Bird Flu: Children At High Risk; Older Adults Not So Much

In this week’s news roundup…

Children at highest risk for bird flu

When a new infectious disease comes out, we get used to hearing the usual refrain, “children, the elderly, those with compromised immune systems” are those considered at greatest risk, and therefore first in line for vaccines.

In this case, however, it seems that older adults appear to be rather more resilient to bird flu than children, and it’s noted that early childhood influenza exposure can elicit immune responses that last a lifetime. For those whose lifetime was not curtailed by the initial infection, that means they may enjoy extra defenses now.

You may be wondering whether this headline statement is just a hypothesis based on that, and no, it’s not. It’s a (albeit tentative, like most things in any emerging science, as responses to a novel infection will always be) conclusion based on blood samples from a little over 150 people born between 1927 and 2026 (so, quite a range), and examining the antibodies found therein; adults born prior to 1968 are the ones who are most likely to have been exposed to H1N1 or H2N2 in childhood, resulting in them now having antibodies that work against the H5N1 virus (but still, by all means please do take all sensible precautions anyway!):

Read in full: Older adults might be more resistant to bird flu infections than children, research finds

Related: What you need to know about H5N1 bird flu

GLP-1 Receptor Agonists? They work, but at what cost?

We’re not talking about the side effects this time! Nor even the “what happens if you stop taking it” problems.

Rather, the “cost” in this case is the literal financial cost; out of a selection of weight loss drugs examined, semaglutide (such as Ozempic and Wegovy) and tirzepatide (such as Zepbound and Eli Lilly) were the only ones deemed to not be cost-effective for patients:

Read in full: Semaglutide, tirzepatide not deemed cost-effective obesity therapies despite benefits

Related: Most People Who Start GLP-1 RAs Quit Them Within A Year (Here’s Why)

Inflammation now, brittle bones later

Chronic inflammation is a root cause of many diseases (due in part to how it weakens the immune system, but also because of how the body functions so badly in general when it’s constantly at war with itself, as is the case in chronic inflammation), and it worsens many diseases that it doesn’t outright cause.

In this case, the new science is that chronic inflammation also makes changes to bone density over time.

Spoiler: the changes are not good changes

Furthermore, this holds true for young people also, not just people in the usual demographic that one would expect for brittle bones (especially: older women with untreated menopause, but also just anyone older than middle-aged in general, as most people start losing about 1% of bone density per year after their mid-30s).

Read in full: Inflammation proteins linked to bone density changes over time

Related: The Bare-Bones Truth About Osteoporosis

Take care!