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Covid infections are causing IQ drops and years of brain aging, studies suggest

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Re: Covid infections are causing IQ drops and years of brain aging, studies suggest

#221

Post by changelink »

vertis wrote: post #125
changelink wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My girlfriend has pretty bad post-covid, the thing that helped her most was getting on Citalopram. There's suspicions that many SSRI's have a anti-inflammatory effect on the brain, which might be the mechanism. She's currently in oxygen therapy, we're positive about the effects but since it's dominating her life (and energy) at the moment it's hard to say what the effect is.

SSRIs have some nasty side effects though, including sexual dysfunction.

For sure, but so does heavy post-covid. It's a trade-off that's well worth it for her. It improved her memory and brain clarity a fair bit to the point that it's doable to get through the days hoping for a cure (or at least a way to get back to a normal life).

Re: Covid infections are causing IQ drops and years of brain aging, studies suggest

#222

Post by baobabKoodaa »

armchairdweller wrote: post #99
skrebbel wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. The symptoms started the day after her 3rd jab. Basically she got that “woa i got jabbed yesterday and feel like shit” thing many people got, but then it just never went away. She got covid 1.5 months after that jab so there’s no telling whether the jab or the covid was the key cause to her long-time postcovid. The covid infection itself wasn’t particularly heavy. We very much want to stay out of the “covid vacc…

Thank you for your honesty. Maybe one of the downvoters would like to explain why he / she finds this question so emotionally triggering.

I didn't downvote, but I'll answer anyway: there was a propaganda campaign of unprecedented scale espousing the "safety" of these covid vaccines (which didn't go through the normal, rigorous testing process that vaccines usually go through). The propaganda was so successful that a large percentage of the population is still fanatically making false claims about vaccine safety, despite the large number of people who reported serious adverse side effects. At this point pretty much every person on earth knows at least one person who has "long covid symptoms" from the covid vaccine. And yet we have a bunch of people re-enacting the propaganda of 2021 and downvoting any comment that talks about vaccine side effects...

Re: Covid infections are causing IQ drops and years of brain aging, studies suggest

#223

Post by DoreenMichele »

croes wrote: post #209
DoreenMichele wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The infection causes zinc deficiency.

Deficiency symptoms are slow, loss of smell was an early infection symptom. How could Corona cause a body wide deficiency if it was still early on? And where did the Zinc go?

I don't know the answers to that. I'm not a medical professional.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22845133

That comment is by a researcher. We talked. I was realizing I had covid and was recovering and we had been eating a lot of zinc rich foods and this helped mitigate our symptoms.

I don't really understand why people feel so compelled to gang up on me on HN about really mild observations supported with citations that "x and y could be related."

I have a serious medical condition which explains my interest in medical topics on hn. But after 14 years, I still cannot fathom why I get such hostility on hn for that interest.

I'm probably done with trying to defend my really mild comment on this forum that other people are reacting so rabidly to. It's pointless to engage with this garbage.

Re: Covid infections are causing IQ drops and years of brain aging, studies suggest

#225

Post by sph »

kadkadels wrote: post #133
sph wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got diagnosed for ADHD in 2021 and nobody asked me to do an IQ test. In fact, no one has ever asked me to do one in my entire life. Your anecdote is not data. Also makes no sense whatsoever as ADHD does not affect IQ in any form. It's a form of dopamine dysregulation, not a learning disability. Let's stop perpetuating this stupid myth.

It does affect concentration and if an IQ test goes on for long enough and is not interesting enough to warrant some kind of hyperfocus, I get distracted. And so my IQ score will be worse. Or not? I have ADHD and it doesn't make me dumber, but since focus is a critical part of thinking, it does make it harder if I'm not interested. I'd rather say that IQ tests are designed for neurotypical people.

IQ is not concentration. In fact, IQ or intelligence in general does not have a single accepted definition†. You are not "stupider" because you have no patience to sit down to concentrate to do a silly test. Nor you are "smarter" because you found it so engaging you hyperfocused and did it in one sitting.

IQ tests are designed by people that want to create automatons easy to quantify and categorize.

† My definition of intelligence is "ability to solve novel problems." With this definition, an uncontacted tribesperson can be as intelligent as a Nobel prize winner. The difference is education, and the type of problems they're facing, which is just a matter of context.

Re: Covid infections are causing IQ drops and years of brain aging, studies suggest

#226

Post by selfie »

freehorse wrote: post #201
DoughnutHole wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who says there’s even anything stable to measure? If “intelligence” is just the degree/quality of someone’s brain function then your intelligence does drop when your brain function is impaired, and you would expect that to be picked up in an intelligence test. Culturally we may want to imagine intelligence as something constant and innate to somebody’s soul, but in reality it’s innate to a fragile and fickle organ in…

> Culturally we may want to imagine intelligence as something constant and innate to somebody’s soul, but in reality it’s innate to a fragile and fickle organ inside your skull. Which is also my issue with IQ tests and the relationship of the tests and what they measure. But that changes nothing: IQ tests are not supposed to measure _that_ variability of when you get sick. Or you wake up. Or you are drunk. It makes n…

Except chronic fatigue / long covid could affect IQ as tested. It might be that you have the CPU but the power supply isn't up to voltage, so to speak, so the CPU has to run slow.

Re: Covid infections are causing IQ drops and years of brain aging, studies suggest

#227

Post by fireflash38 »

k__ wrote: post #203
freehorse wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not think IQ tests are meant or designed to measure effects from illness. We do not say that IQ drops when you are sick with the flu and have high fever that makes it hard to think. IQ does not drop when you wake up groggy in the morning up until you drink coffee. I am not sure why people use IQ here instead of referring specifically to brain fog and other symptoms of post-COVID infection. IQ does not drop when…

The tests themselves are misleading. If I do one sober, I have an IQ of 110, if I do it with my ADHD meds, it goes up to 120. Is that because the meds make me smarter? No, it's because I don't lose attention after 10 minutes of test and can concentrate until the end. However, the numbers imply otherwise.

One could argue that concentration is an aspect of intelligence.

Re: Covid infections are causing IQ drops and years of brain aging, studies suggest

#228

Post by reitanqild »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #47
resonious wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If true, this seems quite damning for IQ as a metric. If the kilogram varied across countries, we would be in big trouble.

IQ metrics are continually damned. There is still no real consensus that they are useful at all. But the social sciences is filled with a lot of soft metrics like IQ because studying complex human behavior with hard science is very hard, and probably impossible.

They are also constantly defended.

Good, calibrated IQ tests measure something, and that something has a positive correlation with work efficiency in at least certain types of work.

That said, there are many types of IQ tests and some of them are in my opinion rather weird, for example anything where your score depends on your knowledge of English language or English history as I hear has traditionally been the case in US.

Around here it seems they try to make the tests as little dependent on language, history and even math as possible and the ones I have taken has largely been about:

- pattern matching (of these 6 squares with various patterns, which one doesn't fit in?)

- sequences (based on these 3 squares with patterns, which is the next one?)

- and that kind of stuff

These skills are things that are very real, very measurable and often linked to work throughput. Yes, I rarely visualize boxes in my head and rotate them and I rarely sift through through black and white squares with alternating patterns at work, but it seems the ability to do so is often linked to the ability to mentally single step code or spot patterns in bug reports.

It doesn't mean that you are good person if your score is high (or low) and it doesn't mean that you will be a good employee and not waste your time on HN.

Re: Covid infections are causing IQ drops and years of brain aging, studies suggest

#229

Post by smallstepforman »

defrost wrote: post #156
smallstepforman wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dont believe the 98% vax rate nonsense, in my circle of friends (including 4 doctors, 3 nurses) most got fake certificates. Dont be suprised that a bulk of the medical profession also did the same. I’m disappointed these professionals with very smart people just decided to bypass the mandates in order to keep their jobs instead of taking a firm stand for the benefit of society. Thats humanity for you. Lots of people…

Why should anyone believe your brand of nonsense instead though? > most got fake certificates. I got vaccinated for COVID in Australia multiple times and never once got a certificate .. my ID and the fact of vaccination were recorded in the medical database which is where the vaccination numbers come from. How many of the 26 million Australians in toto can you demonstrate faked their vaccination status? The least you…

You can choose to believe what you want, entering data in a database is very simple, and corresponds to vaccine lot numbers which are flushed down a sink. Its more common than you think. But who do you despise - the people navigating cracks in the system or the people forcing them to react? The mandates are wrong.

Re: Covid infections are causing IQ drops and years of brain aging, studies suggest

#230

Post by smallstepforman »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #171
smallstepforman wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dont believe the 98% vax rate nonsense, in my circle of friends (including 4 doctors, 3 nurses) most got fake certificates. Dont be suprised that a bulk of the medical profession also did the same. I’m disappointed these professionals with very smart people just decided to bypass the mandates in order to keep their jobs instead of taking a firm stand for the benefit of society. Thats humanity for you. Lots of people…

Well, people self select their associates to a large extent. I’m sure bank robbers know other bank robbers, but that doesn’t make it a common characteristic.

Valid point, like minded people flock together. As long as we acknowledge other people exist, and their views / values can be different. Who am I to mandate how you should live? I also expect the same “live & let live” from others. The mandates interfered with the “let live” part since I know of a fatal vaccine sideeffect case.
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