Josh Mitteldorf

Okay, fair enough. But a major difference is that flu deaths are much more heavily burdened on the the young, whereas Covid is on the very elderly. The death of a 6 month old from flu results in approximately 20 times more QALY loss than an 85 year old.

Let me approach it from another angle. Pre-vaccine, it appears that Covid roughly doubled everyone's all-cause mortality.[1] Like it killed 30 year olds at a much lower rate than 90 year olds, but 30 year olds have a much lower baseline mortality to begin with. This isn't an exact relationship, but approximately about double mortality across the board. (Even interestingly enough men's excess Covid death rate is about in line with their general mortality vis-a-vis women.)

The vaccine appears to reduce the mortality risk of circulating Covid by about a factor of 100X. There's very little reason to believe that it substantially shifts the relative mortality burden between groups. So, post-vaccine Covid increases all-cause mortality broadly by about 1%. That translates into less than 1 month of lost life expectancy.[2]

[1]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33412438/
[2]https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2012/11/10/mortality-and-life-expectancy/

OP here.

I have read Josh Mitteldorf blog[1] in the past, but was completely unaware of his line of reasoning regarding aging. This sentence[2] caught my attention:

Genes are turned on that destroy us with inflammation and cell senescence and auto-immunity and programmed cell death, while the systems that protect us from pathogens and from free radical damage are gradually shut down. Evolution has left nothing to chance.

And then, the reference to the "Gilgamesh project" seems appropriate:

As of now, the GILGA-Mesh project is dominated by numbers geeks (like me) who practice the “Google approach” to bioinformatics. Huge databases of gene expression are screened for epigenetic candidates that seem to be well-correlated with good outcomes. I think what we need is an infusion of biolochemists who understand something about the body’s signaling networks, and can orient us toward “upstream” and “downstream” molecules [2]

So, I am just posting this in the hope that some biolochemist wants to join this project.

[1] http://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/

[2] http://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2016/05/09/epigenetics-of-aging-and-prospects-for-rejuvenation/

From the paper (DEEX - "Depressed mood and exhaustion"):

"Nonetheless, adding DEEX to a risk score based on classical risk factors resulted in only nonsignificant
improvement of mortality risk prediction."

Regarding the causal relationship:

"Although not a proof of causality, in general, depressed subjects are more likely to cluster self-harming lifestyle behaviors and may be less likely to adhere to
prescribed medication."

To put things in context it is also worth noting that, except in old age, a big increase in the risk of death at any given point of time translates into a very small reduction in life expectancy. See for example http://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2012/11/10/mortality-and-life-expectancy/

This effect is called hormesis [1] and is quite established for various kinds of stressors. For example also in the context of oxygen depriving breathing exercises and cold baths [2] (which is how I came across the term only this week).

On the topic of bloodletting and blood donations, I found these interesting considerations [3]. There is a correlation of less cardiovascular disease among people who donate blood. Of course there are lots of confounding factors here. The article summarizes them nicely.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24676116

[3] https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2015/11/09/does-donating-blood-extend-your-life-expectancy/

Google, when used with double quotes and exact title, finds aggregator sites, but I was simulating looking for the original: https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2020/07/08/politics-influences-the-science-of-covid-19/

Here is one more, search: Ten Elements of the False COVID Narrative

Google: nowhere

Brave: first result

And it's not like Google just didn't index the site, it works for topics that are "less controversial", search: Universal Clock implies Universal Clockwork

Google: first result

Brave: first result

Whatever the explanation - either Google censors some topics, or its search engine works differently - the result is the same, for this example Brave outperformed Google.

> As a minor question, we see these studies a lot in mice. Are they being followed up in other animals and humans?

Yeah, lots of aging studies exist.
https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2017/02/06/glycine-and-mitochondria/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8002905/
"Glycine and N‐acetylcysteine (GlyNAC) supplementation in older adults Glycine and N‐acetylcysteine (GlyNAC) supplementation in older adults"

I have many examples of the above, in the UK the NHS stance is to give everyone and anyone who is elderly in a care home a b12 shot when possible, which is just a form of cobalt, but that assumes they have enough cysteine!