Sergio Parra

Following the suspicions that thrombosis has been raised after the administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine, it is worth remembering that several hundred drugs have been linked to the drug-induced thrombocytopenia (TCPIF). TCPIF patients have a decrease in platelet count 5 to 10 days after drug administration with an increased risk of bleeding.

Diagnosis, furthermore, is often challenging, because most hospitalized patients take multiple medications and have comorbidities that can also cause thrombocytopenia.

Heparin

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has announced that it is possible to associate rare cases of blood clots and low levels of blood platelets with the AstraZeneca vaccine, so it should appear as a "very rare" side effect, with a probability of <1/10,000.

The first cases of thrombosis after vaccination with AstraZeneca were detected between 3 and 14 days after dosing. The patients presented a "very intense headache that worsened when lying down and did not improve with analgesics", there were even cases that also presented "vomiting or irregular bleeding." This last condition is what is known clinically as thrombocytopenia.

More than 300 drugs have been implicated in TCPIF. A systematic review of individual patient data found that the most frequently reported drugs with a definite or probable causal relationship with thrombocytopenia were quinine, quinidine, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, vancomycin, penicillin, rifampin, carbamazepine, ceftriaxone, ibuprofen, mirtazapine, oxaliplatin. as well as the glycoprotein IIb/IIIa (GPIIb/IIa) inhibitors abciximab, Tirofiban, and eptifibatide.

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Spain stops vaccinating those under 60 with AstraZeneca: those who have already received a dose are the big problem to solve

The review included 273 patients (61.5% men), mean age 60 ± 15 years. The average stay was 18 ± 17 days. The incidence of thrombocytopenia was 2.26%. The most involved services were Hematology (56), Intensive Medicine (48) and Oncology (40). Thrombocytopenia was moderate in 69% of the cases, in 26 in % mild and in 5% severe.

There were 8 cases of drug-induced thrombocytopenia (incidence 0.063%), resolved in a mean of 7.6 days. Related medications were enoxaparin (2), linezolid (2), tacrolimus (2), thymoglobulin (1), and heparin (1). The doctor was recommended to suspend the drug (2), reduce the dose (3) or monitor it (3), with an acceptance of 100%.

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“It is clear that there is a link with the vaccine”: an EMA official confirms the link between AstraZeneca and blood clots on the eve of a new European report

However, The most common drug involved in DITP is usually heparin. Life-threatening thromboembolic complications are common in patients with heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (TIH). Thrombocytopenia may occur in 10 to 30% of heparin-treated patients in the absence of obvious immune system involvement.

The incidence of TCPIF is not known exactly, since case notification is voluntary and no studies designed for this purpose have been carried out. Based on various epidemiological studies in the United States and Europe, the minimum estimated incidence is around 10 cases per million inhabitants/year.

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How the EMA has calculated that the benefits of vaccinating with Astrazaneca far outweigh the risks by age group

On the other hand, the incidence of TCPIF varies depending on the medications, with values from 5% to 40% in patients receiving heparin, while for other drugs it is lower than 1%. The drugs that have been most frequently related to the appearance of TCPIF are Cinchona alkaloids (quinine/quinidine), sulfonamides, NSAIDs, diuretics, anticonvulsants and tuberculostatics.

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More than 300 drugs can cause thrombosis, many of them more likely than AstraZeneca

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Hearing or vision loss is often part of aging, but a new study suggests that lose function in both directions (it has to be both, not just one) would increase the risk of suffering from dementia and cognitive decline after a few years.

Both directions simultaneously

The study examined 6,520 people between the ages of 58 and 101. Visual and hearing impairment was determined using a questionnaire that asked about the use of glasses or hearing aids.

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The first gene therapy that manages to reverse Alzheimer's memory loss in mice

At the beginning of the study, 932 people had normal vision and hearing, 2,957 had visual or hearing impairments, and 2,631 said they had both impairments.

Dementia was more than twice as common in the group with both impairments at the start of the study. In that group, 201 people out of 2,631, or 8%, had dementia at the start of the study, compared to 2.4% with a sensory disability and 2.3% without a sensory disability.

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As the size of the abdomen increases, the probability of suffering from dementia increases.

Researchers tested people's thinking and memory skills every two years for six years using a test that includes word recall and recognition. They then looked at the relationship between having a hearing or visual impairment and dementia and having both impairments and dementia.

After adjusting for factors such as sex, education and income, the researchers found that the hearing and vision impaired group was twice as likely to develop dementia than the group with normal sensory function.

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Dementia and cognitive decline could be closer if you lose hearing and vision, according to new study

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In terms of biological aging, the body appears to change phase three times during our lifetime: at 34 years, at 60 years and at 78 years.

In other words, there is evidence that aging is not a progressive process that moves at the same speed throughout our lives, but rather is punctuated by peaks (or rather, valleys).

Blood protein levels: the proteome

The investigation has been published in Nature Medicine, and has also presented a new way to reliably predict people's ages using protein levels (the proteome) in your blood.

In Xataka Science

The relationship between age and happiness is U-shaped: the worst time of your life is middle age

The team analyzed blood plasma data from 4,263 people between 18 and 95 years old, studying the levels of around 3,000 different proteins.

While these protein levels often remain relatively constant, the researchers found that large changes in readings for multiple proteins occurred around young adulthood (34 years), late middle age (60 years), and old age (78 years). years).

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It is not so simple that one human year is equivalent to seven dogs according to this study

According to Tony Wyss-Coray, from the Stanford Alzheimer's Disease Research Center:

We have known for a long time that measuring certain proteins in the blood can tell you about a person's health status, for example lipoproteins for cardiovascular health.

The researchers were able to set up a system whereby the mixture of 373 selected proteins in blood could be used to accurately predict a person's age, within about three years or so: When the system failed to predict an age that was too young, the subject was usually very healthy for his or her age.

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This fish that was born before the First World War holds the record for longevity

Another finding from the study offers more evidence of something that has long been suspected: that men and women age differently. Of the 1,379 proteins that changed with age, 895 (nearly two-thirds) were significantly more predictive for one sex compared to the other.

These findings could help us better understand how our bodies begin to break down as we age, and how specific age-related diseases, including Alzheimer's disease or cardiovascular diseases, could be better addressed.

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373 selected proteins in blood could be used to accurately predict a person's age

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Lucy Jones She is a renowned seismologist who has worked with the United States Geological Survey (USGS), so she knows a lot about disasters. That's why he wrote Disasters: How Catastrophes Shape History.

A book where it narrates, chapter by chapter, some of the great catastrophes that have devastated the Earth and what they have revealed about the human condition.

Gross changes

Each of these catastrophes changed the functioning of the society that lived in its range of action. Due to the greater density and complexity of our cities, the risk is also increasing: More people than ever are at risk of losing the infrastructure that makes life possible.

Disasters: How great catastrophes shape our history (Essay)

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The disasters covered by Jones range from the fire and brimstone rain of Pompeii in AD 79 to the Tohoku Island earthquake in Japan in 2011.

Earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, and volcanoes come from the same forces that give life to our planet. Earthquakes give us natural springs; Volcanoes produce fertile soils. Only when these forces exceed our ability to resist them do they become disasters. Together they have shaped our cities and their architecture; they have raised leaders and overthrown governments; They have influenced the way we think, feel, fight, unite or pray. The history of natural disasters is our own history.

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Books that inspire us: 'Disasters: How Catastrophes Shape History', by Lucy Jones

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There is a popular idea that is so deeply rooted that, despite the evidence, it continues to be entrenched in our thinking: that human beings are like pieces of fresh clay perfectly moldable by education or context. However, There are many features that come standard and little or nothing can be modulated (not to mention that those traits themselves shape the context, in turn).

For this reason, no matter how much effort has been made by institutions, educational centers and even television advertisements, a new meta-analysis (composed of 75 studies) has not found that boys and girls have changed their preferences for toys in the last half century.

Children toys"

Parents of young children know that boys like different toys than girls like. Children show a preference for cars, robots, soldiers, bicycles, LEGOs. Girls also like bicycles, cars and LEGOs, but they also play with dolls and stuffed animals, toys that children find least appealing for active play.

According to the analysis, then, boys show a strong preference for “boys” toys, while girls are more flexible and tend to like toys more in general, although they are also typical of children.

Is this difference in toy preference solely due to socialization from parents, other children, and the media, or are there basic perception/action differences between men and women that make some toys better suited or more attractive to one sex than to another?

Interestingly, this trend is similar to what has been found in macaques that are offered “boy” and “girl” toys, according to a study conducted in 2008, so sexually dimorphic toy preferences appear to reflect basic neurobiological differences between males and females and are not caused solely by socialization, as social-cognitive theories of gender role behavior have suggested.

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In 50 years, 75 studies suggest that boys and girls have not changed their preferences for toys (like monkeys)

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The myths associated with food multiply exponentially, partly due to ignorance, but above all due to the multiplicity of media that live off of it. clickbait and social networks, that disperse the myths themselves or transform them into even more dangerous myths.

Don't let them mess you up with your food, from the doctor in Food Science and Technology Miguel Ángel Lurueña He has come to put some order and tell us that almost everything we took for granted was actually not true.

Food myths

In 2018, in various national media, It was claimed that McDonald's fries could be the solution to baldness. In reality, the news echoed a Japanese study that talked about producing hair follicles in culture dishes and manufacturing small silicone structures to serve as support and could be implanted in the skin of laboratory mice.

Don't get confused with food: An essential guide to know if you are eating well: 313 (Imago Mundi)

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The relationship with French fries was only fortuitous: that used silicone, called dimethylpolysiloxane It is used as a food additive (E 900) in different foods, including frying oils, where they fulfill the function of preventing splashes and the formation of foams. Nothing else.

News like this, distorted by the media, is published every day, which added to all the myths perpetuated by our grandmothers, makes books like these essential: full of useful, practical and, above all, demystifying information. For this reason, the book has been a source of inspiration for entries in Xataka Ciencia such as If there is more air than potatoes in your bag of potatoes, it is not necessarily to deceive you..

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If there is more air than potatoes in your bag of potatoes, it is not necessarily to deceive you.

"Organic" bananas, "antibiotic-free" meat, cookies enriched with vitamins, yogurts that "help our defenses." To eat safely and healthily you don't need to complicate your life. There's no need to count calories or juggle, either. The problem is that we are very clueless. It is not surprising. Every day we receive an enormous amount of information that is not rigorous and even contradictory. Is a daily glass of wine good for your heart or dangerous for your health? And if you look at advertising, it's even worse: what does it mean that a tomato sauce is “100% natural”? Furthermore, we do not have enough knowledge to properly interpret food labels and recognize their ingredients. In short, the world of food today can be summarized with three words: misinformation, ignorance and distrust.

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Books that inspire us: 'Don't let them mess you up with food' by Miguel Ángel Lurueña

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Often, we open a bag of potato chips and, surprise, it is half empty, even though it seemed completely full because it was actually full of air. However, this strategy is not the result of marketing. In reality it is somewhat more complicated and has to do with the preservation of the potato chips themselves.

Being half empty, the bags can fill with air, but a very special air, an atmosphere that protects the potato.

Light and oxygen

Potato chips and other similar snacks go rancid easily when exposed to light and oxygen. To avoid this, opaque bags are used to act as a light barrier.

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Do you like fries? We have bad news for you

In addition, inside there is a protective atmosphere: the air is replaced by a mixture of gases that protect the product, as explained Miguel Ángel Lurueña in his book Don't let them mess you up with your food:

In the specific case of French fries, nitrogen is normally used, which is a colorless, odorless, tasteless and inert gas, that is, it does not react with other compounds and is safe for health. For this protective atmosphere to be effective, the ratio between the volume of gas and the volume of food must be equal to or greater than two, which explains why there is so much "air" in the bags and so few potatoes. Incidentally, this protects the product against breakage due to impact or crushing, that is, it serves as an "airbag".

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If there is more air than potatoes in your bag of potatoes, it is not necessarily to deceive you.

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The Dutch Golden Age It was a period of great wealth for the Dutch Republic. International trade flourished with the Dutch East India Company (VOC). This attracted immigrants, so the growth of the most important ports and cities was also stimulated.

During this time, the 17th century, art and science flourished, as can be seen in the famous works of the Dutch masters: Rembrandt, Hals, Vermeer and Steen. And heterodox thinkers also arrived. The most iconoclastic of them all was, without a doubt, Spinoza. And that's how it changed our ideas of the natural world.

Spinosists

The most controversial philosopher of the time, Baruch Spinoza, he came to consider whether there is an ideal form of government, what is the responsibility of rulers towards their people, and other questions that seemed untouchable, such as the existence of God.

At the same time, it gained prominence Johan de Witt, a brilliant intellectual, a specialist in mathematics and law, who was also a very attractive boy. Despite coming from an aristocratic family, he was a fervent defender of republicanism. At 28, he was named Prime Minister of the Netherlands. De Witt longed for the country to be governed by the idea that the successors of kings and princes were those who were born from their wombs, but rather those who were chosen for their merits.

Those ideas were accepted with quite a bit of acceptance: not in vain, 30 % of all the books published in the world were published in Amsterdam. We were, therefore, facing a literate people and, furthermore, with a lot of editorial freedom.

But De Witt also had opponents: on the one hand, the orangers, who believed that every country needed a monarch; On the other hand there were the orthodox calvinists, who believed that all government needed to be founded on the Bible.

Spinoza idolized De Witt, and decided to leave his deepest philosophy behind to get down to work and support him with a new book intended for the general public. For the first time in history, someone declares that the basis of politics should be individual freedom, also adding that the democratic government was the closest to the state of nature and the most akin to said freedom. The book was published in 1670 and claimed things like the Bible was human and full of errors.

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Spinoza: the hated philosopher who wanted to separate religion from science

And, like religion, the government also had to abandon that mystical halo and submit to rational, scientific and secular principles.

The impact of the work was so profound and caused so many commotions that even De Witt had to join the voices that condemned him so as not to end up committing political suicide. However, De Witt was assassinated for espousing such unorthodox ideas. Spinoza could not believe how far human barbarism reached.

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You have to change your mind even at the risk of being accused of being a weathercock or a turncoat.

But, even though the attempt at a republican, humanist form of government, far removed from obeisance, had not finally caught on, those ideas did not completely die. They caused philosophical and political resonances in half the world. A new term even appeared: “spinosista”, from Spinoza, which meant subversive, extremist, dangerous, and even atheist. The Spinosists, however, were growing in number, and for them the term was synonymous with modern, rational, lucid, free of superstitions.

It was also a type of thought that fuels the trait of ambivalenceThat is, not being sure about everything, continuing to investigate, not proposing fixed recipes for complex problems. You can learn more about this feature, as well as its advantages and disadvantages, in the following video:

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Spinoza was such a groundbreaking philosopher for his time that his followers were branded extremists, dangerous, and even atheists.

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As it appears from this new study, men and women They perceive the beauty of the opposite sex differently depending on whether or not they consider them to be a long-term partner..

Thus, women perceive men as less attractive as long-term partners if they have first imagined them as one-night stands. In contrast, men perceive women as less attractive as one-night partners if they have first imagined them as long-term partners.

Different evolutionary strategies

Women and men show symmetrical biases, but in diametrically opposite ways. This is what a total sample of more than 3,000 individuals from different studies suggests.. Whatever the interpretation of such results, these biases are capable of producing spurious or inconsistent associations and mislead us when we compare studies that superficially appear similar.

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Both blind men and women find the same characteristics attractive as sighted men.

It is not known why this happens, but it is probably related to the fact that both sexes follow different reproductive strategies. depending on what they should invest biologically: Men can ejaculate sperm whenever they want and get women pregnant; But women, once pregnant, invest months in the gestation process.

That is to say, women, on average, will find the commitment and fidelity of a man to be the most desirable trait, as he has more incentives to get other females pregnant. But men who are willing to commit, however, will conceptualize one-night stands differently: a kind of indiscriminate spread of genes.

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Attractive people have better salaries, but less than those who are very unattractive

However, so far no study has statistically controlled for the effect of the order in which participants consider the two types of relationships.

This would also explain the reason why beauty signs are different both in them (show more resources) and in them (show more beauty):

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Depending on whether you imagine someone of the opposite sex as a long-term partner or not, you will perceive their beauty differently.

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There are beautiful and well-made films, that even convey interesting ideas, and even greater awareness about the environment. However, the world is complex and intricate, and a trend instilled by a movie can have an unwanted side effect.

This was the case of the Pixar film Finding Nemo, which documented what happens when we end up releasing our pets into the environment: we cause serious imbalances in the ecosystem.

Invasive species

In the film Finding Nemo There is a scene where two fish escape down the toilet drain. Many children, upon watching the film, imitated this example and wanted to do a good deed, throwing the fish down the toilet so that they would be free. However, this was a problem, as explained JM Mulet in his book Real environmentalism:

Most home aquariums are for exotic or tropical species, which are very attractive but usually die in cold waters. The problem is that the film was also seen in Florida, so in the Caribbean right now there are colonies of scorpion fish, originally from Asia, that are causing real havoc.

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They prefer foreigners

And more bad news: Because it lacks the genetic ability to adapt to rapid changes in its environment, such as those resulting from current global warming, the clownfish popularized by the movie Finding Nemo It is going to be extinct without remedy. This is what researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) conclude in a recent study published in the journal Ecology Letters. Although, fortunately, it is not his fault. Finding Nemo.

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When 'Finding Nemo' ruined the environment or the problem of releasing our pets

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