Why are symptomatic post-vaccination covid infections, without hospitalization (H), important?
—they can be severe, on the brink of H
—they can result in #LongCovid
—they can transmit to others
—they were the primary endpoint of the vaccine clinical trials for efficacy
Inconvenient truth #1
The waning of vaccine effectiveness vs symptomatic infections for both Pfizer and Moderna across all age 20+ groups, presented at @CDCgov Advisory meeting last week cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/…
Inconvenient truth #2
Transmission among fully vaccinated health care workers, with some asymptomatic individuals with higher viral loads than those with symptoms papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
(not common, but it can occur)
People age 70+ should not be taking aspirin at any dose for prevention. Results of randomized trials show higher risk of all-cause mortality, major bleeding events and deaths from cancer. p 153, SUPER AGERS book
President Trump takes 325 mg aspirin/day. The randomized trials tested 75-81 mg/day. His doctors recommended low-dose aspirin for heart event prevention. That recommendation is ill-founded based upon best evidence in older individuals. nejm.org/doi/full/10.10… academic.oup.com/eurheartj/arti…
As I wrote in SUPER AGERS, the immune system is the key to modulating our aging process and the opportunity to extend healthspan. Today @NatureAging 7 new articles, summarized here, that reinforce its central role nature.com/articles/s4358…
The new special issue @ScienceMagazine features Immunity with 4 outstanding review papers, 5★
Our immune system over the lifespan, sex differences, influence on physiology, and host antiviral defenses science.org/toc/science/cu…
We've learned a lot more about the principal drivers of age-related diseases in the past few weeks. And that leads to a unified model to pull it all together. (open-access)
I review 4 new reports, summarized here: 1. The proteins from senescent cells predict age-related clinical outcomes 2. A new epigenetic age clock connects the dots between aging, the immune system, inflammation and lifestyle factors 3. People with a fast pace of aging had an increased risk of cognitive impairment, age-related diseases, disability, and mortality 4. The Importance of “Immune Resilience” for Healthspan
And present a unified I/I model for what we now know
Most people haven’t heard of this test, which is available in the US. It accurately predicts Alzheimer’s (not just if there’s a risk, but when). It is favorably affected by exercise and likely many other lifestyle factors.
Here’s (almost) everything we know about it. In Ground Truths (link in my profile d/t X-suppression)
A major @Nature paper this week found a significant decline in dementia after an outdated Shingles vaccine.
I've reviewed the study and many other relevant ones in a new Ground Truths (link in profile)
A Table from the post
The effect in the 2 natural experiments differed substantially by sex with the benefit predominant in women