BrianMDelaney

Has anyone put together a list of supplements that we might not want to take while on CR? I was thinking of this as I came across this article about SAMe and fasting: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10432853/ Brian

Ron, I appreciate your unusually level-headed reflections. I will note again that I think there was -- and still is -- criminality, irrationality, and hysteria on all sides of the issues related to COVID-19, and that we will need more time to sort out what sort of reckoning is warranted. (That isn't to say we have to suspend judgment about everything until some future date. Some wrongs can certainly be judged now.)

As I've noted, I was involved in RaDVaC [*], so I've learned quite a bit about vaccines. My plan is to get the new Novavax vaccine, which seems a bit safer than the mRNA vaccines. Brian [*] Past tense because the RaDVaC team is now wearing its Mind First Foundation hat, and focusing on AI safety.

Ron, a belated thanks for your civil and balanced perspective. We largely agree. My interest actually lies elsewhere, in the sociology of knowledge perspective from which one might illuminate why society tends to form extreme narratives that spawn equally extreme counternarratives. I'm becoming a Pyrrhonist, if only to reduce the collective screaming. This meta-point about skepticism strikes me as more important that the substantive matters about which one might be skeptical. But that's a different topic for a different day. Main point here: your lack of extremeness is rare, and refreshing.

Meet the counter-narrative, same as the old narrative. Scare-quotes can be put around the response to the pro-vaccine position as much it can around vaccine "science". We won't be able to make solid judgments about any of this for a long time. The Owl of Minerva flies only at dusk. But my very provisional view is that I'm very glad COVID vaccines were available; not glad, however, that some people were (to varying degrees) forced to take them.

"New John Ioannidis study finds COVID-19 was a negligible threat especially for healthy people." One needs to look at the -- by the looks of things -- substantial morbidity, not just mortality.

"I just found out I still have a persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection in my gut." Fake news alert: It turns out that the way we tested my gut may not be valid. Am looking into this. Update when I know more.

Well, it's probably both. Indeed, many cases of long COVID are probably driven by a persistent infection (but most are probably driven by something else, such as reactivated EBV, "kicked off" by SARS-CoV-2). By the way, persistent SARS-CoV-2 infections are not at all rare, we're discovering. The virus gets cleared from most parts of the body, but, in many cases, successfully hides from the immune system in other parts of the body.

High everyone. Quick points about Sweden: 1. It does not make sense to compare it to its Nordic or Scandinavian neighbors. Sweden is much more like Belgium or the UK, which had higher per capita death rates. 2. Sweden did not "let it rip". I was there, I know. 3. "The Owl of Minerva flies only at dusk", i.e., we won't know which policies were right until the pandemic is over -- long over. Myself, I think SARS-CoV-2 is a very dangerous virus (which is why I joined the team at radvac.org), and I recommend that people avoid getting infected with it! I just found out I still have a persistent SARS-CoV-2 infection in my gut, after having COVID in July. Am starting a 15-day course of paxlovid tomorrow. Hope everyone is well, Brian

Hi everyone. A warning about nuts.com. They are now shipping nuts in bags that have little "serration"-like holes to make it easier to tear open the bag. (True at least for the one-pound bags of macadamia nuts I just received.) This means the bags are not air-tight. Really irritating. Brian

Definitely! Have her contact me at [First name (chez)] BrianMDelaney.X. Thanks. X = org

Hey gang, Mark Mattson claimed, at the Longo conference, that "all" the CR studies in rodents are really time-restricted eating studies, since the CR'd rodents are fed one time every 24 hours, and eat all the food given to them quickly. I'm virtually certain that there are a couple studies showing CR via two or three meals throughout the day had health benefits, but my PubMed searches are drawing blanks. Can anyone locate one of these studies? Thanks, Brian

Hello Amy! Alas, no, I never got a response. Maybe someone else can try? Brian

On its way!

Gordo, thanks. I just dug into some of the peer-reviewed research articles about ayahuasca. Intriguing. One author even suggested it could increase BDNF levels!