Biological age acceleration from COVID-19

This study is a year old, but just wondering if anyone who’s had COVID has any before vs after results on any of the popular aging-marker tests?

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Interesting finding. There’s long covid, and VERY long covid.

They used some very funky DNA measuring algorithm, not familiar with it, nor did I dive into why this was chosen (emailed authors). What would phenoage have shown?

4.5. DNAmAge Estimation

Bekaert’s algorithm was applied to estimate the biological age of the population [20] as reported in Daunay et al. [31]:

26.44119 − 0.201902 × ASPA − 0.239205 × EDARADD + 0.0063745 × ELOVL22 + 0.6352654 × PDE4C

A lot of inter-person variation in the data, some VERY high COVID-19+ aging results. Aged 20 yrs from COVID?

And on telomeres,

“TL shortening has been reported as a risk factor for developing more severe COVID19 syndrome. The correlation between DeltaAge distribution and TL indicates that post-COVID19 survivors compared with the COVID-free group, have shorter telomeres independent of an accelerated DeltaAge, suggesting that these two parameters might be regulated independently.”

When I did my epigenetic age test two weeks after I got my COVID booster, my epigenetic age was 19 years higher than my chronological age. The lab blamed the booster shot.

8 months later, no COVID, and my epigenetic age was only 12 years higher than my chronological age. I also started taking Rapamycin during the time between tests.

I wish I had measured my epigenetic age before I had any COVID shots, but alas…

My Aging.Ai blood test shows me 19 years younger than my biological age. My Levine blood test shows me 11 years younger than my biological age. Which test is accurate? Who knows? I feel great though.

If a shot or disease can influence your epigenetic age by that much, it makes you wonder how trustworthy these epigenetic tests are. I believe that right now, epigenetic tests are a measure of homeostasis and not really an age test.

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These people did not have “mild” covid, they all had a covid diagnosis in their record which means that they for some reason consulted a doctor. Most people just test positive and don’t bother consulting their doctor. Also the paper doesn’t make any distinction between vaccination status, the more shots you get the more likely you are to test positive for covid

There is a paper that measured vo2max before and after vaccination in younger athletes, there was a marked reduction in vo2max post vaccination. Vo2max of course correlates pretty well to life expectancy. I do not have time to find the article right now though

The paper doesn’t mention vaccination status because that is irrelevant. The thought that the more vaccines shots that you have taken the more likely you are to contact Covid is complete bollocks.

“death rises markedly with repeat COVID-19 infection.”
Does this mean that the people who caught Covid-19 did not develop any immunity and caught it again? That those people who had the vaccine still caught covid in large numbers?
That the actual effectiveness of the vaccines wasn’t that great?

You can see why people are so conflicted.

FWIW: I had 3 shots of the Pfizer vaccine, 2 plus 1 booster.

https://scholar.google.nl/scholar_url?url=https://www.medrxiv.org/content/medrxiv/early/2022/12/19/2022.12.17.22283625.full.pdf&hl=nl&sa=X&ei=pW-0Y6eJH7iVy9YPs4i3gAs&scisig=AAGBfm1uv6-r_cI7q6GxR9_fiWFmnWQW9w&oi=scholarr

The virus keeps evolving, so it’s still fairly easy to catch even if vacc’d/boosted and/or previously infected. Risk of death and severe disease go way down after vaccination. It appears that risk of death/severe disease goes up with repeated infection, despite the immune boost given from prior infection(s), likely due to the actual damage done to organs from those infections.

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“The virus keeps evolving,”
Look, I am not anti-vaccine, but I am wondering if the risk-reward ratio of repeated boosters is worth it.
I have had annual flu shots for many decades and have never had the flu during that time. The flu vaccines do not seem to have the very serious side effects some have with the Covid-19 vaccines.

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IMO, the tiny risks associated with COVID vaccines and boosters is far, far outweighed by the known protection they afford.

Even a seatbelt or airbag can kill you in a car accident. I still use both.

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People forget that the vaccines were approved to reduce the incidence of serious illness, requiring hospitalization and death. The phase 3 trials did not evaluate whether they would prevent people from contacting Covid nor would that have been even possible had they tried. The excess mortality rates are higher in states with low vaccination rates.

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The interesting thing is that primary reason the Novartis rapalog phase 3 trial failed was that it chose the wrong endpoint. If its endpoint had been the reduction of hospitalization and death, the trial would have been successful.

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Does it make sense to keep having boosters?

The boosters prevent the damage done by the disease in moderate to severe cases. I would say it makes sense to get boosters. Which do you fear more, potential damage done by a vaccine or potential damage from the disease?

COVID is so contagious, you cannot avoid it completely or forever. The best you can hope for is to fight it off by preparing your body.

Just remember that a Vitamin D deficiency will make COVID far worse. So make sure to take 4,000 IU of Vitamin D daily if you are concerned about COVID as about 50% of the population is deficient in Vitamin D.

“Latest variants mostly evade vaccines.”

The latest variants can partially evade the antibodies produced by the vaccine, but the variants don’t evade the 2nd line of defense produced by the vaccines (T-cells and B-cells), which is why vaccinated people have much less risk of severe disease and death.

“One theory says vaccines permit covid to hide in gut, & re-appear months, to years later. And make long-covid more likely”

More anti-vacc propaganda. All evidence to date points to lower risk of long COVID after vaccination:
Impact of COVID-19 vaccination on the risk of developing long-COVID and on existing long-COVID symptoms: A systematic review - eClinicalMedicine

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I have to agree with Davin8r. To be vaccinated is better than not. Case in point:

Right now, COVID is raging through Mainland China with about 209,000 deaths since December 1st.

They expect 1.7 million deaths by April.

Most people have not gotten a vaccine because:

  1. Elderly are afraid of taking the vaccine. Most of them are now dying from COVID.
  2. A reliance on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)
  3. mRNA vaccines are not available and the traditional vaccines are crap.

Please say a prayer for them as they will need it. Corpses are piling up at the crematoriums and the fees for disposing of bodies have gone up 500% due to the high demand.

Davin8r is spot on. I think most studies conclude that it is important to have at least one booster shot. I have actually had three. I am not sure that is necessary, however. Part of my rationale for the last one was that I wanted to have one shot while I was taking rapamycin.

I find long Covid to be very scary. As you say, it affects all age groups and multiple infections seem to increase the risk. It can also trigger Epstein-Barr and other dormant viruses.

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