A study published in April 2021 using tens of thousands of US Veterans Administration patients over six years found that having had a recent Tdap vaccination predicted a 40% drop in dementia risk.
They duplicated the finding with a completely different population and a different health care system.
The latter. Tetanus shots are recommended every 10 years. The other ones come along for the ride. Just say to a pharmacist: “It’s been 10 years since my last tetanus shot.” Bingo bango.
Correlation is not causation. Without a proper randomized trial, these observations aren't worth much. The sort of people that keep their Tdap vaccination up to date likely do other things that reduce their risk (or are just in a better mental state than average).
What are things they might do that reduce their risk? These people are all visiting their doctor regularly. Discovering that thing would be worth a lot, if it existed, because we don't know of anything.
Just doing things that might make them more at risk of tetanus, diphtheria, or pertussis -- hiking? -- would not account for a 40% effect.
The key point for us is, how good does your reason for getting your Tdap booster need to be? Medical researchers have other things that should attract their attention here, and work to do, but that is not our business.
Absolutely correct assessment by Derek Lowe, who is truly a gem in the field of science journalism.
It seemed that the field was finally moving away from the amyloid hypothesis, but the idiotic approval of Biogen's Aduhelm (after an advisory committee vote of 13-1 AGAINST) has gotten all the pharma companies stupid and greedy again.
I'm not sure I've ever seen a field pour this many resources, for this long, into something that has failed so utterly. It's as if NASA had spent 20 years and $20B on developing catapults to send people to the moon.
Yep. The so called "nutritional science" community is a joke. Except that it isn't funny. Millions of people needlessly die every year because of bad nutritional advise. Type 2 diabetes is routinely reversed for example by lowering dietary carbs. However most doctors don't even know that.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 39.1 ms ] threadThey duplicated the finding with a completely different population and a different health care system.
40% is a huge effect.
I got my Tdap shortly after.
(This is not medical advice.)
Just doing things that might make them more at risk of tetanus, diphtheria, or pertussis -- hiking? -- would not account for a 40% effect.
The key point for us is, how good does your reason for getting your Tdap booster need to be? Medical researchers have other things that should attract their attention here, and work to do, but that is not our business.
It seemed that the field was finally moving away from the amyloid hypothesis, but the idiotic approval of Biogen's Aduhelm (after an advisory committee vote of 13-1 AGAINST) has gotten all the pharma companies stupid and greedy again.
I'm not sure I've ever seen a field pour this many resources, for this long, into something that has failed so utterly. It's as if NASA had spent 20 years and $20B on developing catapults to send people to the moon.
Now that I think about it, various cannon designs up a big mountain could probably get non-human payloads up to orbit with that budget.
So yes, your advice is bad.