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Crémieux Profile picture
Crémieux
@cremieuxrecueil
I write about genetics, 'metrics, and demographics. Read my long-form writing at https://t.co/8hgA4nNS2A.
43 subscribers
Jun 4 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
This 91 vs 103 thing is either ignorance or chicanery.

The issue has been explained to him multiple times, but TL;DR:

(1) The standardized difference is still the same 1 SD its always been, (2) IQ does not have a ratio scale, (3) the population hasn't gotten smarter. Image If you want to understand this error, I have material aplenty for you.

First, on the issue of rescaling differences, here's a post:
Jun 4 • 42 tweets • 14 min read
The Wall Street Journal just published the FDA's Opinion piece-length rationale for banning talc.

I was happy to see they were citing studies, but after I read the studies, I was dismayed:

The FDA fell victim to bad science, and they might ban talcum powder because of it!

🧵 Image The evidence cited in the article is

- A 2019 meta-analysis
- A review by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)
- A 2019 cohort study from Taiwan

Let's go through each of these and see if the FDA's evidence holds water. Image
Jun 3 • 22 tweets • 10 min read
Let's make this even clearer.

The severity of COVID vaccine-related myocarditis was far lower than the severity of COVID-related myocarditis, which instead looked like regular viral myocarditis.

You can see this in many cohorts. For example, this was seen in France: Image This result replicates everywhere it's tested.

We knew this from the initial small studies... Image
Image
Jun 2 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
A friend of mine won a bet about myocarditis and the COVID vaccines a few years ago.

He bet that the myocarditis side effect was real and sizable for young men.

While COVID was more likely to cause myocarditis in general, among the young, the Moderna vaccine was a bit worse. Image This still wasn't really something to worry about.

Look at the rates. They're incredibly small, at just about 15 per 1,000,000 under 40 years of age for the second dose of the Moderna vaccine and 3 per 1,000,000 for the Pfizer one.

Compare to whole-population COVID-myocarditis.
Jun 2 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
With so many people identifying themselves as having disorders that they're not diagnosed with, the U.K. will certainly have a glut of diagnoses in the near future.

People think it, and then make it so, and if the state honors those diagnoses, they'll end up paying out the nose. Image Similarly, in Minnesota, the state recognizes clearly fraudulent autism diagnoses.

Who's doing them? Normal parents, but also certain communities.

For example, Somali immigrants have figured out how to get more welfare funds by getting their kids fake diagnoses. Image
Jun 2 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Obesity has immense costs, and not just direct, medical ones.

Obesity makes people miss work and increases the odds they're on disability. It also increases presenteeism and workers' compensation costs.

The total cost is in the hundred of billions to over a trillion per year. Image The costs of overweight and obesity are so extreme that making reducing the obesity rate can pay for itself if it can be done at prices achievable today.

And this number doesn't even consider all the costs. There are high costs from cardiovascular issues and cancer, too. Image
May 30 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Does testosterone make people have more masculine economic preferences?

Does it make people act more like Republicans?

We now have a large, pre-registered double-blind randomized controlled study that provides an answer🧵 Image To test whether testosterone masculinized economic preferences, the first thing to do was modify testosterone levels.

This was done with an intranasal administration that boosted female levels by about 82%, and male levels by a bit over 100 ng/dl.

Not huge, but sizable enough. Image
May 29 • 18 tweets • 10 min read
Obama, Trump, and Biden all stated that they wanted to launch massive projects to beat cancer.

Each of them presided over the slow defeat of cancer.

In fact, progress towards the total defeat of cancer is happening all the time🧵 Image New cancer treatments are coming out all the time.

In fact, the number of approvals for new indications has increased at an accelerating rate over the past half-century.

Part of that probably reflects that the population is getting older, and so needs these more. Image
May 29 • 21 tweets • 8 min read
The acute toxicity of glyphosate is considerably less than that for common substances like vitamin D, caffeine, aspirin, and even table salt.

Glyphosate thread🧵 Image There's a crowd of people opposed to glyphosate for various health reasons, but they're virtually all poorly supported. The claims are more about potential than real risks.

One of their responses to acute toxicity data is to reply that they're interested in "chronic toxicity". Image
May 28 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
The Floyd Effect had precedent.

In Baltimore, the death of Freddie Gray came with a large and immediate uptick in the number of homicides. Image Police pulled back right away.

The arrest rate plummeted. Image
May 25 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The revolution in organ transplants is here thanks to gene editing.

A 62-year-old man on dialysis needed a new kidney. Doctors implanted him with a pig's kidney that had been given 69 edits to be human-compatible.

He immediately stopped needing dialysis. Image This man was insanely unhealthy before and after the operation, but at least the organ transplant worked.

On day eight he had his only hiccup, a rejection episode that was easily overcome with a hit from some monoclonal antibodies and some corticosteroids.Image
May 25 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
It's often said that you can't see behavioral phenotypes, but that's just not true.

BMI is a well-known behavioral phenotype that you can see.

Like other behavioral traits, the BMI polygenic score is enriched for expression in brain tissue rather than, say, adipose tissue.Image The chart above was a 2020 replication of a 2015 result: Image
May 24 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
High schoolers think it's funny to self-report being transgender.

This makes estimates of trans percentages and other stats unreliable.

Students who self-report as trans also frequently report being blind 7-foot-tall crackheads who belong to a gang and never visit the dentist. Image The study is from 2014, and of course, we might "know" (who can say, given the nutty response patterns?) that transgender numbers have greatly increased since then.

In a 2017 follow-up it was found that the issue remained.
May 22 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
Statins work by inhibiting the HMG-CoA reductase enzyme. Variations in the HMGCR gene work by affecting HMG-CoA reductase enzymatic activity.

The metabolic effect of variation in HMGCR and of taking statins is virtually identical.

This gives us a great natural experiment🧵 Image If you're wondering about the effects of taking statins over long periods of time, look no further than people with genetically low cholesterol due to variants in HMGCR.

Compared to starting statins later in life, those with genetically low LDL have 3x lower heart disease risk! Image
May 21 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Is red meat good for your heart? The answer depends on who you ask.

If you ask someone paid by the meat industry, they say it's good for you, or at least neutral.

If you ask a financially independent researcher, they say it's neutral, or more likely harmful. Image This happens all over the place.

For example, when studying mindfulness, as a group, only authors who, say, offer mindfulness courses, speaking arrangements, and have book deals publish positive effects.

May 19 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
The beta blocker propranolol reliably impairs memory consolidation. Image The above result is for healthy volunteer samples. This is the result for clinical samples.

It's effectively the same picture. Image
May 15 • 18 tweets • 7 min read
Today the New England Journal of Medicine published the second big win for lifesaving N-of-1 gene therapies.

They might have just saved a baby's life from being snuffed out by a fatal, ultrarare metabolic condition.

This is good for the baby, but maybe for many others too 🧵Image The deficiency the baby was born with is carbamoyl-phosphate synthetase 1 or CPS1 deficiency.

CPS1 is a mitochondrial enzyme that is involved in detoxification during the urea cycle. If you lack it like this baby, you tend to see hyperammonemia (ammonia buildup) right away. Image
May 14 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The association between LDL reduction and coronary heart disease (CHD) risk reduction is sizable and confirmed by

- Prospective cohort studies
- Mendelian randomization
- RCTs

There really is no room to deny it. You can't get clearer than this: Image The evidence that LDL causes ASCVD is totally unequivocal, and minimizing LDL is essentially a free lunch for cardiovascular health.

Same situation with lp(a), so thank god new therapeutics are here that make both things trivial. Image
May 14 • 25 tweets • 10 min read
People might be able to limit the side-effects of GLP-1 drugs by avoiding Ozempic/Wegovy and instead using Mounjaro/Zepbound.

The reason has to do with Zepbound's other ingredient besides GLP-1: GIP🧵Image GIP is short for either gastric inhibitory peptide or glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide.

It was originally called gastric inhibitory peptide, but people now prefer the 'insulinotropic' name because the gastric stuff rarely happens in normal circumstances. Image
May 13 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

America's GLP-1 for weight loss is superior to Europe's GLP-1 for weight loss!

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 Image If you've been following along, you already knew this.

Tirzepatide (Zepbound) and Retatrutide (no name yet) add GIP and GIP + Glucagon, respectively, making them more effective products. Not only that, but they might even have milder side effects.

May 12 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Pharmaceutical R&D is on death's doorstep and its current rebound is fragile and temporary.

Returns are already below the cost of capital, and any additional harms to profitability will drain the life-blood of the future, instantly snuffing out biomedical progress. Image I am talking about the engine of survival, the thing that explains so much of why so many of us are alive today, and the thing that will keep you alive in the future.

This is also the thing that might eventually bring you immortality.

Destroy it, and we all lose.