Munky-Necan

Until there's a double blind placebo trial I will take this type of report with a truck load of salt. We want randomized control trials in medicine. We want highly vetted research in medicine. Lacking either is a bad idea.

I am also not holding my breath about a vaccine. We tried making a vaccine with SARS-CoV with a significant amount of the animal models dying from cytokine storm after viral exposure. Drug trials are hard, but necessary.

This is very interesting. I'm usually on the side of interpreting tests/ordering them instead of knowing the nuances behind them. Are there any major breakthroughs in testing that you're excited about?

Naive question, because I only knew of ELISA. but can you use MinION or something like it to detect DNA/RNA in blood?

I would be excited if this was cost effective and more sensitive and specific for bacteria and viruses than what we have currently.

The best thing we can do to stop the spread is things like this, unfortunately.

I think the prevailing theory will eventually be that a diet rich in monosaccharides is detrimental to health. It's been demonstrated that low carb, high meat diets are not the optimal diet, in that most adults will eat red meat or some type of processed meat and little fiber. Both add to the numerator when looking at myocardial infarction, stroke, and colorectal cancer. When one is in kidney failure it is recommended by the American Society of Nephrologists to attenuate protein derived from animal products.

Essentially, balance is what the current recommendations say, but also to stay completely away from sugar.

All my sources shamelessly stolen from Uptodate:

> U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture. 2015 – 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. 8th Edition. December 2015. Available at http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/

>Carbohydrate quality and human health: a series of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Reynolds A, Mann J, Cummings J, Winter N, Mete E, Te Morenga. Lancet.

>Changes in diet and lifestyle and long-term weight gain in women and men. Mozaffarian D, Hao T, Rimm EB, Willett WC, Hu FB. N Engl J Med.

>Meta-analysis of the association between whole grain intake and coronary heart disease risk. Tang G, Wang D, Long J, Yang F, Si L. Am J Cardiol. 2015;115(5):625. Epub 2014 Dec 18.

I feel like I'm getting old, but I don't know what Yeet means even though I've heard a tonne of teenagers say it.

> It is also unclear whether the L type is more virulent than the S type

You're right. I finally got a chance to read the study fully, but was basing my comments from the r/COVID-19 thread.

What was interesting about this, that is contrary to common understanding of virology and pandemics, is that there as a mutation that significantly increased the virulence of one strain of SARS-CoV-2. Over time, viruses will become less virulent as they continue to infect new hosts.

I'm surprised that there haven't been more efforts in the West to contain COVID-19.

>A few medical schools have integrated a module on biostatistics and epidemiology into their curriculum, but it's not common (or at least it wasn't ~20 years ago, if that's changing I'm happy)

It is changing, I had bio stats and epidemiology. How much I paid attention to it is up for debate. I can say that epidemiology from my experience is easy to have a grasp on what's going on, but to understand the nuances of data you have to go through rigorous training.

>such as specificity and sensitivity, much less positive predictive value (also very important to know when interpreting test results like doctors do every day)

This is the only thing I think physicians are getting good at. although the older ones may not have the palate that younger physicians have for this kind of thing. Compared to epidemiology sensitivity and specificity have daily implications on patient outcomes so it becomes imperative whereas epidemiology isn't as important for day to day tasks. I like your part on how lay people, such as myself, have little idea of what a computer scientist does and how that can cause frustration. I'm finding as I get older the less I know about what other people do and the more I should listen instead of speculate.