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

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

#71

Post by ksb »

ekianjo wrote: post #64
lukev wrote: post #54

Lots of discussion in this thread about the accuracy of the implied claim "vaccination can prevent Alzheimers", but not a lot about the correct course of action. Which seems to me to be, unambiguously, you should absolutely be religious about getting your flu shot every year. The vaccine is known to be safe and with few side effects (or at least, safer than the actual flu, which is the bar that needs to be cleared.)…

This seems like a dubious recommendation. In Japan there is a large acceptance of yearly flu shots yet Alzheimer s prevalence remains high.

Perhaps not. See this article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4095986/

> Among developed countries, Japan has the lowest prevalence of both dementia in general and Alzheimer's disease in particular.

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

#72

Post by hypertele-Xii »

sudosysgen wrote: post #70
amacneil wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they only intend to claim correlation, avoiding the word "linked" in the announcement would probably help with general public interpretation. I feel like in English, "linked" usually implies some sort of potential causation, not just a general relationship. For example: "boyfriend linked to murder case".

Correlations do imply a link, though. They don't imply causation, but in the absence of selection bias and with enough of a sample size, it is almost certain there is a link somewhere.

The word for when there is no link is, in turn, 'coincidence'.

Causation, correlation, coincidence.

And then there's quantum entanglement.

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

#73

Post by Symmetry »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #68
Symmetry wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the phrasing, "Correlation correlates with causation because causation causes correlations".

Causation frequently removes correlations that would otherwise exist.

I don't think that's right? 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 infinity unlikely to happen by chance. In practice the only way that A and B can be correlated is that either A causes B, B causes A, or some C causes both A and B. Interestingly if both A and B cause C the C and A as well as C and B will be correlated but A and B won't be, allowing you to work out causation from a strictly correlational graph.

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

#74

Post by toolz »

sudosysgen wrote: post #70
amacneil wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they only intend to claim correlation, avoiding the word "linked" in the announcement would probably help with general public interpretation. I feel like in English, "linked" usually implies some sort of potential causation, not just a general relationship. For example: "boyfriend linked to murder case".

Correlations do imply a link, though. They don't imply causation, but in the absence of selection bias and with enough of a sample size, it is almost certain there is a link somewhere.

Well let's test this theory out then. Would you say I was being ridiculous if I told you that the number of people who drown in a year is linked to how many movies nicolas cage appears in?

If so, then you might not actually believe linked is simply a synonym for correlation. I know I certainly would think that was a ridiculous way to phrase it.

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

#76

Post by fsiefken »

dangom wrote: post #4

That's an incredible effect size. Mechanisms hypothesized to be at play: "These mechanisms—and those underlying the effects of adulthood vaccinations on all-cause dementia risk in general—can be grouped into at least three broad, non-exclusive categories: 1) influenza-specific mechanisms, including mitigation of damage secondary to influenza infection and/or epitopic similarity between influenza proteins and AD patho…

Purely anecdotal; I found it odd to see my mother (diagnosed with alzheimer 3/4 year ago) behaving and talking more coherent days after her mRNA covid-19 vaccine shots. I thought perhaps the immune response lessened the symptoms temporarily.

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

#77

Post by kixiQu »

amacneil wrote: post #44
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…

If they only intend to claim correlation, avoiding the word "linked" in the announcement would probably help with general public interpretation. I feel like in English, "linked" usually implies some sort of potential causation, not just a general relationship. For example: "boyfriend linked to murder case".

What's wrong with implying potential causation? Correlation is potential causation. The whole reason one says the boyfriend is linked to the murder case is because one isn't saying he's responsible -- and yet he might be.

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

#78

Post by MrsPeaches »

toolz wrote: post #74
sudosysgen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correlations do imply a link, though. They don't imply causation, but in the absence of selection bias and with enough of a sample size, it is almost certain there is a link somewhere.

Well let's test this theory out then. Would you say I was being ridiculous if I told you that the number of people who drown in a year is linked to how many movies nicolas cage appears in? If so, then you might not actually believe linked is simply a synonym for correlation. I know I certainly would think that was a ridiculous way to phrase it.

> the number of people who drown in a year is linked to how many movies nicolas cage appears in

For those who don't know the reference: http://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

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

#79

Post by aaron695 »

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…

No post body was provided.

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

#80

Post by bloodyplonker22 »

yeeetz wrote: post #24
bloodyplonker22 wrote: post #7

This article has very few details and is rather questionable, at best. Correlation does not imply causation. It could very well be that people who choose to get flu vaccines are more health-conscious and live a healthier lifestyle so they are less likely to get Alzheimers.

This is a published journal article that took those covariates into account. Off-hand comments dismissing articles with a correlation vs. causation quip is so expected and tiresome, especially since you can make these comments without reading the actual article.

It's interesting how you can condescendingly say "took these covariates into account" without even thinking about how many outside variables there are that they simply cannot take into account because there are obviously too many. Most people don't think too much and just read articles and take anything in writing as the truth.
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