3 ms·
The only really promising treatment effect I have seen in recent years was in a huge, broad study of Veterans Administration patients (N tens of thousands) cond
by ncmncm 4y ago
The only really promising treatment effect I have seen in recent years was in a huge, broad study of Veterans Administration patients (N tens of thousands) conducted over a 6-year data set.
What they found was that having had a Tdap vaccination booster recently predicted a 40% reduction in dementia risk.
They then replicated the result with a wholly disjoint population treated in a different system.
40% effect is better than aspirin for headaches. A confounding factor with that much correlation would be almost equally interesting even without causative effect. I don't know of anything else that predicts dementia risk.
They had no idea which component of the Tdap vaccine might be responsible. But you can bet I went out and got my Tdap booster right away. Because why not?
- cogman10 4y agoYou see these sort of correlations a lot and I have to wonder, is this a wealth predictor? That is, is it that someone who is more likely to get their TDAP is also likely has a more stable life. You see these sorts of things a lot in health studies. For example, someone that goes to church often is more likely to live longer. Yet, if you look at what's happening, someone that isn't going to church is more likely doing that because they can't (IE, they are bed ridden) which in and of itself is a strong predictor for whether or not you are going to die soon. Disentangling these sorts of cause and effects seems like something medical journalism does poorly.
- ncmncm 4y agoThat kind of confounding is something that it is well understood how to filter for, by matching cohorts. It is possible when N is in the tens of thousands. But their report did not say the effect was more pronounced in any particular selection of cohorts, other than as noted.