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posted by mrpg on Sunday April 29 2018, @01:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the there's-always-a-secondary-effect dept.

[...] The research team studied the medical records of 40,770 patients aged over 65 diagnosed with dementia, and compared them to the records of 283,933 people without dementia. More than 27 million prescriptions were analysed.

[...] They found that there was a greater incidence of dementia among patients prescribed greater quantities of anticholinergic antidepressants, and anticholinergic medication for bladder conditions and Parkinson's.

[...] "We studied patients with a new dementia diagnosis and looked at what anticholinergic medication they were prescribed between four and 20 years prior to being diagnosed.

"We found that people who had been diagnosed with dementia were up to 30 per cent more likely to have been prescribed specific classes of anticholinergic medications. And the association with dementia increases with greater exposure to these types of medication.

"What we don't know for sure is whether the medication is the cause. It could be that these medications are being prescribed for very early symptoms indicating the onset of dementia.

"But because our research shows that the link goes back up to 15 or 20 years before someone is eventually diagnosed with dementia, it suggests that reverse causation, or confounding with early dementia symptoms, probably isn't the case.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Sunday April 29 2018, @03:23AM (11 children)

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Sunday April 29 2018, @03:23AM (#673230) Journal

    So you deny that tens of thousands of people die from the flu each year in the U.S.?

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/04/27/flu-season-vaccines-universal-influenza-column/551978002/ [usatoday.com]
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/26/health/flu-rates-deaths.html [nytimes.com]

    [The 2017-2018 season] is now on track to equal or surpass that of the 2014-2015 flu season. In that year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, 34 million Americans got the flu, 710,000 were hospitalized and about 56,000 died.

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  • (Score: 2) by crafoo on Sunday April 29 2018, @04:22AM (3 children)

    by crafoo (6639) on Sunday April 29 2018, @04:22AM (#673235)

    Was it there time?
    Should everyone be given a DMT dose instead of the vaccine?
    I say yes. But you're average McD's Burger says no.
    Who to believe?

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Sunday April 29 2018, @04:40AM (2 children)

      by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Sunday April 29 2018, @04:40AM (#673242) Journal

      A DMT trip lasts about 10 minutes [erowid.org], Mr. Crapoo. If you really want America to shit its collective pants, what you need is a DMT drip [vice.com].

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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @11:00AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29 2018, @11:00AM (#673341)

        nono, that is if you extract and smoke it.
        i
        f you consume the beverage (the original concoction, essentially), it lasts for hours. Too long, too intense for many people if it is strong, but chances are you may vomit some of that out. it lasts so long you better have nothing else planned, and hopefully someone else is going to attend to your physical needs. or that you thought ahead and know the dose and how it is likely to affect you (and have a bucket and snacks nearby... in case walking is difficult).

        but... the smoked dmt trip, even if for 10 minutes, will put you in a place you may still believe could not even be imagined had you not seen it, so if you got the money, go get some. it won't change politics, your love life, or make you successful, but it might be very profound.

        the iv drip is really a fantastic notion i'd want if I was terminally ill and in a hospice and already said by goodbyes and was waiting for the end. may as well go on a high note

        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday April 29 2018, @03:11PM

          by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Sunday April 29 2018, @03:11PM (#673409) Journal

          There are other chemicals in ayahuasca [wikipedia.org] that cause the experience to be different than straight DMT. Even if the big difference is extra nausea:

          https://thethirdwave.co/ayahuasca-vs-dmt/ [thethirdwave.co]

          If ayahuasca contains DMT, why does the ayahuasca experience last so much longer than smoking DMT?

          We believe the answer is due to the means of ingestion. When you drink an ayahuasca brew, all the DMT is absorbed through your stomach lining. This is a slower form of DMT ingestion, so the DMT molecules won’t reach your brain as quickly, and won’t all be absorbed through your stomach at the same time. When you smoke DMT, the molecules are absorbed straight into your bloodstream through your lungs, meaning all the DMT hits your brain at once, very quickly. This is why, despite DMT being present in ayahuasca, the experiences can be very different.

          [...] As mentioned above, ayahuasca also contains MAOIs, and sometimes a variety of other plants depending on the region in which it’s made.

          Although the main role of the MAOIs in ayahuasca is to allow you to absorb DMT, they have also been implicated in psychedelic effects [nih.gov] themselves. It’s also the MAOIs that are responsible for the ‘purge’ at the beginning of the ayahuasca experience.

          One study [peerj.com] suggests that one of the MAOIs in ayahuasca can stimulate the growth of new brain cells in the lab – meaning it’s possible that the substance stimulates the formation of new connections in the brain.

          It’s most likely, however, that the moderate psychedelic effects of the MAOIs in ayahuasca are overwhelmed by the intense effects of the DMT.

          If you take ayahuasca, it’s important to remember that MAOIs can be very toxic when combined with certain other drugs or foods. Here is a complete list [ayahuasca.com] of the substances and foods that should be avoided when you take ayahuasca.

          If ayahuasca use is characterized by gradual absorption of DMT, the DMT drip could be considered the "sustained intense" version.

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  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday April 29 2018, @08:19AM (4 children)

    by sjames (2882) on Sunday April 29 2018, @08:19AM (#673302) Journal

    Those very real deaths and hospitalizations aren't spread evenly across demographics. SOME age groups should probably get the flu shot. In others, it's not so important. Some years it's practically worthless for any demographic.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday April 29 2018, @03:15PM (2 children)

      by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Sunday April 29 2018, @03:15PM (#673411) Journal

      Well, let's hope your case of the flu doesn't spread to some weak kid or senior citizen.

      https://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/keyfacts.htm [cdc.gov]

      One thing you could do is just get it when it is offered for free.

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      • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday April 29 2018, @09:12PM

        by sjames (2882) on Sunday April 29 2018, @09:12PM (#673483) Journal

        That too is a matter of circumstance. Certainly if you will have significant contact with a vulnerable person, you should get the shot.

        But especially in years where the vaccine is in short supply, if you're not a member of a vulnerable group and not in close contact with a vulnerable person, it's probably better to wait.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @07:38PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 30 2018, @07:38PM (#673880)

        56k out of 34 million? sounds like nature keeping things healthy to me. if the shot works so good then the people who take it needn't worry. nor should they worry about the soft kill weapon they are being shot up with since they are ignorant, suckling babes at the breast of mother Govarma.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday April 30 2018, @01:04AM

      by frojack (1554) on Monday April 30 2018, @01:04AM (#673552) Journal

      Alot of those flu deaths this past cycle were IN SPITE OF being vaccinated.
      The vaccine was about 30% effective on average.

      NOTE: Herd immunity does not require perfectly effective vaccines, but when you send your kid to school
      to sit in a classroom full of snot nosed sickos you would kind of like the vaccine to work.

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  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday April 29 2018, @06:24PM (1 child)

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 29 2018, @06:24PM (#673446) Journal

    Compared to polio, the flu is trivial. Even the 1914 epidemic, which really killed lots of people was trivial. Because with polio a lot of the survivors were permanently impaired. Some of them needed to live inside a machine their entire lives.

    OTOH, there's a lot more varieties of flu. Whoops! Just surviving one kind doesn't make you immune to the rest. Still, a relatively small number of people die from it in most years, and almost nobody who survives it is permanently impaired.

    So it's a trade off. Personally, I get a flu shot every year, but I don't think of it as in the same league as tetanus, or polio, or smallpox. But this is my personal evaluation. I figure everyone's going to die sometime, but it's worse to live a life of suffering. And this is unreasonable, as I know that most people who are suffering would not choose to die...and unless it were severe, neither would I. My guess is I've got an inconsistent goal stack, but they *are* my goals. I don't want to change any of them. Certainly not just for the sake of logical consistency.

    You could also argue probability. Most people who get the flu recover normally. It's not like rheumatic fever, where you're likely to end up with a damaged heart. It's been well over century since we've had a really bad flu pandemic, so most people who ever got the flu recovered without problems.

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    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday April 30 2018, @01:20AM

      by frojack (1554) on Monday April 30 2018, @01:20AM (#673556) Journal

      Just surviving one kind doesn't make you immune to the rest.

      There is actually work afoot to use that rapid mutation tendency of flu as a weapon against it.

      This team, led by Ren Sun at the University of California Los Angeles, turned the tables on the mutation-prone virus. They made use of the virus’s tendency to mutate.

      They mutated flu viruses even more, and came up with a version that was especially vulnerable to the body’s immune system. At the same time, the virus became wimpy and did not spread well in the body.

      The mutations made the virus very susceptible to immune system signaling proteins called interferons.

      The vaccine should work against various strains of influenza, something that current vaccines cannot do. Right now, the annual flu vaccine is a cocktail that protects against either three or four different strains of flu. A so-called universal flu vaccine would protect against many or even all strains of flu and would, ideally, protect people for longer than just one year.

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