It took years, many lives and millions to be saddled with chronic symptoms for our society to achieve heard immunity against COVID (97% of people are positive for Antibodies). We could have done it the easy way—80% vaccination rates. Unfortunately, the whole issue of vaccines got politized by people who chose to ignore science. They still have a hold on a sizeable segment of our population. Their opposition to vaccines is not likely to diminish. Stay tune for this issue to heat up again as new vaccines for variants become available. See below.
Hugo Rodier
WHO Recommends New COVID Shots Should Target Only XBB Variants
“A World Health Organization (WHO) advisory group on Thursday recommended that this year’s COVID-19 booster shots be updated to target one of the currently dominant XBB variants.
New formulations should aim to produce antibody responses to the XBB.1.5 or XBB.1.16 variants, the advisory group said, adding that other formulations or platforms that achieve neutralizing antibody responses against XBB lineages could also be considered. The group suggested no longer including the original COVID-19 strain in future vaccines, based on data that the original virus no longer circulates in human beings and shots targeting the strain produce “undetectable or very low levels of neutralizing antibodies” against currently circulating variants. COVID-19 vaccine makers like Pfizer/BioNtech, Moderna Inc and Novavax Inc are already developing versions of their respective vaccines targeting XBB.1.5 and other currently circulating strains.”
Comment: most vaccines have a 0.02% change of adverse outcomes. That figure pales with 2% change of death from COVID. An anti-vaxxer recently told me “every one of my friends who got vaccinated suffered side-effects” Interesting: none of my friends, patients nor family did.
Eating nuts regularly may slow cognitive decline
Healio Minute, June 29, 2023
“Frequent nut consumption was linked to reduced cognitive decline for at-risk older adults, according to the results of research published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The researchers observed a dose-dependent response: more was better. As nutrient-dense foods that are rich in neuroprotective components, peanuts and tree nuts could benefit cognitive health, Jiaqi Ni, a PhD candidate in nutrition and metabolism at The University of Rovira i Virgili in Spain, and colleagues wrote, but current evidence is inconsistent and limited. “The myriad of nutrients and biologically active compounds that nuts contain, such as unsaturated fatty acids, high-quality vegetable protein, an array of vitamins and beneficial minerals, dietary fiber, phenolic compounds, and phytosterols, appear to have neuroprotective effect.”
Comment: too bad they didn’t title the article “Nuts to Guard Off Nuttiness” or something to that effect.
Consumption of sugary drinks and male pattern hair loss
Healio Minute, June 21, 2023
“Those with vs. without male pattern hair loss consumed twice the number of sugary drinks. Frequent consumption of sugary drinks increased the likelihood of male pattern hair loss incidence by 3.36 times. Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are defined as sweetened juice beverages, soft drinks, energy and sports drinks, sweetened milk, sweetened nut milk, sweetened tea beverages and sweetened tea and coffee. According to this study, 63% of youth and 49% of adults in the U.S. drink one of these SBSs on any given day. Since the incidence of male pattern hair loss has been increasing in recent years while the age of onset continues to decrease, SSBs could be playing a role, according to Ai Zhao, PhD, assistant professor at the Vanke School of Public Health at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and colleagues.”
Comment: maybe vanity will get us to stop eating sugar.
Probiotics an Effective Adjunct to Antidepressants for Major Depression
Eve Bender. Medscape Medical News, June 16, 2023
“When used as an adjunctive treatment, probiotic supplements reduce symptoms in patients with major depression, results of a randomized placebo-controlled trial suggest. By the end of the 8-week pilot study, participants who had an incomplete response to antidepressants prior to taking probiotics scored better on measures of anxiety and depression vs placebo. “This was a pilot study, designed as an initial exploration of whether improving gut health with probiotics could act as a new pathway for supporting mood and mental health.”
Comment: read about The gut-brain connection – Harvard Health
Sex before bed has more positive impact on sleep vs. medication in adults with insomnia
Healio Minute, June 13, 2023
“Three out of four adults with insomnia reported better sleep after engaging in sex before bedtime, and most felt medication had similar or worse effect on sleep, according to survey data presented at the SLEEP annual meeting.”
Comment: sweet dreams!
Muscle Fat: A New Risk Factor for Cognitive Decline?
Batya Swift Yasgur MA, LSW. Medscape Medical News, June 08, 2023
“Muscle adiposity may be a novel risk factor for cognitive decline in older adults, new research suggests. Investigators assessed muscle fat in over 1600 adults in their 70s and evaluated their cognitive function over a 10-year period. They found that increases in muscle adiposity from year 1 to year 6 were associated with greater cognitive decline over time, independent of total weight, other fat deposits, muscle characteristics, and traditional dementia risk factors.”
Comment: build muscles by exercising daily and eating more veggies.
Daily Multivitamins Boost Memory in Older Adults
Medscape – Jun 12, 2023.
“Improve memory and slow cognitive aging compared with placebo, known as COSMOS (Cocoa Supplement and Multivitamins Outcome Study). This is the second COSMOS trial to show a benefit of multivitamins on memory and cognition. This trial involved a collaboration between Brigham and Columbia University and was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. I’d like to acknowledge that I am a coauthor of this study, together with Dr Howard Sesso, who co-leads the main COSMOS trial with me. Preserving memory and cognitive function is of critical importance to older adults. Nutritional interventions play an important role because we know the brain requires several nutrients for optimal health, and deficiencies in one or more of these nutrients may accelerate cognitive decline. Some of the micronutrients that are known to be important for brain health include vitamin B12, thiamin, other B vitamins, lutein, magnesium, and zinc, among others. The current trial included 3500 participants aged 60 or older, looking at performance on a web-based memory test. The multivitamin group did significantly better than the placebo group on memory tests and word recall, a finding that was estimated as the equivalent of slowing age-related memory loss by about 3 years. The benefit was first seen at 1 year and was sustained across the 3 years of the trial.”
Comment: don’t let Big Pharma misinformation dissuade you from supplementing. A good Nutraceutical is NUTRIDYN.COM
Marijuana Linked to Higher PAD Risk
Richard Mark Kirkner, MDedge News. May 22, 2023
“Marijuana users have an almost four times greater risk of developing peripheral artery disease, compared with nonusers, results of a study of more than 600,000 marijuana users suggest, although there was no greater risk of death from myocardial infarction or other cardiac causes or need for revascularization. The researchers noted, however, that the study population was young, with an average age of 37.4 years, and that the study period, from 2016 to 2019, predates the legalization of recreational marijuana in a number of states.
Nonetheless, even in this young study population, marijuana users’ risk of developing peripheral artery disease (PAD) was 3.68 times greater (P < .001) than that of nonusers. PAD at a young age could precede worse outcomes later in life.”
Basically, marijuana users were at increased risk of being diagnosed with peripheral artery disease, but there was no increased risk for them requiring any intervention, such as a peripheral vascular intervention, nor were they at increased risk of death from what we found,” said Hirva Vyas, DO, an internal medicine resident at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, who presented the results at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions annual scientific sessions. The study used data on 623,768 marijuana users from the National Inpatient Sample, a nationwide database of inpatient visits covered by all public and commercial payers, then extracted a diagnosis for PAD from all 30 million–plus patient encounters to compare PAD rates between marijuana users and nonusers. Marijuana users were more likely to be White and to have elective rather than emergency admissions (P < .001). The researchers used diagnostic codes to identify marijuana users and PAD patients.”
Comment: THC has many benefits, particularly in the management of arthritic, mood and neurologic problems. However, it is not without risks and side effects, including addiction.
