5 ms·

The title is misleading, at least on the IQ claim. The underlying study was observational and did not claim causation. Medical journals and their associated me

by jl6 3y ago

The title is misleading, at least on the IQ claim. The underlying study was observational and did not claim causation. Medical journals and their associated media summaries are awash with low-certainty studies that get de-nuanced and overhyped. These studies are relatively easy to do - not to denigrate the work put in by the original study authors (it’s not their fault the press sensationalize their work). But for strong causative claims you ideally would have blinded controlled randomized trials. Sometimes such trials are not feasible, but that doesn’t mean you get to claim causation anyway just because the work to prove it is too hard.

p0w3n3d 3y ago
I experienced some limitations of cognitive abilities but not sure was it due to COVID or some sort of depression
- shutupnerd0000 3y ago
  That settles it then. Causation proved.
  - varjag 3y ago
    I too have lost solid 20 points immediately after infection. Took the test precisely because the fall was so sharp and deep. Scoff all you want but for me it's settled.
- kelipso 3y ago
  Yeah, same thing here. Pretty significant drop in cognitive abilities I feel like.
camgunz 3y ago
It says "studies suggest"; how much more hedging do you want?
- eru 3y ago
  The studies don't actually 'suggest' any causality. Just like the studies in question don't suggest that the moon is made of cheese. So you wouldn't want to write either in a headline. 'Covid infections associated with IQ drops and years of brain aging, studies suggest'. You can even remove the 'studies suggest' part in that case to get just 'Covid infections associated with IQ drops and years of brain aging'
throwaway48476 3y ago
[flagged]
- fxtentacle 3y ago
  That must be why everyone in Japan is an idiot ;P They've been wearing masks on the daily commute since long before Covid. /s
  - orwin 3y ago
    And why surgeons are stupid and have fine motricity issues, with 4 hours shift wearing masks nonstop!
- dukeyukey 3y ago
  I'll bet surgeons wear masks for more time than most people did during COVID, but we don't see surgeon IQs tanking.
  - throwaway48476 3y ago
    Surgical masks are for droplets, not air filtration. The medical grade face mask respirators have electric fans to provide air flow as well to prevent precisely this.
- aloisdg 3y ago
  Although, significant increase in CO2 concentrations are noted with routinely used face-masks, the levels still remain within the NIOSH limits for short-term use. Therefore, there should not be a concern in their regular day-to-day use by people. https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-021-06056-0 https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s128...
dathinab 3y ago
It's less misleading then you might think. There are cases (enough to not be treated as just some random coincidence; with and without vaccination) where people after Covid had a sever reduction of cognitive abilities that they have problems filling out relatively simple forms. So we can clearly speak of a reduction of IQ. And while there is a lot of research needed and a lot of open questions and already half a year (or so?) into the pandemic we did know from how we observed COVID affecting the brain that it likely will cause a reduction in cognitive abilities at least in some cases which matches the (very many) observations we had since then. This also matches what we know from other older studies about other virus infections which have some similarity with covid, e.g. causing Neuroinflammation. So every thing we observe and do know about the underlying mechanics implies that there is very likely a causation. (Through we need more studies for Neuroinflammation.) So scientist do need to research it more and do need to pin down the exact mechanisms this causes reduction of cognitive abilities in some cases to largely varying degrees and how much of it is a direct and a indirect e.g. psychological effect. But for everyone else it best to assume that getting COVID might reduce IQ if they are unlucky. Because if you aren't a doctor, scientist or similar but just a random person who got COVID it kind doesn't matter if your IQ gets reduced by COVID directly or indirectly or just correlated due to some other factor you don't know about and in turn can't systematically avoid.
- freehorse 3y ago
  I do not think IQ tests are meant or designed to measure effects from illness. We do not say that IQ drops when you are sick with the flu and have high fever that makes it hard to think. IQ does not drop when you wake up groggy in the morning up until you drink coffee. I am not sure why people use IQ here instead of referring specifically to brain fog and other symptoms of post-COVID infection. IQ does not drop when you get sick and does not increase when you get treatment. If that is the case, then it is even worse measure than it is supposed to be, because it does not measure anything remotely stable.
  - DoughnutHole 3y ago
    Who says there’s even anything stable to measure? If “intelligence” is just the degree/quality of someone’s brain function then your intelligence does drop when your brain function is impaired, and you would expect that to be picked up in an intelligence test. Culturally we may want to imagine intelligence as something constant and innate to somebody’s soul, but in reality it’s innate to a fragile and fickle organ inside your skull.
aredox 3y ago
That's why the most important element in science is replication - direct (repeating the same experiment) and indirect (refining the original experiment, or testing for the opposite result, or an alternative - here we could test reflexes instead of IQ). And here there is already a lot of replication for several years - plus direct observation of bleeding into the brain. https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/2024/trinity-team-discovers-underlying-cause-of-brain-fog-linked-with-long-covid/ https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/2024/trinity-team-di...
- stuaxo 3y ago
  Thanks for this link on brain fog, I had that for a year after getting Covid early before vaccines were available. I know there was work recently that found blood tests can find various markers of long covid, I'd like to get this done - but it's not something widely available. A relative has been getting strange post-viral like symptoms since before Xmas (though no obvious Covid infection), would be great to get them tested too.
- peteradio 3y ago
  Good study design trumps replication. If you construct a shitty misleading study and everybody jumps on the hype train to replicate you've netted negative on the replication axis.
rjmunro 3y ago
Could it be just a correlation? Maybe something like people with lower IQ are less likely to do a job where they can work from home so they are more likely to have been exposed to the virus?
- jonathanstrange 3y ago
  The article mentions studies that measure IQ before and after a Covid infection, it's hard to see how working from home or not could be relevant for these.
gn4d 3y ago
cope

by jl6 3y ago

p0w3n3d 3y ago

I experienced some limitations of cognitive abilities but not sure was it due to COVID or some sort of depression

shutupnerd0000 3y ago
That settles it then. Causation proved.
- varjag 3y ago
  I too have lost solid 20 points immediately after infection. Took the test precisely because the fall was so sharp and deep. Scoff all you want but for me it's settled.
kelipso 3y ago
Yeah, same thing here. Pretty significant drop in cognitive abilities I feel like.

camgunz 3y ago

It says "studies suggest"; how much more hedging do you want?

eru 3y ago
The studies don't actually 'suggest' any causality. Just like the studies in question don't suggest that the moon is made of cheese. So you wouldn't want to write either in a headline. 'Covid infections associated with IQ drops and years of brain aging, studies suggest'. You can even remove the 'studies suggest' part in that case to get just 'Covid infections associated with IQ drops and years of brain aging'

throwaway48476 3y ago

[flagged]

fxtentacle 3y ago
That must be why everyone in Japan is an idiot ;P They've been wearing masks on the daily commute since long before Covid. /s
- orwin 3y ago
  And why surgeons are stupid and have fine motricity issues, with 4 hours shift wearing masks nonstop!
dukeyukey 3y ago
I'll bet surgeons wear masks for more time than most people did during COVID, but we don't see surgeon IQs tanking.
- throwaway48476 3y ago
  Surgical masks are for droplets, not air filtration. The medical grade face mask respirators have electric fans to provide air flow as well to prevent precisely this.
aloisdg 3y ago
Although, significant increase in CO2 concentrations are noted with routinely used face-masks, the levels still remain within the NIOSH limits for short-term use. Therefore, there should not be a concern in their regular day-to-day use by people. https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-021-06056-0 https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s128...

dathinab 3y ago

It's less misleading then you might think. There are cases (enough to not be treated as just some random coincidence; with and without vaccination) where people after Covid had a sever reduction of cognitive abilities that they have problems filling out relatively simple forms. So we can clearly speak of a reduction of IQ. And while there is a lot of research needed and a lot of open questions and already half a year (or so?) into the pandemic we did know from how we observed COVID affecting the brain that it likely will cause a reduction in cognitive abilities at least in some cases which matches the (very many) observations we had since then. This also matches what we know from other older studies about other virus infections which have some similarity with covid, e.g. causing Neuroinflammation. So every thing we observe and do know about the underlying mechanics implies that there is very likely a causation. (Through we need more studies for Neuroinflammation.) So scientist do need to research it more and do need to pin down the exact mechanisms this causes reduction of cognitive abilities in some cases to largely varying degrees and how much of it is a direct and a indirect e.g. psychological effect. But for everyone else it best to assume that getting COVID might reduce IQ if they are unlucky. Because if you aren't a doctor, scientist or similar but just a random person who got COVID it kind doesn't matter if your IQ gets reduced by COVID directly or indirectly or just correlated due to some other factor you don't know about and in turn can't systematically avoid.

freehorse 3y ago
I do not think IQ tests are meant or designed to measure effects from illness. We do not say that IQ drops when you are sick with the flu and have high fever that makes it hard to think. IQ does not drop when you wake up groggy in the morning up until you drink coffee. I am not sure why people use IQ here instead of referring specifically to brain fog and other symptoms of post-COVID infection. IQ does not drop when you get sick and does not increase when you get treatment. If that is the case, then it is even worse measure than it is supposed to be, because it does not measure anything remotely stable.
- DoughnutHole 3y ago
  Who says there’s even anything stable to measure? If “intelligence” is just the degree/quality of someone’s brain function then your intelligence does drop when your brain function is impaired, and you would expect that to be picked up in an intelligence test. Culturally we may want to imagine intelligence as something constant and innate to somebody’s soul, but in reality it’s innate to a fragile and fickle organ inside your skull.

aredox 3y ago

That's why the most important element in science is replication - direct (repeating the same experiment) and indirect (refining the original experiment, or testing for the opposite result, or an alternative - here we could test reflexes instead of IQ). And here there is already a lot of replication for several years - plus direct observation of bleeding into the brain. https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/2024/trinity-team-discovers-underlying-cause-of-brain-fog-linked-with-long-covid/ https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/2024/trinity-team-di...

stuaxo 3y ago
Thanks for this link on brain fog, I had that for a year after getting Covid early before vaccines were available. I know there was work recently that found blood tests can find various markers of long covid, I'd like to get this done - but it's not something widely available. A relative has been getting strange post-viral like symptoms since before Xmas (though no obvious Covid infection), would be great to get them tested too.
peteradio 3y ago
Good study design trumps replication. If you construct a shitty misleading study and everybody jumps on the hype train to replicate you've netted negative on the replication axis.

rjmunro 3y ago

Could it be just a correlation? Maybe something like people with lower IQ are less likely to do a job where they can work from home so they are more likely to have been exposed to the virus?

jonathanstrange 3y ago
The article mentions studies that measure IQ before and after a Covid infection, it's hard to see how working from home or not could be relevant for these.

gn4d 3y ago

cope