3 ms·
As far as I know you're overstating what is known. There was a study that showed that people who had severe influenza (they were hospitalized) were 3 times mor
by sarchertech 3mo ago
As far as I know you're overstating what is known.
There was a study that showed that people who had severe influenza (they were hospitalized) were 3 times more likely to develop dementia. And there are mouse models that show that frequency respiratory virus infections can increase may contribute to brain aging (in mice).
>someone who worked in daycare and often got sick with the flu or similar, has a higher risk of dementia (statistically-speaking).
I can't find any evidence of this being true. I can find evidence that primary school teachers have lower rates of dementia. Pediatricians also have lower rates of dementia, so I find this highly doubtful.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- hereme888 3mo agoI'm extrapolating some. But pediatricians have higher rates of dementia compared to their counterparts (physicians have lower dementia in general): https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40520-019-01278-4 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40520-019-01278-4
- sarchertech 3mo agoYou’re taking a mouse study, and a study that says that people hospitalized with influenza are more likely to get dementia, and stating confidently that daycare workers are more likely to get dementia. That’s not “extrapolating some.” That’s just making stuff up. The study you cited is from Taiwan and merely states that “Physicians who were older, specialized in pediatrics and worked at local hospitals and clinics had a higher prevalence for dementia than their counterparts did.” “physicians who are older are more likely to have dementia” But beyond that, pediatricians or doctors who work in hospitals or clinics covers most doctors who aren’t work from home radiologists.
- hereme888 3mo agoWrong. Physicians (which includes pediatricians), who are in general less likely to get dementia, experience its signs at an older age in general due to protective effects of their high education. Among physicians, pediatricians seemed to have higher rates. The discussion is very low-yield though, since infections are already a minor point re: dementia, and none of the evidence is conclusive.
- sarchertech 3mo agoThat’s not what that sentence says though. >Among physicians, pediatricians seemed to have higher rates. Not just pediatricians, but physicians that work at hospitals and clinics. Which is nearly all of them. I think what you’re dealing with is a low quality, low effort survey study from Taiwan, which was poorly written, so there is no point trying to figure out what they meant.
- hereme888 3mo agoIt's not a strong study, and the demographic group was very particular, but it involved 30k physicians, which is something. I would have no problem conceding that I misread the study, but ChatGPT, which is obviously never wrong (joking of course), agreed with me: https://chatgpt.com/share/6a550f00-d174-83ea-b111-0369a8e4dbd8 https://chatgpt.com/share/6a550f00-d174-83ea-b111-0369a8e4db...
- sarchertech 3mo agoI was wrong calling it a survey study, because I didn’t realize Taiwan had such detailed information on every citizen. But looking at the specific data the naive ratio for pediatricians is lower than several other specialities. It was only higher when they adjusted for confounding factors. But the list of confounders was limited by the data available. In addition they found that for some reason working at a large hospital was protective, but they didn’t adjust for hospital size when comparing specialities. In general pediatricians are less likely to work at large hospitals than the average specialty (wife is a pediatrician). The result is essentially a cherry picked result that only adjust for some confounders. Add to that only 19 cases of dementia among pediatricians. Then the CI for pedestrians overlaps every other listed speciality. The study is essentially meaningless for your purposes. Also the paper is actually saying that older doctors are more likely to have dementia than younger doctors, not that doctors develop dementia later than the general population.