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Scientists may have found mechanism behind cognitive decline in aging

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Re: Scientists may have found mechanism behind cognitive decline in aging

#291
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kids have started taking swim lessons at the Y, so i've been sneaking up stairs to run a mile during their lesson. I've thought about strength training etc, but I have no idea what i'm doing on those machines. Can't say I feel any different, but it is enjoyable.

I find the rowing machine is a great cardio+strength combo that you can make as comfortable as you like, and is very low impact (just keep good posture).

Rowing is great, but you also need some frequent impact for bone health.

Re: Scientists may have found mechanism behind cognitive decline in aging

#292
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FDA approves stuff all the time that has no efficacy

Not in the face of such overwhelming evidence; it’s literally their job to make sure things are effective. It turns out medical studies are weaker evidence than anyone would like, but here there was quite compelling evidence that it was useless!

There are several controlled studies that show phenylephrine does absolutely nothing better than placebo for congestion, yet it's the #1 medication sold and available in the US for congestion.

Re: Scientists may have found mechanism behind cognitive decline in aging

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically, with the title you suggest nobody would have read the post. A title is not "the most informative and complete sentence summarizing the article", it also has the goal to stimulate curiosity. I understand that we don't want misleading titles but this obsession on titles is not very helpful. I am participating in this useless conversation but I couldn't help myself. Now every single HN post has a comment…

> A title is not "the most informative and complete sentence summarizing the article", it also has the goal to stimulate curiosity. It shouldn't have to do the latter. That's clickbait. People are either organically curious about what actually happened or they are not. If they are not, they shouldn't be "stimulated" with BS. That "media/advetising" attitude is the cause behind many issues with science in society toda…

>It shouldn't have to do the latter. That's clickbait.

clickbait generally has an implication of incorrectly representing the content. romanticized titles aren't always clickbait, and I wouldn't say this is exactly a sensationalist tite like how others may say "We're on the first road to curing Alzheimer's disease".

>People are either organically curious about what actually happened or they are not.

it's a prisoner's dilemma. It's not necessarily zero sum, but attention is somewhat finite. And for some sites, the result isn't a more comfy high quality community. It just dies out, and that benefits no one.

Re: Scientists may have found mechanism behind cognitive decline in aging

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ehh. We’ve been here long enough to both know that there’s a balance. $10 says the mods won’t change the title to the suggested one, precisely because of this balance. It’s not about clickbaiting. The whole reason the research is getting funded in the first place is to try to find the link.

> It’s not about clickbaiting. The whole reason the research is getting funded in the first place is to try to find the link. Tieing grants to mass media popularity of research papers is an even bigger problem.

Grants are ALWAYS tiered based on biased political factors. That's why they are "grants". Someone heavily invested in finding answers is willing to give money away to achieve that end. In this case, the government is heavily invested on ideas that can stimulate their economy.

I don't even know what can be done here. Take money out of acedemia? Maybe in a post scarcity world.

Re: Scientists may have found mechanism behind cognitive decline in aging

#295
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same after COVID. Took me many months to start feeling functional again. Any time I tried to think about something, it'd just... noise out? First 2-3 months were just awful I went to a neurologist who said there's tons of people coming in with the same complaint after COVID, and since there's no literature on that yet, he couldn't really do anything. It gets better.

I assure you that there is literature on it. Here’s an almost random sample of papers. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2022.10.006 https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs10238-022-00871-8 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nerep.2022.100154 https://doi.org/10.1042/BCJ20220016 I would like to point to this kind of statement that doctors often make, that there is “no literature” or that “nothing is known”. This is very often flat out wron…

your earliest link here was August of last year. I have heard people taking about long COVID as early as early 2021. Properly researched literature takes time to be written and much longer to be peer reviewed and disseminated into the circle of the academic conscious.

I don't think there's much value taking the word that literally. I simply assume the acedemic conscious when I hear "there is no literature on X". I certainly wouldn't want a neurologist to tell me "oh yea I read some news on this last week and X" and treat that as gospel for an ongoing issue.

Re: Scientists may have found mechanism behind cognitive decline in aging

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet the volume of replies, advice, and questions, against this suggests it's brought enjoyable conversation. On-topic is shades of grey.

Popularity is not a proxy for quality. ...and just like Reddit, chasing popular posts and comments is a race to the bottom as it attracts an ever-more juvenile crowd of participants. Nuanced opinions and expert commentary are more boring but attract a more intellectually curious crowd - and that is what sets HN apart from reddit.

It isn't, but at the same time pop culture isn't automatically low quality either. I think blind call to actions based on gut feelings without understand WHY those gut feelings exist are exactly the kinds of things we should discourage here.

I use the collorary for evaluating stuff like this. I care less about a high polished acedemic answer than I do about the resulting discussion not diving into a dumpster afterwrds. For here, I don't see a de-evolution into COVID denailism and anti-vaxxers or even random anecdotes of an off the hinge relative who died and the OP has to be like "I told him but he wouldn't listen", like I would on reddit. I see interesting discussion on a topic that is still a very hotly researched topic even in academia. Ways to potentially get checked or self help to mitigate effects.

No one is an expert on "long COVID" yet, so it's interesting to see experiences (and IMO, see how they age as we learn more about such phenomenon).

Re: Scientists may have found mechanism behind cognitive decline in aging

#297

Apparently we should add "in mice", "single study", "small study" and about 14 other disclaimers to every HN title about science. If you care desperately about "in mice" find a less "general interest" news source.

> Apparently we should add "in mice", "single study", "small study" and about 14 other disclaimers to every HN title about science. That would be nice, yes. Otherwise there's an endless stream of "revolutionary" discoveries that turn out to be nothing.

I don't think it has to be as binary as "nothing" or "we found the cure for cancer".

we do these experinebts on mice due to similar-ish brain chemistry. It hopefully leads to controlled human studies and then we start devloping medicine that way. It's always a process.

Re: Scientists may have found mechanism behind cognitive decline in aging

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Floss once or twice a day, maintain gum health, and watch your diet. You don't need mouthwash. (Anecdata - at my most recent visit, my dentist told me to come back in 18 months.)

That’s strange for your dentist to give up money like that lol. But also, at dental cleanings they do things like polish your teeth. Do you also not require that?

I've had my fair share of dentists who do unnecessary treatments. Really like this one.

Re the polishing, I guess not? Since I switched to an electric toothbrush a few years ago my teeth definitely stay smoother longer.

Re: Scientists may have found mechanism behind cognitive decline in aging

#299

No offense to everybody upvoting this type of thing, but claims like this seem to outweigh any actual tangible result by 100 or 1000 to 1. I think it's a better use of everybody time to say "Well, let's just wait until it's replicated in humans until we share articles"

I see it as progress, not a cure. Is there anything wrong with reporting progress?
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