progression. A diverse range of microorganisms and infectious diseases have been associated with an increased risk and/or rate of cognitive decline, particularly among older adults, including influenzal respiratory infections [5, 6], pneumonia [4, 7], herpes infections [7], chronic periodontitis [8], urinary tract infections [4], gastrointestinal infections [9], sepsis [4], and most recently COVID-19 [10]. Prevention or attenuation of microbe-related inflammation may therefore represent a rational strategy to delay or reduce the risk of neurodegenerative disease. Consistent with this hypothesis, studies have found a decreased risk of dementia associated with prior exposure to various adulthood vaccinations, including those for tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis (Tdap) [11–13]; poliomyelitis [11]; tuberculosis [14, 15]; herpes zoster (i.e., shingles) [6, 13, 16, 17]; and influenza [11, 18–21].”

Unlike your Nick Cage theory, this has a clear mechanism and is compatible with the understanding of similar effects.

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

#158

Post by native_samples »

acdha wrote: post #157
native_samples wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be reasonable but like I said, it's a massive stretch. Flu vaccines are not designed to stop Alzheimer's. There is no argued or known biological pathway through which that might happen. Alzheimer's experts have not previously identified flu vaccines as doing anything that might help. And it probably isn't flu itself causing Alzheimer's because, as I've noted elsewhere in this thread, flu vaccines don't appea…

> Flu vaccines are not designed to stop Alzheimer's. There is no argued or known biological pathway through which that might happen. You might want to read the paper before saying untrue things like that so confidently: “Mounting evidence indicates that systemic immune responses can have lasting effects on the brain and can influence AD risk and/or progression. A diverse range of microorganisms and infectious disease…

That supports my point, no? The paragraph you cited boils down to "there is an association between being less sick and not getting Alzheimer's (i.e. being less sick" + "there seems to be an association between literally any vaccine regardless of mechanism or target and less Alzheimers". These are not specific biological mechanisms of action, they're just correlations supported by an ultra-vague causal hypothesis of the form "maybe microbes cause Alzheimers". That's not actually a causal biological explanation.
Post reply on HN