Originally Posted By TugOfPeace⏩

Originally Posted By iwant2beswole⏩

Originally Posted By TugOfPeace⏩

Originally Posted By Underwrought⏩

Originally Posted By pogue⏩

Originally Posted By TonyTriangles⏩

CAVEATS: Adverse effects, long-term use may create problems
In this meta-analysis, side effects from zinc were common. The 2 most frequently reported were bad taste (pooled odds ratio [OR], 2.64; 95% CI, 1.91-3.64) and nausea (pooled OR, 2.15; 95% CI, 1.44-3.23). When you recommend zinc, warn your patients about these adverse effects. The side effects are not severe, so patients can decide for themselves whether the benefit of a reduction in cold duration is worth the downside of nausea and a bad taste in the mouth.

It is also important to note that the trials included in the meta-analysis enrolled healthy children and adults ≤65 years old. Whether zinc benefits people with chronic illnesses (eg, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) who develop colds is unknown.

Prolonged elevated serum zinc levels can interfere with copper metabolism, and the adverse effects of long-term use of zinc as prophylaxis are unknown. The trials included in the meta-analysis took place in relatively affluent countries in which zinc deficiency is uncommon. It is not known what impact zinc supplementation would have on people in poor countries.

Originally Posted By pogue⏩

Originally Posted By Underwrought⏩

Why all the Dread?
So why is there so much dread around COVID-19? Because most humans don’t go through a 3,200 word analysis of virus structures, known data, and ambiguity scenario forecasting before reaching a decision on how to feel. They mainly ask: “does this thing scare me or not?” Part of the fear factor of COVID-19 is that as humans we often use heuristic short-cuts to evaluate risk because it’s cognitively easier than the above exercise. And COVID-19 is hitting a lot of those buttons.

Crowding-Out Effect: We begin with the two shouting voices in our head. Without practice and training it’s easy at points of high emotion for that very loud voice to ‘crowd out’ rational thinking.(8)

Repetitive Exposure: The more stories we see on a topic the more we think it’s an important thing to pay attention too. And right now, media channels are saturated with COVID-19 reporting. We here at the InfoMullet are proud to say, “I’m doing my part!”(8)

Novelty: We pay more attention to threats that are new than threats we are familiar with. As discussed above COVID-19 may be less, about the same, or worse than a regular flu season. And all estimates are much less than the normal leading causes of death in the United States: cancer, heart disease, diabetes etc. Beginning Friday night Turkey and Syria started a regional-power conflict in Syria and I still can’t get anyone to notice. Why? Because we’ve been hearing about war in Syria for eight years now, and even though this state-on-state conflict is substantively different our minds tune it out. (But if you want to know more check out this 1hr ******** live video where I explained the situation, context and regional actors. We’re also tracking daily updates over on the InfoMullet.)

Involuntary Risk: When we are not able to voluntarily accept a risk, it is forced upon us, we can evaluate that risk up to a 1,000 worse. (8) Walking the plank 20-30’ above the water is a punishment in a pirate movie but leaping out of a perfectly good airplane 10,000’ up is a sign of adventure. Because the former is forced on us and not the latter.

Exotic Effect: In the United States we have a bad habit of ‘othering’ anything that comes from a foreign land. Sometimes this is silly, like our fondness for Acacia berries as health miracles because we imagine them being grown on some exotic mountain slope in South America versus the blackberries that grow in the stickers out back. In many other cases this is exotic effect is based on historical racism of seeing the ‘foreign other’ as barbarous, sinister or dangerous. The virus originating in China has triggered this exotic effect. Imagine for instead this was named the Ankeny, Iowa Virus, later renamed by the WHO “Oh for the Fun-19.” No one care. Because no one ever cares what happens in Ankeny, Iowa and for good reason.

Stock Market Effect: In most developed countries the level of that nation’s key stock market indices serves as a barometer of confidence in the state of things. This varies by country, and as I’ve stated before, stock market values are not reliable indicators of the economy. But as a short-hand measure, there’s few things more accessible that will be regularly reported to large populations than stock market movements. And because COVID-19 is causing a shock to the global market system the stock market indicators have been flashing “Panic! Panic! Panic!” all week. Because the stock-market effect is in a different area: economics vs. health it can be mistaken as a corroboration from an independent source of concern.

The result of all these cognitive triggers going off at once is the shouting voice takes the wheel and we make rash, uninformed, and unhelpful decisions. Take for instance the run on purchasing medical masks. The irony here is that medical masks don’t really protect one from getting infected, you need a respirator for that. And unless you’re actually trained on how to use the mask, or respirator properly, it won’t work. These devices are intended for use by the infected, and the healthcare workers supporting them, who are trained in their use and most at risk of exposure. (9)

It got so bad that over the weekend the Surgeon General had to plead with Americans not to buy the thing that wouldn’t help so there would be some leftover for when it was needed.(10) Because although there are many other valid reasons for using medical masks at the margins, it’s a good bet that people who are deciding to buy them as a fear response, and then forget they have them or forget to use them or use them wrong aren’t just harming themselves. Those supplies are not going to be available to the healthcare workers, infected and population segments that do have valid reasons to use them. And this run on supplies is just one example of an unintended consequence of a fear response run amok.

Originally Posted By iwant2beswole⏩

Originally Posted By Underwrought⏩

Originally Posted By Underwrought⏩

Originally Posted By Underwrought⏩

Originally Posted By pogue⏩

Originally Posted By Anachron⏩

Originally Posted By TheHaws⏩

In China, a study is under way to see if high doses of vitamin C can help fight off coronavirus (officially known as COVID-19). Scientists at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University are testing its effects on 120 patients who have the virus, giving them daily infusions of 24g of vitamin C for seven days. Results have not yet been published.

The dosage being used in China is around 60 times as much as the NHS daily recommended amount and 24 times the amount trialled against colds in reviews by Cochrane.

In tests, vitamin C has worked against every virus — if given in sufficient concentration, says Dr Levy.

Dr Mike Skinner, a virologist at Imperial College London, says we won’t know vitamin C’s value against coronavirus for some time, and says the dose being tested is ‘massive’. ‘They’re doing the trial,’ says Dr Skinner ‘Let’s see if it has any benefit.’

Originally Posted By TaeBoNinja⏩

Originally Posted By pogue⏩

Originally Posted By TheHaws⏩

Originally Posted By Dalovsky⏩

Originally Posted By XterraRob⏩

Originally Posted By LovePollution⏩

Originally Posted By pogue⏩

Originally Posted By pogue⏩

Originally Posted By XterraRob⏩

Originally Posted By TaeBoNinja⏩