With atrocious air quality in California right now, I’m doing everything I can to keep my lungs clear of fine particulate matter, aka PM2.5. Chronic exposure to even moderate levels of PM2.5 or acute exposure to high levels significantly increases all-cause mortality. I’ve previously written about how running HEPA filters in your house is a … Continue reading Do you need a HEPA filter in your car?
Wild claims about vitamin supplements fly all over the internet. My Facebook feed is little more than a series of ads for vitamins, potions, and blood tests that promise to turn me into an immortal David Hasselhoff. So what does the best science tell us about vitamin supplements for people who haven’t been diagnosed with … Continue reading Will Multivitamins Extend Your Life? The Evidence
Losing your hair as you age is a concern for many men, and some women. Baldness isn’t a health problem and it won’t shorten your life, so it’s perhaps a little off-topic for this blog. But if you can find a treatment that’s cheap, easy, harmless, and effective, isn’t it worth giving it a shot? … Continue reading How Not to Go Bald
A few weeks back, I wrote this post about how to make driving as safe as flying on a commercial airline. The three basic measures are: Always wear your seatbelt.Never drive with a BAC of .02 or above - the legal limit is way higher than where any person should consider driving.Drive a heavier SUV. … Continue reading Safe Driving Bonus Tip
The updates here cover developments since my last post on May 24th, which I updated on June 4th to reflect two study retractions related to hydroxychloroquine. Remdesivir Before June, we already had two randomized trials - one from Gilead, the manufacturer, and one from the NIH - showing that Remdesivir was an effective treatment for … Continue reading Coronavirus Treatment Updates
My commute includes 45 minutes each way on BART, the San Francisco Bay Area's mass transit system. How can I stay safe from coronavirus when work-from-home ends and I'm called back to the office? There's a great new review article in The Lancet by a group of researchers calling themselves COVID-19 SURGE. The paper tells … Continue reading Mass Transit in the Time of Coronavirus
At long last, the first randomized trial of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) has issued results in a peer-reviewed paper. This experiment treated people who had been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 within the last four days but hadn't yet shown symptoms. In short, it made no difference whether people got the drug or a placebo. [6/04/20 … Continue reading Hydroxychloroquine Won’t Stop You from Getting COVID-19
You’re about 100 times more likely to die traveling the same distance in a car as in a plane. See the graph below (made by these people with data from this paper covering the decade 2000-2009). I want to find out if there are choices I can make as an individual to make driving just … Continue reading How Safely Can You Drive?
There was a bit of news on each of three coronavirus treatment fronts this week: hydroxychloroquine, convalescent plasma, and Remdesivir. Remmdesivir At the end of April, the NIH announced that Remdesivir helps people hospitalized with COVID-19 recover a bit faster. They didn't actually share many details in their press release. Now, the peer-reviewed paper with … Continue reading Coronavirus Treatment Updates
There was big news today in the world of HIV prevention. A large randomized controlled trial demonstrated that a new, injectable drug made people much less likely to contract HIV. The drug, called CAB, built on the last major breakthrough in HIV prevention: Truvada. Truvada is a once-daily antiviral pill taken as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or … Continue reading HIV Prevention Breakthrough
