6 ms·

Let me summarize: good health protects from viruses.

fenwick67 6y ago
Better summary: "Who knows?"
fortran77 6y ago
And specifically, being at a heathy weight. It seems everyone's dancing around the elephant in the room, talking about "low testosterone" or "type II diabetes" as being co-morbidities. See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3955331/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3955331/ for one of many sources for the link between obesity and low testosterone. Obesity just cost our nation several trillion dollars. People on Hacker News don't like to talk about this, either, because the Computer Programmer community is also affected by obesity.
- vmception 6y ago
  I tell people that if they would be considered brave for being without a shirt at the beach, then they are an at risk population
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    That's probably a little too inclusive. You can be healthy and still have a body nobody really cares to see shirtless.
    - falcor84 6y ago
      >a body nobody really cares to see shirtless As a European, I find this (apparently American) sentiment to be abhorrent. Our bodies shouldn't be treated as sculptures for the public to adore.
      - rootusrootus 6y ago
        Pretty sure this is a worldwide thing. Including Europeans.
        LyndsySimon 6y ago
        It's certainly widespread, but it's not ubiquitous. I live smack in the center of the US, and visited Hawaii in ~2000. I remember being pleasantly surprised how little people cared about that sort of thing, and was far more comfortable on the beach there than anywhere else I've been. I was with a group of locals, not tourists, so I assume it's a cultural thing.
    - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
      Healthy or in shape? The terms are conflated too often for my liking. Same with food, low-calorie or low-fat / sugar foods are often labeled healthy, but IMO that lacks nuance. They are factually low-calorie for example. Whether they're healthy is another matter entirely because that depends largely on your overall diet.
    - blaser-waffle 6y ago
      I know a couple skinny chain smokers with alcohol problems. They go shirtless all the time -- southern VA, so that's how you do. No way they are healthy, and if they catch the COVID they're going to suffer; if they don't then I bet they're gonna get cancer by 55. I'm related to them and not hoping for those outcomes, but they ain't gonna change and we've just accepted it.
  - MarkusQ 6y ago
    > I tell people that if they would be considered brave for being without a shirt at the beach, then they are an at risk population. Yet it affects males more than females. Hmmm. When you say "people" do you mean "male people"? Or when you say "beaches" do you mean "topless beaches"?
    - dnate 6y ago
      Maybe he sees the female population at risk?
- lazyjones 6y ago
  The lockdown might prevent some infections, but this sounds like it also potentially causes more severe outcomes due to less activity at home.
  - watwut 6y ago
    You control weight primary by food intake.
    - rootusrootus 6y ago
      And you control health primarily by activity.
    - stirbot 6y ago
      If you're already overweight you should combine control of calorie intake with exercise. The only way fat leaves the body (besides surgery) is by exhaling it as CO2
      - kube-system 6y ago
        It is definitely good to exercise when attempting to lose weight, but I don't think the reason is not because it significantly changes the amount you breathe. If you exercise for 30 minutes you'll breathe about 4% more breaths that day.
      - kerkeslager 6y ago
        True, but you're always exhaling CO2, even when you're not exercising. Exercise simply doesn't create a very large increase the amount of calories you burn. Consider: a person at my height/weight burns approximately 2500 calories/day just by resting metabolic rate. According to this calculator[1], a person of my weight running a mile at an 8 minute pace burns 136 calories. In other words, running a 5k every day would only increase my calories burned by 17%. And running 8 minute miles is one of the more efficient ways to burn calories--if you're doing some other exercise, your calories burned are likely much lower. Compare the effort involved in running a 5k with drinking two less cans of cola (about equivalent in calories) and you'll quickly see how diet has a much larger effect on weight loss than exercise. There's a reason they say abs are made in the kitchen not in the gym. [1] https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a20801301/calories-burned-running-calculator/ https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a20801301/calories-bur...
- pastrami_panda 6y ago
  Wonder what the net loss is though, considering the vast amounts of money the process of getting a nation so obese has put into the economy. I don't mean to be calloused though, this is truly a horrible situation, and I do feel empathic towards people that are unable to take care of their body.
vmception 6y ago
tl;dr knowing specifically which part of good health steers public policy decisions
- juskrey 6y ago
  Like that "part of good health" really exists, right?
SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
I see in the article "It is well established that plasma testosterone concentration is reduced by age and comorbidities like obesity, diabetes and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) [7], all comorbidities highly prevalent in COVID-19 patients." but I never see any discussion of people who are without those comorbidities. I know they are asking for more research to be done, but at this point, and unless there's evidence presented to the contrary, I think it's probably safe to assume it's general unhealthiness.
elric 6y ago
> good health protects from viruses Does it? Good health may increase the odds of a good outcome for some viral infection, but it's a bit of a platitude in general. The reasons why measles, polio or HIV are so dangerous is not because of the poor health of their victims prior to infection.
belorn 6y ago
That is not the takeaway I get from the paper. I read it as establishing that because testosterone levels has an well established impact on muscles growth, low testosterone should thus impact respiratory muscles size at the point of getting the infection which in turn impact outcomes for people with respiratory disease. However this logic also imply that men should have an overall better outcome to respiratory disease than women, as men has on average more and larger muscles than women, but research into this tend to be more complex than that. Low testosterone has also been linked in research with increased inflammation response. One of the causes for deadly outcomes of Covid-19 is an over inflammatory response, thus the paper argue there could be a link between low testosterone levels and increase mortality for Covid-19 patients. The paper also mention a potential risk for people with high testosterone levels because a related gene which biological function of is unknown but which is connected to the function of prostate cancer cells. There seems to be indications that this gene can also modulate covid-19, and if we would inhibit the gene the theory is that it may reduce the effect of the virus. Clinic studies will have to show if it helps, do nothing or makes things worse, because right now its just a theory based on a gene which from my reading we don't know much about.

Better summary: "Who knows?"

And specifically, being at a heathy weight. It seems everyone's dancing around the elephant in the room, talking about "low testosterone" or "type II diabetes" as being co-morbidities. See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3955331/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3955331/ for one of many sources for the link between obesity and low testosterone. Obesity just cost our nation several trillion dollars. People on Hacker News don't like to talk about this, either, because the Computer Programmer community is also affected by obesity.

vmception 6y ago
I tell people that if they would be considered brave for being without a shirt at the beach, then they are an at risk population
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  That's probably a little too inclusive. You can be healthy and still have a body nobody really cares to see shirtless.
  - falcor84 6y ago
    >a body nobody really cares to see shirtless As a European, I find this (apparently American) sentiment to be abhorrent. Our bodies shouldn't be treated as sculptures for the public to adore.
    - rootusrootus 6y ago
      Pretty sure this is a worldwide thing. Including Europeans.
      - LyndsySimon 6y ago
        It's certainly widespread, but it's not ubiquitous. I live smack in the center of the US, and visited Hawaii in ~2000. I remember being pleasantly surprised how little people cared about that sort of thing, and was far more comfortable on the beach there than anywhere else I've been. I was with a group of locals, not tourists, so I assume it's a cultural thing.
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    Healthy or in shape? The terms are conflated too often for my liking. Same with food, low-calorie or low-fat / sugar foods are often labeled healthy, but IMO that lacks nuance. They are factually low-calorie for example. Whether they're healthy is another matter entirely because that depends largely on your overall diet.
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    I know a couple skinny chain smokers with alcohol problems. They go shirtless all the time -- southern VA, so that's how you do. No way they are healthy, and if they catch the COVID they're going to suffer; if they don't then I bet they're gonna get cancer by 55. I'm related to them and not hoping for those outcomes, but they ain't gonna change and we've just accepted it.
- MarkusQ 6y ago
  > I tell people that if they would be considered brave for being without a shirt at the beach, then they are an at risk population. Yet it affects males more than females. Hmmm. When you say "people" do you mean "male people"? Or when you say "beaches" do you mean "topless beaches"?
  - dnate 6y ago
    Maybe he sees the female population at risk?
lazyjones 6y ago
The lockdown might prevent some infections, but this sounds like it also potentially causes more severe outcomes due to less activity at home.
- watwut 6y ago
  You control weight primary by food intake.
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    And you control health primarily by activity.
  - stirbot 6y ago
    If you're already overweight you should combine control of calorie intake with exercise. The only way fat leaves the body (besides surgery) is by exhaling it as CO2
    - kube-system 6y ago
      It is definitely good to exercise when attempting to lose weight, but I don't think the reason is not because it significantly changes the amount you breathe. If you exercise for 30 minutes you'll breathe about 4% more breaths that day.
    - kerkeslager 6y ago
      True, but you're always exhaling CO2, even when you're not exercising. Exercise simply doesn't create a very large increase the amount of calories you burn. Consider: a person at my height/weight burns approximately 2500 calories/day just by resting metabolic rate. According to this calculator[1], a person of my weight running a mile at an 8 minute pace burns 136 calories. In other words, running a 5k every day would only increase my calories burned by 17%. And running 8 minute miles is one of the more efficient ways to burn calories--if you're doing some other exercise, your calories burned are likely much lower. Compare the effort involved in running a 5k with drinking two less cans of cola (about equivalent in calories) and you'll quickly see how diet has a much larger effect on weight loss than exercise. There's a reason they say abs are made in the kitchen not in the gym. [1] https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a20801301/calories-burned-running-calculator/ https://www.runnersworld.com/training/a20801301/calories-bur...
pastrami_panda 6y ago
Wonder what the net loss is though, considering the vast amounts of money the process of getting a nation so obese has put into the economy. I don't mean to be calloused though, this is truly a horrible situation, and I do feel empathic towards people that are unable to take care of their body.

vmception 6y ago

tl;dr knowing specifically which part of good health steers public policy decisions

juskrey 6y ago
Like that "part of good health" really exists, right?

SketchySeaBeast 6y ago

I see in the article "It is well established that plasma testosterone concentration is reduced by age and comorbidities like obesity, diabetes and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) [7], all comorbidities highly prevalent in COVID-19 patients." but I never see any discussion of people who are without those comorbidities. I know they are asking for more research to be done, but at this point, and unless there's evidence presented to the contrary, I think it's probably safe to assume it's general unhealthiness.

elric 6y ago

> good health protects from viruses Does it? Good health may increase the odds of a good outcome for some viral infection, but it's a bit of a platitude in general. The reasons why measles, polio or HIV are so dangerous is not because of the poor health of their victims prior to infection.

belorn 6y ago

That is not the takeaway I get from the paper. I read it as establishing that because testosterone levels has an well established impact on muscles growth, low testosterone should thus impact respiratory muscles size at the point of getting the infection which in turn impact outcomes for people with respiratory disease. However this logic also imply that men should have an overall better outcome to respiratory disease than women, as men has on average more and larger muscles than women, but research into this tend to be more complex than that. Low testosterone has also been linked in research with increased inflammation response. One of the causes for deadly outcomes of Covid-19 is an over inflammatory response, thus the paper argue there could be a link between low testosterone levels and increase mortality for Covid-19 patients. The paper also mention a potential risk for people with high testosterone levels because a related gene which biological function of is unknown but which is connected to the function of prostate cancer cells. There seems to be indications that this gene can also modulate covid-19, and if we would inhibit the gene the theory is that it may reduce the effect of the virus. Clinic studies will have to show if it helps, do nothing or makes things worse, because right now its just a theory based on a gene which from my reading we don't know much about.