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Crémieux

May 28

The Floyd Effect had precedent.

In Baltimore, the death of Freddie Gray came with a large and immediate uptick in the number of homicides.

Police pulled back right away.

The arrest rate plummeted.

The number of shootings soared far beyond what had happened in recent years.

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The revolution in organ transplants is here thanks to gene editing.

A 62-year-old man on dialysis needed a new kidney. Doctors implanted him with a pig's kidney that had been given 69 edits to be human-compatible.

He immediately stopped needing dialysis.

This man was insanely unhealthy before and after the operation, but at least the organ transplant worked.

On day eight he had his only hiccup, a rejection episode that was easily overcome with a hit from some monoclonal antibodies and some corticosteroids.

For background on how insanely unhealthy this man was, just look at his prior history.

He did die 52 days after the operation, but it was still a success. He died from an unrelated heart attack, with no evidence of xenotransplant rejection, and he had stable kidney function.

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Crémieux

@cremieuxrecueil

May 25

It's often said that you can't see behavioral phenotypes, but that's just not true.

BMI is a well-known behavioral phenotype that you can see.

Like other behavioral traits, the BMI polygenic score is enriched for expression in brain tissue rather than, say, adipose tissue.

The chart above was a 2020 replication of a 2015 result:

That result also replicated in another 2020 study:

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Crémieux

@cremieuxrecueil

May 24

High schoolers think it's funny to self-report being transgender.

This makes estimates of trans percentages and other stats unreliable.

Students who self-report as trans also frequently report being blind 7-foot-tall crackheads who belong to a gang and never visit the dentist.

The study is from 2014, and of course, we might "know" (who can say, given the nutty response patterns?) that transgender numbers have greatly increased since then.

In a 2017 follow-up it was found that the issue remained.

Cutting out just the most obvious "mischievous responders" halved the rates of "LGBQ-Heterosexual disparity" in 20 a composite of 20 different health measures.

This one didn't deal with trans identity so much, but it's probably even more affected than general gay results.

Read 9 tweets

Crémieux

@cremieuxrecueil

May 22

Statins work by inhibiting the HMG-CoA reductase enzyme. Variations in the HMGCR gene work by affecting HMG-CoA reductase enzymatic activity.

The metabolic effect of variation in HMGCR and of taking statins is virtually identical.

This gives us a great natural experiment🧵

If you're wondering about the effects of taking statins over long periods of time, look no further than people with genetically low cholesterol due to variants in HMGCR.

Compared to starting statins later in life, those with genetically low LDL have 3x lower heart disease risk!

Not only that, but the safety profile of low LDL is phenomenal.

People with low LDL do as well or better on most health dimensions.

So, TL;DR: It's great and statins are safe. Thank you, genetic freaks.

Read 14 tweets

Crémieux

@cremieuxrecueil

May 21

Is red meat good for your heart? The answer depends on who you ask.

If you ask someone paid by the meat industry, they say it's good for you, or at least neutral.

If you ask a financially independent researcher, they say it's neutral, or more likely harmful.

This happens all over the place.

For example, when studying mindfulness, as a group, only authors who, say, offer mindfulness courses, speaking arrangements, and have book deals publish positive effects.

https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1860039646115483701

Or as another example, member when people were debating banning gas stoves? The authors of the key study on asthma were conflicted.

Their conclusions were also invalid. Maybe that's coincidental, but I doubt it.

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