A Concerned Scientist @BE@social.cleverlibre.org

@trendless @novid Super interesting paper, particularly with the reduced oxygen uptake in the brain.

I know it's linked in the write-up you linked, but just to make it more clear here's the paper itself. Thanks for sharing this one!

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666354623000091?via%3Dihub

@rchusid

For what it's worth Berberine appears to help as well, probably for the same reasons.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36183284/

I've never had a problem reading anything on Medscape before, but it appears to be behind a registration now, unfortunately.

@augieray

This is the type of warnings that we need, unfortunately.

Thank you to people like Dr Leonardi(@fitterhappierAJ) for warning those of us who would listen 3 years ago that exactly this would be the outcome.

@luckytran

I've been warning about this:

https://qoto.org/@BE/109823967281876128

The only reason wearing a mask has been allowed in many places, my hometown included, is because of the federal emergency declaration. When it's over you no longer have that protection.

@augieray

But it's the clown car that they signed up for and they're thrilled with it. At least the ones that I know are loving every minute of it. They've got some "gotcha" moment every day that they're bragging about. January 6th videos "finally seeing the light of day" and banning "the biowarfare vaccine" and "keeping the kids safe from groomer librarians" etc.

As much as you and I think it's absurd, they're getting what they voted for, loving it and can't wait to vote for more of it in 2024.

@idropyou

Awesome! We were planning to begin tapping maples on our property for the first time this year, but we didn't quite get set up in time. Next year's the year. Good luck with your collection!

@tofugolem

I've wondered this, too. At first I just thought they just put out plenty of different propaganda pieces and everyone latched onto one, or more, and in essence there was something for everyone. But it seems like that would be less efficient than making up a single story and sticking to it. You might be right on the reasoning there.

@tofugolem

I can confirm, in real life, pointing this out does, in fact, have zero effect. It's bizarre.

@DroidEngineer @grammargirl @clubantietam

If you're listening to Tufekci you've already lost the battle. Sorry.

@neroden

I've tried, completely unsuccessfully, to explain why I'm not keeping up with all of the ins and outs of that story. Thank you for explaining it better than I did.

@SourPatchAdult

The only difference from how it's always been is the scale of the problem, but the long COVID heath care options are terrifying. In response to another article yesterday I looked up the closest long COVID clinic to where I live to see what they do. They give you 4 one hour tele-visits with a psychologist, teach you how to log your symptoms, teach you about nutrition and how to use heat and ice to manage your pain. That's apparently it.

@KN3RDS @nancylwayne @hoelessromantic

Yeah, I refuse to believe that these people can't figure it out.

As of the beginning of 2022 there were an estimated 1.6 million full-time workers "missing" from the workforce due long COVID (https://www.brookings.edu/research/is-long-covid-worsening-the-labor-shortage/). I'm going to bet that hasn't gotten significantly better in the last year.

Excess deaths are at ~1.3 million in the US since 2020 at this point (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm#dashboard).

There's 3 million of the 3.4 million "missing" already and we don't even have great long COVID numbers for the past year that I've seen. None of this is all that hard to figure out and they're welcome to pay me to figure it out for them if they'd like :)

@GeraldKutney

I'll finish my thought on that this way.

You say:

"Most climate deniers are basically good people that have been duped by the propaganda of oil apologists, deniosaurs, and hard-core climate deniers."

and I'd change it to

"Many climate deniers are basically good people that have been duped, while most have taken an active role by choosing to believe the propaganda of oil apologists, deniosaurs, and hard-core climate deniers because it makes their day to day lives easier."

@GeraldKutney

OK, so in your mind, in an ideal world situation, there's no misinformation and everyone is informed of objective truth only?

I just think that's a fantasy world that'll never exist, so, you have to deal with the people who actually exist in your life who are misinformed and decide which are in that state intentionally and which are in that state by accident.

@Nonya_Bidniss

I'll preface this with the fact that I've tried to ignore most of the lab vs natural discussion about COVID. I just find it to be a distraction to the situation we find ourselves in with COVID and I suspect that's largely the point.

That said, I worked at a certain national lab for a pretty long time. One thing to realize about the culture is that things change, often fairly dramatically, lab to lab in each Presidential transition. There's often fairly hardened battle lines of "My lab gets more funding when Democrats are in power and your lab gets more funding when Republicans are in power." Politics is often a mine field in these labs. It's not hard at all to imagine someone wanting to prop up a political narrative in the DOE infrastructure because their livelihood basically depends on one party being in power.

@ddrekonja @NPR

"Today's NPR story on [insert important story] was pretty bad."

Repeat as your headline indefinitely. They've fallen so far from being a legitimate news source.

@GeraldKutney

Sure. So, where do we draw the line?

"You're a good person, but, you're super busy in life and don't take in any news, so climate change doesn't exist in your life."

"You're a good person, but, you believe being educated means watching the local news 3 times a week, so every now and then you think about recycling."

"You're a good person, but, you watch nothing but Tucker Carlson as your only news source, so you think that climate change is a hoax."(probably...I've never actually seen that show)

"You're a good person, but, you read everything out there about climate change and decided that that 0.1% of scientific literature that denies human caused climate change must be correct, so you choose to do nothing about it."

Honestly, I struggle with deciding where the line is with people in my own life. At some point in the spectrum you've clearly moved from "good person who doesn't know better" to "this seems hard, I don't want to deal with it, so it's easier for me to pretend it's not real."

@GeraldKutney I tend to make the same argument from time to time, so I'm not disagreeing with you.

But....

At what point are people responsible for their own education?

As we see with COVID, and there's a lot of parallels, there's a fine line between ignorance and willful ignorance that allows you to, cognitively, escape doing anything that inconveniences you.

@augieray

Really interesting research. While this isn't, exactly, what they were looking at, I've been noticing what I'll call increased aggression in people I've known for decades beginning weeks after their first or second COVID infections.

This article touches on something that made me think about the topic:

"In the simultaneous group, gray matter atrophy was seen in the left cingulum (86 voxels) and the inferior frontal lobe (91 voxels). The asymptomatic group had no gray atrophy.

The simultaneous group presented a widespread, bilateral pattern of hyperconnectivity involving all 12 networks; the asymptomatic group showed hyperconnectivity involving only five networks."

Meanwhile, a 2008 paper titled "Neurobiology of Aggression and Violence" says this:

"The other critical abnormality implicated in impulsive aggression and violence is hyperactivity of the limbic system, including structures such as the amygdala, in response to negative or provocative stimuli, particularly anger provoking stimuli."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4176893/

My wife's the one with the neuroscience degree, so I should probably run it by her before I make any connections about science I'm definitely not an expert in, but, I was already mid-research into this subject when I saw your post so I thought I'd share.

EDITED TO ADD:

I did a poor job of explaining that there's often a link between hyperconnectivity and hyperactivity in a wide range of brain abnormalities such as ADHD, Alzheimer's and paranoia(which often goes along with aggressiveness). Paranoia is specifically linked to the limbic system.

https://elifesciences.org/articles/36011

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/1756814

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9388427/

@cclareMDMPH

Interesting article which said this:

"That's why she recommends, when possible, seeking out a long COVID clinic, which can draw on specialists from multiple backgrounds."

Which sent me down a rabbit hole of researching where the nearest long COVID clinic to me is, and what they actually do. Seriously depressing! They teach you how to log your symptoms, give you 4 one hour tele-visits with a psychologist, teach you how to eat a more nutritious diet and how to use heat and ice to manage your pain.

A long way to go, indeed.