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I'm not disputing your claims. Not because I specifically agree (or disagree) with them. Personally, I also consider myself in a pretty good position to judge

by corin_ 6y ago

I'm not disputing your claims. Not because I specifically agree (or disagree) with them. Personally, I also consider myself in a pretty good position to judge this stuff, however I decided a while back that even when I think I'm sure I'm not going to tell it as a fact, especially online where other readers can't easily tell if corin_ or doreenmichele are making great points or deluded idiots. (A quick edit here: I didn't mean that to imply one or both of us are deluded or idiots. Just that neither of us are coming into this thread with "here are my qualifications and/or research to make me more than a random commenter".) My reply wasn't that you were wrong in your beliefs, however this part in particular: "And that led to an epiphany for me [...] So I got a pizza and then he felt vastly better. So the whole blood angle is cemented in my mind like "Clearly, this is a hard fact and..." My point is that even if you are 100% correct about the blood issues and zinc, you have literally described a one day process of epiphany to pizza to fact proven. Whether you're right or wrong overall, that's not how people should be forming opinions on fighting covid.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
My point is that even if you are 100% correct about the blood issues and zinc, you have literally described a one day process of epiphany to pizza to fact proven. Whether you're right or wrong overall, that's not how people should be forming opinions on fighting covid. You are wildly misreading my comment. A professional researcher stated their opinion that there was something blood related -- that I didn't understand so I asked for clarification -- and then said something about zinc. I then went over our consumption habits, realized that we were eating a lot of zinc-rich foods we don't normally eat in large quantities and felt it was worth betting on "It's the zinc, like the researcher said." And that bet paid off for us -- though me and my oldest son both have a genetic disorder, so I'm absolutely not inclined to generalize from that. So I'm not recommending anything about how to fight covid. It's a personal anecdote about how this got cemented in my mind so clearly. That's it. Nothing more.
- corin_ 6y ago
  Apologies for misreading your comment, but you did describe a pizza cementing your view. We all have cognitive biases, including the most intelligent, accomplished people anywhere. Plenty of research shows that the placebo effect is a very real phenomenon (even when we are told we're being given a placebo pill it can still help!) I wasn't trying to change your mind on anything covid related; just about how we all let anecdotes convince us of pre-existing beliefs. And even if you personally didn't need that lesson, I still think it needed to be explained for anyone reading your comments considering their implication that a one off pizza event was enough to impact your views (even if that's not how you intended the comment to mean). Edit to add: of course, the mechanisms behind cognitive biases can be helpful! If a doctor says X will help and then X does help, it's good that our brains automatically process that as being more likely true than if it hadn't worked. But they can be unhelpful, too.
- scott_s 6y ago
  > And that bet paid off for us. You don't know that, since you don't know that you have Covid-19, nor do you know that your zinc consumption had anything to do with whether or not you had it, or recovery from it.
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
    I do know that "bet paid off for us." I know that because it wasn't a one time incident. We continued to consciously and intentionally consume zinc-rich foods at a greater rate than normal and it successfully alleviated symptoms that had us concerned. It did so consistently for some period of time until those symptoms finally resolved. We pay very close attention to our diets because of the medical situation. So I know we were consuming abnormally high levels of zinc for some weeks. Your framing seems to suggest you think I am saying zinc helped "cure" us of the infection. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying it helped mitigate the worst of our symptoms, which is a completely different claim. You are correct that I don't know for absolute certain that we had Covid-19 because that was never verified by testing. I've already made that clear and also made it clear that I'm not suggesting treatment to anyone else. I'm aware there are people promoting zinc as a means to cure Covid-19. I'm not remotely suggesting that. Even if you accept that I'm correct about having it and I'm correct about zinc helping us, the only takeaway here is that zinc may mitigate some symptoms in some populations, especially populations prone to nutrient deficiencies. If you have any reason to believe you are zinc deficient, zinc is a good thing to take to treat your deficiency. If you aren't deficient, I'm not recommending it for any purpose. This is a consistent stance of mine and has been for many years: It's a good thing to determine if you have deficiencies and redress those deficiencies. Otherwise, I absolutely don't recommend any kind of supplement at all. I think it's a dangerous practice to take supplements if you aren't deficient.
    - scott_s 6y ago
      > successfully alleviated symptoms Again, you don't know that. You can't establish causation, particularly when N=2, and even more so when you do not know whether or not you had Covid-19. Yes, I understand you fully acknowledge you may not have had it, but that acknowledgement contradicts that claim that zinc consumption alleviated its effects. What you can say is that you may have had Covid-19, and increased zinc consumption may have helped.

by corin_ 6y ago

DoreenMichele 6y ago

My point is that even if you are 100% correct about the blood issues and zinc, you have literally described a one day process of epiphany to pizza to fact proven. Whether you're right or wrong overall, that's not how people should be forming opinions on fighting covid. You are wildly misreading my comment. A professional researcher stated their opinion that there was something blood related -- that I didn't understand so I asked for clarification -- and then said something about zinc. I then went over our consumption habits, realized that we were eating a lot of zinc-rich foods we don't normally eat in large quantities and felt it was worth betting on "It's the zinc, like the researcher said." And that bet paid off for us -- though me and my oldest son both have a genetic disorder, so I'm absolutely not inclined to generalize from that. So I'm not recommending anything about how to fight covid. It's a personal anecdote about how this got cemented in my mind so clearly. That's it. Nothing more.

corin_ 6y ago
Apologies for misreading your comment, but you did describe a pizza cementing your view. We all have cognitive biases, including the most intelligent, accomplished people anywhere. Plenty of research shows that the placebo effect is a very real phenomenon (even when we are told we're being given a placebo pill it can still help!) I wasn't trying to change your mind on anything covid related; just about how we all let anecdotes convince us of pre-existing beliefs. And even if you personally didn't need that lesson, I still think it needed to be explained for anyone reading your comments considering their implication that a one off pizza event was enough to impact your views (even if that's not how you intended the comment to mean). Edit to add: of course, the mechanisms behind cognitive biases can be helpful! If a doctor says X will help and then X does help, it's good that our brains automatically process that as being more likely true than if it hadn't worked. But they can be unhelpful, too.
scott_s 6y ago
> And that bet paid off for us. You don't know that, since you don't know that you have Covid-19, nor do you know that your zinc consumption had anything to do with whether or not you had it, or recovery from it.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  I do know that "bet paid off for us." I know that because it wasn't a one time incident. We continued to consciously and intentionally consume zinc-rich foods at a greater rate than normal and it successfully alleviated symptoms that had us concerned. It did so consistently for some period of time until those symptoms finally resolved. We pay very close attention to our diets because of the medical situation. So I know we were consuming abnormally high levels of zinc for some weeks. Your framing seems to suggest you think I am saying zinc helped "cure" us of the infection. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying it helped mitigate the worst of our symptoms, which is a completely different claim. You are correct that I don't know for absolute certain that we had Covid-19 because that was never verified by testing. I've already made that clear and also made it clear that I'm not suggesting treatment to anyone else. I'm aware there are people promoting zinc as a means to cure Covid-19. I'm not remotely suggesting that. Even if you accept that I'm correct about having it and I'm correct about zinc helping us, the only takeaway here is that zinc may mitigate some symptoms in some populations, especially populations prone to nutrient deficiencies. If you have any reason to believe you are zinc deficient, zinc is a good thing to take to treat your deficiency. If you aren't deficient, I'm not recommending it for any purpose. This is a consistent stance of mine and has been for many years: It's a good thing to determine if you have deficiencies and redress those deficiencies. Otherwise, I absolutely don't recommend any kind of supplement at all. I think it's a dangerous practice to take supplements if you aren't deficient.
  - scott_s 6y ago
    > successfully alleviated symptoms Again, you don't know that. You can't establish causation, particularly when N=2, and even more so when you do not know whether or not you had Covid-19. Yes, I understand you fully acknowledge you may not have had it, but that acknowledgement contradicts that claim that zinc consumption alleviated its effects. What you can say is that you may have had Covid-19, and increased zinc consumption may have helped.