r/science • u/Wagamaga • Feb 03 '25

Neuroscience Scientists discover that even mild COVID-19 can alter brain proteins linked to Alzheimer’s disease, potentially increasing dementia risk—raising urgent public health concerns.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/260553/covid-19-linked-increase-biomarkers-abnormal-brain/
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77

u/Corleysaurus Feb 03 '25

Get vaccinated, y’all.

91

u/intangible_cactus Feb 03 '25

Hi there, Canadian medical student and very soon to be resident MD with graduate scientific background in microbiology/immunology.

I think it’s important to note that vaccination itself is really meant as a way to keep you out of the hospital, it does not necessarily prevent infection. This is a big reason why there has been a large push (multibillion dollar effort) through the US Project NextGen and by many scientists to generate next generation vaccines. These are things like variant proof vaccines to keep people out of the hospital with greater success, while also creating mucosal vaccines (vaccines people could inhale, take as a pill, or squirt up the nose essentially) that create a defensive barrier at the nose and lungs. These thought is that this would finally curb transmission, which is unfortunately rampant as people have abandoned things that protect them from catching COVID. You can read a bit about that here including progress as of late January 2025.

If you really want to prevent getting and giving COVID (of which there are many studies suggesting that infection is quite harmful), I would suggest the following:

  1. Wear a respirator: things like N95s/KN95s are important to consider given that these are highly effective at preventing exposure to the virus itself. It spreads through the air as aerosols that people make when they breathe/talk/sing etc, and they linger in spaces like cigarette smoke for hours. Empirically wearing a respirator in public (even if other people aren’t around) makes sure you don’t breathe these in. As aerosols (not contact) are the primary way it spreads, you will find most interventions revolve around them.

  2. Purify the air: using an air purifier with a HEPA filter or corsi-rosenthal box are good ways to clean those aerosols out of the air.

  3. Increase ventilation: if you bring more fresh air in (opening windows, turning your HVAC system to “on” instead of “auto”), it can circulate more air into a space and dilute those aerosols mentioned before. Dilution is the solution to this pollution.

The above is really important as nearly half) of people with an infection don’t show any symptoms, meaning people you spend time with may actually have COVID and you wouldn’t even know. You could walk down a hallway or enter a room where someone was that had it, and breathe in a high enough dose to cause an infection as well given those aerosols linger sometimes for hours as before.

Importantly, exposure to pathogens isn’t something we want. As you can read about many pathogens, they are inherently harmful which is why we do our best to avoid them, or alternatively vaccinate against them so the harm they cause is reduced. Microbes we live with, called commensals, are beneficial and we have exposure to them all the time. So keeping COVID, flu, RSV, or whatever else out of your life is imperative. It’ll also keep everyone safer. I know I have seen my fair share of people die from or be disabled by COVID/long COVID respectively, but we definitely have the tools to fight against it and prevent that suffering.

-1

u/romjpn Feb 04 '25

Oh so they lied to us when they said "You won't get COVID with the vaccine"? Damn.

49

u/mb2231 Feb 03 '25

The study makes it sound like it wouldn't matter.

I've gotten the COVID vaccine each year and already have had COVID two times. It was mild but the study specifically says that mild COVID can be a contributor.

60

u/SaltZookeepergame691 Feb 03 '25

The largest “effect” (which has limitations) is explicitly in the sickest people - vaccination should absolutely help. It isn’t binary.

36

u/Corleysaurus Feb 03 '25

Yes, but, being vaccinated can largely prevent severe COVID cases/hospitalization, which the article indicates is connected to a worsening of this issue.

2

u/Think_Discipline_90 Feb 03 '25 edited Feb 03 '25

What kind of logic tells you mild vs severe carries the same risk?

4

u/aguyinphuket Feb 03 '25

Perhaps not the same risks, but there is not necessarily a direct correlation between the severity of pulmonary symptoms caused by COVID infection and the severity of the damage to proteins in the brain such an infection can cause.

-1

u/Think_Discipline_90 Feb 03 '25

Anything is possible, yes.

1

u/fadingsignal Feb 04 '25

It's not logic, studies point to this. People are still too focused on the acute phase of COVID (rightly so considering how it behaved in early 2020.) But it gets everywhere through the body and causes myriad downstream issues we still don't understand.

Here's one about neurological effects and how severity or vaccination doesn't affect outcome:

https://news.nm.org/new-research-finds-covid-19-vaccination-prior-to-infection-does-not-affect-the-neurological-symptoms-of-long-covid

Here's one on how long-COVID appears to stem more from mild cases than acute ones:

https://www.govexec.com/management/2023/01/long-covid-stemmed-mild-cases-covid-19-most-people-according-new-multicountry-study/381491/

1

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '25

Scientific method. You are making an assumption

1

u/Think_Discipline_90 Feb 04 '25

I am, and so is he. Haven't tested either hypothesis, so it's best to assume vaccines still help.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '25

No. It's best not to assume and get proper studies done.

1

u/Think_Discipline_90 Feb 04 '25

Okay. Then stop taking vaccines until we have figured out the universe.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '25

[deleted]

1

u/Think_Discipline_90 Feb 04 '25

You know you're just being annoying and pedantic now. Probably mid college age?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '25

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1

u/fadingsignal Feb 04 '25

There was also some new information that vaccinated or not, severe or mild, didn't matter when it came to the neurological outcomes from COVID infections. Vaccines cut death/acute severity way down, but verdict is out on all of the other myriad damage COVID is still doing through the body. We don't know enough about COVID to let it rip like we did.

https://news.nm.org/new-research-finds-covid-19-vaccination-prior-to-infection-does-not-affect-the-neurological-symptoms-of-long-covid/

According to new research published in Brain Communications, Northwestern Medicine researchers found that vaccination prior to COVID-19 infection did not significantly affect neurological symptoms in long COVID patients, both in patients who had a severe infection that required hospitalization and those with a mild infection who did not require hospitalization. Common neurological symptoms of long COVID include brain fog, numbness and tingling, headache, dizziness, problems with smell and taste and intense fatigue.

2

u/ISB-Dev Feb 04 '25

I'm in the UK. We aren't offered the vaccine here unless you're elderly or "vulnerable".

-18

u/IBetYourReplyIsDumb Feb 03 '25

Vaccination is literally exposure to a mild form of COVID-19, that's what vaccines are, we should not assume that is a solution to this problem.

10

u/sbNXBbcUaDQfHLVUeyLx Feb 03 '25

Not all vaccines work this way. Some, like yellow fever, use a live but weakened virus. The MRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna 'rona vaccines), for instance, target a specific marker protein on the virus.

2

u/JackBinimbul Feb 04 '25

That is not how MRNA vaccines work.

-21

u/DELETE_ALL_CEO Feb 03 '25

doesn't the vaccine give you covid? Like pretty sure when we all got the shot the first time we all got sick from it. I'm not anti vax and got mine...but still makes me wonder was the vax or covid the reason for the cognitive problems...

20

u/Imaginary_Agent2564 Feb 03 '25

No. The COVID vaccine isn’t an inactive vaccine (killed virus) or live attenuated (weakened but live virus) vaccine, it’s an mRNA vaccine. They teach the body to make proteins to trigger an immune response the second they catch that virus in the body.

-10

u/catinterpreter Feb 03 '25

For all we know, the immune response may cause the damage.

8

u/token_internet_girl Feb 03 '25

If that were true, then we'd only be seeing this protein result in vaccinated people. The study included both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.

2

u/JackBinimbul Feb 04 '25

No. It is not a dead or live vaccine. It's an MRNA vaccine, which is completely different.

You also didn't technically get sick from the vaccine. Your immune system simply responded to what it was supposed to respond to.

-106

u/yanyosuten Feb 03 '25 edited Feb 03 '25

Stop speaking folksy, it's creepy. Especially when advocating for pharmaceutical companies, they are fully capable of doing that themselves. 

Edit: Sorry y'all, I'm hecking sorry! Y'all so down to earth and cool I now see the error of my ways. I will keep my message up to serve as an example to any other people that could shudder  object to creepy folksy messages promoting novel treatments developed by for-profit companies which are exempt from compensation for any damages caused by said treatment (which don't happen, but if they do - it's a good thing). 

66

u/somethingsomethingbe Feb 03 '25

Recommending vaccination isn’t pharmaceutical company propaganda.

-46

u/yanyosuten Feb 03 '25

Who said it was?

31

u/re1078 Feb 03 '25

Y’all is a perfectly good contraction. It’s not folksy.

-50

u/yanyosuten Feb 03 '25

Why shucks, y'all is right, it's creepy corpo speak in 2025.

Get signed up for the military, y'all! Dems bombs ain't gonna drop themselves! 

26

u/_JudgeDoom_ Feb 03 '25

Are you okay?

1

u/JonBot5000 Feb 03 '25

You've picked a bizarre hill to die on here. It's a very urban word too. All y'all cray-cray if you think dif'rent.