Eric Topol

If you haven't seen the chart from the UK study, I highly recommend checking it out: https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-shingles-vaccine-and-reduction When the vaccine came out in the UK, they included a hard age cutoff: Above a certain age, you weren't eligible. Below that age, you were eligible. They looked at the probability of a dementia diagnosis over the 7 years after the vaccine was introduced. People who were born in the "can get the vaccine" group have markedly lower rates of dementia. People in the "too old" group have higher rates. It's cut and dry. The researchers didn't separate out the people who actually got the vaccine. It's one of those studies where you don't even need to look at the p-value to see the difference between the cohorts.

Eric Topol is a better scientist than you favorite wellness expert. Here he talks about protein: https://erictopol.substack.com/p/our-preoccupation-with-protein-intake…

Dr Eric Topol has a good dissection of this over on his substack [1] The Nature paper itself is here [2] Briefly: "The model was as good or slightly better than the best current single disease predictive models for dementia or heart disease (see below), and most others, but worse for Type 2 diabetes using HbA1c as single marker. Importantly, it predicted not just one but the multiple diseases (←when that risk was present) for an individual and the timing of appearance for each disease." [1] https://erictopol.substack.com/p/dawn-of-a-new-era-of-primary-preventi… [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09529-3

Eric Topol has a cool post on "machine eyes" -- using deep learning to identify subtle signals in ECGs and medical images that would be invisible to the naked eye: https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-amazing-power-of-machine-eyes There are still regulatory/deployment/reimbursement barriers to cross, but this is happening.

Still early in the research, to be sure. Here's the human clinical study: https://classic.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05449392 Here's Eric Topol's chat with Iwasaki discussing the finding. Topol's blog may well be the best source for Covid research out there: https://erictopol.substack.com/p/akiko-iwasaki-the-immunology-of-covid

Eric Topol (one of the authors) is another "must read" like Derek Lowe https://erictopol.substack.com/archive

I think society is divided on AI because we've let the billionaire tech bro class rawdog power resources and AI deployments and I welcome the pushback on those 2 axes. The water nonsense OTOH saps my will to live. But also, the algorithms push enragement equals engagement and that favors pushing content to the product (us) that enrages the product to drive up their engagement numbers so they click on more ads. Meanwhile, the medical applications of AI alone are astounding. But that doesn't get people mad so it doesn't get promoted as near as much as the latest clueless word salad from a rich dude. Election season is going be to very interesting this year IMO. https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-paradox-of-medical-ai-implementat…

The WHO [1] has a clinical definition of the disease and some basic data on chance of Covid infections turning into Long Covid. Then the meta study by Eric Topol and Zayad Ali-al from last year is probably a good primer into what is known about the disease that is well established science [2]. Its not a big unknown anymore, its very prevalent, it has a lot of symptoms, it has a clinical definition but its problematic and there are many diagnostic tests that can detect parts of the condition but none has yet reached sufficient prominence to be adopted by healthcare. Healthcare is largely ignoring that Long Covid exists so you can't get diagnosed with it but its very much a real thing and a lot of people have it. [1]https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/post-covid-19-conditi… [2] https://erictopol.substack.com/p/long-covid-at-3-years

When it's been studied so far, AI alone does better than AI + human doctor >Surprisingly, in many cases, A.I. systems working independently performed better than when combined with physician input. This pattern emerged consistently across different medical tasks, from chest X-ray and mammography interpretation to clinical decision-making. https://erictopol.substack.com/p/when-doctors-with-ai-are-outperformed

The article mentions Metformin's use in preventing Long Covid. More info on that from Eric Topol's blog: https://erictopol.substack.com/p/preventing-long-covid The original study: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4375620

The first article you linked to seems to agree with what the CDC is saying. The initial variants of COVID-19 were much worse, that's where the "infection lowers your IQ by 3 points" comes from, but the disease has become much more mild. "The adverse cognitive impact was worst with the original (ancestral) virus and the Alpha variant, compared with subsequent Delta and Omicron variants" https://erictopol.substack.com/p/long-covid-and-cognitive-deficits

Actually, to answer my own question, this seems like a good intro article: https://erictopol.substack.com/p/spatial-biology-is-lighting-it-up

They can, and they are trying: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/04/10/operation-warp-speed-… https://erictopol.substack.com/p/project-next-gen-the-united-states

Related coverage with more graphs: https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-new-obesity-breakthrough-drugs

> a huge chunk of the population already got covid during the entire year no vaccine existed and have natural immunity, so that's not really a factor at this point. The new variants are effective at evading immunity from earlier variants so, no, that's not moot. Even without evasion you'd still need to consider how quickly immunity wanes, too. The vaccines are holding up well for avoiding hospitalization but you're still looking at multiple per year given how much COVID has been mutating. https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-new-covid-wave

https://erictopol.substack.com/p/a-reinfection-red-flag Preprint of a major study from VA data. It will probably publish in the near future and I haven't heard any major changes or revisions.

From his blog: https://erictopol.substack.com/p/some-light-on-long-covid

> Once everyone has been exposed to the antigen a half dozen times and the virus is forced to mutate off of its naive optimum then the disease burden will drop even further. Then we just have another human common cold coronavirus. This is presented as a fact/certainty, however, I'd like to caution that it is still unclear whether multiple reinfections will add up to lasting damage (unlike the common cold), see e.g. [1]. That said, I agree with you that it'll be hard to eradicate this virus given how quickly it mutates (I'm just not as certain of the consequences). [1] https://erictopol.substack.com/p/a-reinfection-red-flag

There's a spurious %7C in the URL that's breaking the link. This link works for me: https://erictopol.substack.com/p/ground-truths-on-prior-covid

Figure it’s relevant to this thread - Eric Topol (very credentialed medical researcher) does a pretty good overview & summary on how the vaccines are doing. https://erictopol.substack.com/p/were-very-lucky

That might still be true if they coexist. But I'm no expert. https://erictopol.substack.com/p/omicron-is-getting-more-defined says they compete, so I'm willing to believe that. But the thread https://mobile.twitter.com/trvrb/status/1470420195567030274 linked from there says it's not certain, and it sounds fairly convincing too.

Eric Topol has a more useful summary [1] of the peptides, including which have FDA approval and the health effects. Here's a quote: "Why have peptides become so popular without data to support the promotional claims? This, in part, reflects the challenge and mistrust of the medical establishment, which worsened during the Covid pandemic, but was already showing strong signs of opposition by the wide adoption of supplements (with a very similar lack of supportive data on efficacy and safety) long before 2020. Ironically, anti-vax individuals are against shots with as rigorous datasets as we’ve ever seen (e.g. >70,000 participants in the initial mRNA Covid vaccines randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials released in late 2020) but happy to get injections of peptides for which there are scant if any data to support their use." [1] https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-peptide-craze

This is insane again as it was just found that an infection lowers your IQ by 3 points (2 big recent studies)*. The average person now has over 3 infections to date. We aren't even far enough in the research to understand the compound effects on the brain (and body). And basically, everyone in society, even the smartest people are losing IQ points at a time when we need people to become more intelligent and aware and able to adapt to an accelerating future... "Extrapolation to Loss of IQ points, compared to uninfected controls: Mild Covid, Resolved Symptoms: 3 points Unresolved Symptoms: 6 points Covid requiring Intensive Care Unit admission: 9 point Reinfection: Additional 2 points " https://erictopol.substack.com/p/long-covid-and-cognitive-deficits https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2311330 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2311200 The virus is a massive vascular infection attacking every cell on the lining of the body (blood vessels, endothelial cells) and even organ organs, heart damage etc... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8771611/

The two easy areas I can cite are the lackluster results of the RECOVER initiative (https://erictopol.substack.com/p/long-covid-mitochondria-the-big-miss)… and the complete failure of any government to distribute vaccines well. Another: 19 September 2022, US President Biden declares COVID to be "over" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHT1enFH2sI Meanwhile, it is easy to get Pfizer and Moderna vaccines (mRNA based), and hard to get Novavax (protein based). By hard I mean impossible. mRNA are not well understood, have nasty side effects for some people (including me), and lose their efficacy after a few months, thus the need for boosters. You can verify this with blood tests that show antibody levels. With Novavax, which is based on technology that's been around for 20 years, it appears (based on studies) that it keeps its efficacy for at least a year after multiple doses, and it has minimal side effects (including my own shot). That said, many governments have relationships with Pfizer and Moderna, and so these vaccines are easily attainable, while no such relationship exists with Novavax, and it is impossible to get it. I say impossible after asking about 50 doctors, contacting pharmacies, and finally contacting Novavax themselves, who told me that it is not possible to get until the new mix comes out. So why would a vaccine that seems to actually work be unavailable, while ones that do not work are easy to get? I realize that this is more a commentary on COVID than…

Recent discussion on a similar post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34246136 Some relevant articles/posts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33732863 https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-new-obesity-breakthrough-drugs https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/semaglutidonomics https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-… https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-future-of-weight-loss/ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04505-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-61112-0

This doesn't sound like a crisis? These are all recent: "How Much Does Long COVID Cost Society? New Data Shed Light" https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/how-much-does-long-covid-cost-soc… "Long COVID: confronting a growing public health crisis" https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(23)002… "The Long Covid Moonshot" https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-introduces-… "Long Covid is a significant health crisis in China too" https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanwpc/article/PIIS2666-6065(24)002… "Long Covid at 3 Years" https://erictopol.substack.com/p/long-covid-at-3-years "The future of excess mortality after COVID-19" https://www.swissre.com/institute/research/topics-and-risk-dialogues/h… "Covid Brain" https://erictopol.substack.com/p/covid-brain "The Indomitable Covid Virus" https://erictopol.substack.com/p/the-indomitable-covid-virus The reason you don't hear any news about long covid is that it affects peoples brains, hearts, immunity, microbiome, organs, and employability. The hospitals do not attribute the rise of problems in these areas to long covid, so there is no news about long covid as the ultimate source of increases in childhood diabetes, the rise of autoimmune diseases, middle age heart attacks, a higher…