Todd S

If you enjoyed the previously posted Medcram lectures (with critical care specialist Roger Seheult, MD.) — Updates 61, 63, and 65 — then you’re also likely to enjoy these Updates 67 and 68: Coronavirus Pandemic Update 67: COVID-19 Blood Clots - Race, Blood Types, & Von Willebrand Factor Coronavirus Pandemic Update 68: Kawasaki Disease; Minority Groups & COVID-19

That's an interesting response -- in that it appears that you and I are focused on different things. You seem more interested in the lockdown decisions and impacts from the lockdowns than you are in the evolving science -- other than just epidemiology -- of how SARS-COV-2 affects the human body. So you tend to redirect conversation in the direction of the former (the politics/impacts). I'm more interested in the evolving science -- and tend to redirect conversation in that direction. Based on everything I've read so far, I'm concerned about the increased risk from SARS-COV-2 to the life of everyone I know -- and there are things that I can personally do to mitigate some of that risk. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be anything that I can do about the lockdown-related decisions.

Ron Put, Your comments on the COVID-19-related statistics have seemed consistent over time. I previously asked you a couple of simple questions in order to better understand your viewpoint -- and I thank you for the responses that you provided. The one question I posed to you that went unanswered is one that I'm still interested in your viewpoint on. That is, if you've viewed the previously posted Medcram lectures (with critical care specialist Roger Seheult, MD.) — Coronavirus Pandemic Updates 61, 63, and 65 -- do you still think that COVID-19 is not significantly different from the flu?

If you enjoyed this previously posted Medcram lecture (with critical care specialist Roger Seheult, MD.) — Coronavirus Pandemic Update 61: Blood Clots & Strokes in COVID-19; ACE-2 Receptor; Oxidative Stress — then you’re also likely to enjoy the updates 63 and 65: Update 63. This 26-minute lecture shows an hypothesis explaining increased cardiovascular complications with COVID-19. Coronavirus Pandemic Update 63: Is COVID-19 a Disease of the Endothelium (Blood Vessels and Clots)? Update 65. This 20-minute lecture goes into further detail on how someone with existing oxidative stress can do poorly with COVID-19. It was at first thought that there would be an increase in hospitalizations of patients with existing lung conditions (asthma, COPD, Obstructive Sleep Apnea) and COVID-19. But that doesn’t appear to be the case so much as it is for patients with hypertension, CAD, CHF, or obesity — because of the pre-existing oxidative stress with those conditions. Coronavirus Pandemic Update 65: COVID-19 and Oxidative Stress (Prevention & Risk Factors)

Ron, If you have watched the entire "Corona Virus Pandemic Update 61" Medcram video that Dean posted above, why do you think that Dr. Seheult would characterize the effects of COVID-19 as being so unusual?

Ron, Did those 1957-1958 and 1968-1969 numbers cover a period of one or two years each? If so, does that mean that we won't get a fair comparison until an equivalent duration has elapsed with the existence of SARS-CoV2?

Ron, Separate from politics and past statistics for COVID-19, is there a future threshold beyond which you would decide that COVID-19 might be significantly more serious than the flu? [For example, U.S. deaths assigned to COVID-19 by Aug 4.]

TomB, Strength can be increased without always going to failure -- of completing a rep or completing a specific time under tension. Going to failure is useful in determining current limitation. But for progression of workouts I think it is best to choose a number of sets and a number of reps (or time) per set such that failure is not reached. With the right choice, the workout initially is probably not easy. Over a period of weeks -- it should become easier -- and the number of sets and reps/time can then be adjusted to progress in strength. Most of us get stiffer with age. Flexibility (range of motion of joints) and mobility (strength within the range of motion) are important in terms of avoiding injury. At 73, I find that I need to spend a lot more time on flexibility exercises and mobility exercises than when I was younger. I've been going to the same gym for 36 years now -- participating in the noontime cardio-mix (i.e., aerobic dance) class 3 times per week. For many years, if I had sufficient time I used strength machines before the class. But now for strength exercises I prefer mostly bodyweight gymnastic fundamentals -- mostly targeting core and upper body. Hollow body rocks and arch body rocks, for example, are something I do every time as part of my warmup. I also do deck squats. The major pain that I experience regularly is related to having had torn cartilage removed from my left knee almost 40 years ago. The tear was likely from skiing during high school years. I managed the knee lockup issue without surgery for many years -- until the time when I was unable to straighten my leg for more than 3 hours. Left knee pain has worsened in recent years -- to the point that I usually can't jump without pain -- and I sometimes need to pause for a short time if I notice pain with every walking step. The class that I take involves a fair amount of hopping on one foot -- which I can usually do -- but sometimes I do get sore feet. --Todd

Well, I've seen ACSVD (atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease) indicated as cause of death on a death certificate. That seems more like just a disease process to me. I presume that this indicates that the autopsy was only looking for likely death by natural causes.

mccoy -- FYI, Out of curiosity I looked up the negative review commenter -- and I think that castaliarachelfrancon.academia.edu describes her research interests and writings (among other things).

Hi mccoy, I included that negative comment for TomB's enjoyment -- and the possibility that he'd run across it himself anyway (if he followed up by looking at the web site that I pointed to). At the time I looked, that was the only comment posted. I didn't attempt to do any searches to get information about the reviewer. I thought it was a poorly crafted comment. That negative comment seems irrelevant to my already expressed expectations for the Dreem 2. If the device is indeed sufficiently more comfortable than the Dreem 1, then I'll have good use for it.

If you go to dreem.com/en/research near the bottom of the page it lists Scientific papers & publications. These page include: The Dreem Headband as an Alternative to Polysomnography for EEG Signal Acquisition and Sleep Staging Pierrick J. Arnal1,􏰀, Valentin Thorey2, Michael E. Ballard1, Albert Bou Hernandez2, Antoine Guillot2, Hugo Jourde2, Mason Harris2, Mathias Guillard3, Pascal Van Beers3, Mounir Chennaoui3, and Fabien Sauvet3 1Dreem, Science Team, New York, USA 2Dreem, Algorithm Team, Paris, France 3French Armed Forces Biomedical Research Institute (IRBA), Fatigue and Vigilance Unit, Bretigny sur Orge, France; EA 7330 VIFASOM, Paris Descartes University, Paris, France Abstract Despite the central role of sleep in our lives and the high prevalence of sleep disorders, sleep is still poorly understood. The development of ambulatory technologies capable of monitoring brain activity during sleep longitudinally is critical to advancing sleep science and facilitating the diagnosis of sleep disorders. We introduced the Dreem headband (DH) as an affordable, comfortable, and user-friendly alternative to polysomnography (PSG). The purpose of this study was to assess the signal acquisition of the DH and the performance of its embedded automatic sleep staging algorithms compared to the gold-standard clinical PSG scored by 5 sleep experts. Thirty-one subjects completed an over-night sleep study at a sleep center while wearing both a PSG and the DH simultaneously. We assessed 1) the EEG signal quality between the DH and the PSG, 2) the heart rate, breathing frequency, and respiration rate variability (RRV) agreement between the DH and the PSG, and 3) the performance of the DH’s automatic sleep staging according to AASM guidelines vs. PSG sleep experts manual scoring. Results demonstrate a strong correlation between the EEG signals acquired by the DH and those from the PSG, and the signals acquired by the DH enable monitoring of alpha (r= 0.71 ± 0.13), beta (r= 0.71 ± 0.18), delta (r = 0.76 ± 0.14), and theta (r = 0.61 ± 0.12) frequencies during sleep. The mean absolute error for heart rate, breathing frequency and RRV was 1.2 ± 0.5 bpm, 0.3 ± 0.2 cpm and 3.2 ± 0.6 %, respectively. Automatic Sleep Staging reached an overall accuracy of 83.5 ± 6.4% (F1 score : 83.8 ± 6.3) for the DH to be compared with an average of 86.4 ± 8.0% (F1 score: 86.3 ± 7.4) for the five sleep experts. These results demonstrate the capacity of the DH to both precisely monitor sleep-related physiological signals and process them accurately into sleep stages. This device paves the way for high-quality, large-scale, longitudinal sleep studies. -- and with a negative review comment as follows: Castalia Francon 2 months ago Unfortunately the DREEM people do not reveal exactly how precise or nuanced EEG signal they measure, in terms of the architecture of the different periods. The EEG technology used in a typical sleep lab is many decades old and often of little use in understanding the specifics, for example in a nonREM period that would indicates, "spindles" or 'ripples" or gamma waves" or do any analysis on the meaning of the different patterns other some unspecified pattern exists. For those wishing to know nothing more than a crude EEG sleep lab overnight would provide the DREEM seems useless. The few studies on memory enhancement, etc are not convincing and apparently without basis in their assumptions. But if you want to time travel back to the technology of a few decades ago and feel good about that, well what's another $500..??? ;0

Hi Mike, I don't know what your expectations for the Dreem 1 were, but mine were for it to provide objective information that would be useful in evaluating the results of self-experiments on factors that might affect my sleep. It does provide that.

With a web search, you can find some reviews of the Dreem 2. I think that the Dreem 1 was a great product except for the discomfort -- for a mostly side sleeper like me, at least. I ordered the Dreem 2 -- after exchanging some messages with Dreem support about the changes. The Dreem 2 is touted as much more comfortable than the Dreem 1, but the deep brain stimulation feature is disabled with the Dreem 2 in the U.S. market. [It still works with the Dreem 1 -- and with the Dreem 2 in the European market.] The Dreem 2 is a registered medical device. The stimulation feature apparently didn't meet the FDA standards for proof of efficacy.

Gordo, I can confirm that plugging the USB connection from the CompCooler UniVest into an Apple 5 V charger instead of the 7.4 V battery still works for running the water circulation pump.