Senescence Nerd

What the Air You Breathe May Be Doing to Your Brain Studies increasingly find links between higher concentrations of certain pollutants and the prevalence of dementia.

Studies increasingly find links between higher concentrations of certain pollutants in the air and the prevalence of dementia. Yet such findings are emerging when the U.S. government is dismantling efforts to continue reducing air pollution by shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.

A picture of Robert Redford from the movie Sneakers.

Vale Robert Redford. I had no idea you were 89 and that Sneakers, my favourite movie of yours, was from 1992...

I think Biovea is still selling...for now. Everyone I know has rushed there to stock up.

Another day, another attempted coup at the RACP… #medsky

I'm so lucky to work at a hospital that has a music therapy (MT) department. The patients are even luckier. The other day my unwell patient was agitated and delirious - security were readied to sedate them. In walks the MT and a guitar. 70s acoustic rock ensued.

No sedation required.

#medsky

Gosh how to answer that in a skeet! I think AI ethics are only ever going to be as good as the humans who write them. I hope they involve people with expertise *and* lived experience in that.

Asimov's R. Giskard Reventlov, who saves mankind from itself

This list made me laugh/cry so hard.

What are you best examples of good AI application in science fiction?

For me the gold standard was the computer in Star Trek the Next Generation. Didn't replace jobs so much as it replaced time spent doing jobs, and was an excellent decision support tool.

Mr Data OTOH...security nightmare #AI

AI is going to add jobs in the field of correcting AI.

Arrived on the ward to find the junior doing the shouting MMSE match with her deaf older patient (many older people don’t know sign language Both laughing trying to understand each other.
Tell your juniors about hearing amplifers #medsky !

That and they just don't let the female surgeons onto the training programme. Unless they are extremely good looking - and then they quit due to sexual harassment.

I was explaining to my Ukrainian colleague the phrase ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’. She told me the equivalent in Ukrainian is ‘The only free cheese is in the mousetrap’ - which is so much better

also - when patients are called consumers or clients...!

A single woman in her twenties has around 150,000 to 300,000 eggs and in normal circumstances can go on to have many more children should she choose to. Nature does it too - 10-20% of all pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion. Better than losing the uterus/ovaries.

Brain injury of Australian soldier matches that of dead US Navy SEALS Australian scientists find the first evidence of an unusual pattern of brain scarring only seen in people repeatedly exposed to blast waves.

Someone please explain to me why we have wars again? And what is happening to the brains of those exposed over and over to blasts? Say, in Gaza and Israel?

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07...

Interesting! I wonder where they got the number from? If you were in hospital, and were given that drug from the hospital supply, would the price on your invoice be the same?

But you said these are the retail prices in your prev post?

#MedSky #OncSky #IDSky
Prosp cohorts (China, N=74K):
At 8-10 yrs, EBV VCA-IgA was assoc w/:
Overall cancer risk ⬆️ 5x
Lung cancer 1.8x
Liver cancer 1.7x
Nasopharyngeal cancer 26x Lymphoma 3.2x
Dose-response +.

🔑 We need ways to prevent/treat mono.

#DrugDevelopment
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is from an article in the newspaper - I'm curious - who is paying the retail price then?

Between the drug company, the insurer, and the consumer the amount paid for a cheap to produce drug is sky high - far higher than our government pays the drug companies, essentially for wholesale pricing. It's not for profit, rather than for-profit pricing and winds up cheaper for all.

In the US there is no bargaining on behalf of every American by the government, it's just the private insurers and drug companies essentially colluding on prices. So the consumer can pay anywhere from a hundred to a thousand dollars for an antibiotic, depending on who they are insured through.

The Australian government bargains on our behalf and gets the prices based on that bargaining agreement. We also have rules that if there is a generic we will pay for that and the drug companies have to prove enough of a benefit for a different formulation, otherwise it doesn't get approved.

I was talking with the interpreter after a visit today with a non-English speaking patient. He thanked me for staying kind with a challenging patient, as he often has to sit through not so kind situations and try to remain impartial. No one talks about vicarious trauma for interpreters. #medsky

Government level bargaining power vs private industry collusion with shareholders in government. #medsky

Ah yes, definitely misery, teenage, and female. Definitely not the complex interplay and understudied factors involved in the transition to adulthood, cyclical hormone fluctuations and their impact on immunity, and the effect of viruses on that highly dynamic state.

So President Trump is threatening 200% tariffs on Australian imported pharmaceuticals (including plasma) because apparently having immense bargaining power (ie the government doing the entirety of drug price negotiation rather than private insurance companies) is 'anticompetitive'.

Happy Medicare rorts season! Except this time it's not $8 billion, it's now $10 billion we're allegedly rorting, claimed by yet another organisation with a conflict of interest. How about we re-regulate practices back to clinicians instead of big business, a la pre-Howard era?

#ausmedsky

Can you imagine what Grok is telling them too!

Just your semi regular reminder that if you're 50 and above, heck, even earlier if you like, to go and get your hearing tested. And if required, get the damn hearing aids and put your ego in the bin about it. Your brain will thank you.

#dementia #medsky #longevity #bluesky