jedimentat

There are many sterile stories about the farm crisis, and what tariffs and war have done to exacerbate it. If you read one story on the subject, it should be this one, about the final days of a multi-generational family farm. It'll rip your heart out. nytimes.com/2026/05/03/us/… via @NYTimes

@catladyactivist Same re: my connective tissue; massive MCAS reactions for a year after an infection, and then a hip replacement. Looking at hip #2 this year. #maskup #covidisnotover

Covid #1: took me 2 years to get remotely close to my baseline. Shingles twice. Covid #2: took me 2 years to get to 70-75% of baseline, left my connective tissue in ruins, led to near-unalive level 🩸 loss. I now function at maybe 35-40% of my pre-Covid normal, on my best days.

Lactobacillus crispatus is in the news since this billionaire decided to study his girlfriend's flora and claimed it to be in the global top 1%. His findings cannot be denied entirely. Scientists have studied this and found that the lactic acid produced by it can inactivate HIV in laboratory settings (in vitro). Later studies have confirmed that vaginal health is not about diversity but about dominance — dominance of a single species of bacteria called Lactobacillus crispatus. In 1953, two French microbiologists named Brygoo and Aladame isolated a small, curled bacterium and gave it the Latin name crispatus, meaning curled. For decades it was largely ignored. Then came the genomics revolution, and with it, a startling realisation: this quiet organism was, in fact, the guardian of the female reproductive tract. In 2011, Jacques Ravel and colleagues sequenced the vaginal bacteria of nearly four hundred women and discovered that the healthiest vaginas were not the most diverse. They were the ones dominated by a single species, Lactobacillus crispatus. This bacterium produces lactic acid and surface proteins that work together in two ways. It lowers the vaginal environment to a pH so acidic that HIV, herpes simplex virus, and bacterial pathogens struggle to survive. It also releases proteins that actively calm local inflammation rather than merely suppress it. Women colonised by this organism have lower rates of bacterial vaginosis, sexually transmitted infections, and preterm birth. A clinical trial published recently showed that it even helped clear high-risk human papillomavirus, the virus responsible for most cervical cancers. Scientists are now exploring the therapeutic potential of this bacterium. The leading candidate, LACTIN-V, contains live L. crispatus CTV-05 and has already demonstrated in a randomised controlled trial that it significantly reduces bacterial vaginosis recurrence. Trials are now underway for preterm birth prevention, HIV risk reduction, and HPV clearance, with a phase 3 study planned and potential regulatory approval on the horizon. What began as a footnote in a 1953 taxonomy paper may become one of the most important therapeutic tools in women's health.

Some days, parenting in a pandemic feels like holding two worlds at once—
protecting their health, while trying not to dim their joy. We rewrite “normal” on the fly, stitch together small moments of magic,
and call it enough. We keep swimming, even when it’s hard.

My EMERGENCY Contacts: Urea — In times of dryness and flakiness. ​Niacinamide — In times of redness and an angry barrier. ​Salicylic Acid — In times of stubborn congestion and breakouts. Ceramides — In times of a damaged, compromised barrier. Retinoid — In times of dullness and fine lines. Lactic Acid — In times of rough texture and surface buildup. ​Azelaic Acid — In times of persistent dark marks and stubborn redness. ​Squalane — In times when oils feel too heavy but moisture is gone. Panthenol — In times of stinging and raw irritation. Centella Asiatica — In times of intense inflammation and heat.

Four years ago we begged the world to close the sky over us. The world watched us bury our children instead. Every Shahed we now know how to intercept - we learned on a Ukrainian grave. Today the world asks us to close their sky. We will. For a price. Ours has already been paid. No invoice can match it. united24media.com/business/ukrai…

The county just mowed the roadside in June, and an entire generation of monarch caterpillars went with it. In a lot of America, the strip of grass and wildflowers along rural roads is the last place milkweed still grows. Farm fields got sprayed. Suburbs got paved. The roadside ditch is where ground-nesting bobolinks, meadowlarks, pheasants, and bumblebee queens raise their young because almost nothing else is left. June and early July are peak nesting season. They are also when most counties run their mowers. A pheasant nest in early July still has eggs in it 21% of the time. A monarch caterpillar in June is 11 days from becoming a butterfly. The mower doesn't know. The mower keeps going. But there's a fix. Counties that delay roadside mowing until after July 15, mow at higher cutting heights (8–12 inches), use flushing bars on equipment, and target only the visibility-critical edges instead of the entire shoulder have seen big results. Iowa, Minnesota, and Washington have programs along these lines. Most states don't. If you live in a county that mows everything in June, call your county supervisor. Ask for a mowing delay until late summer. Most rural counties have never heard the request and would consider it. The roadside isn't a lawn. It's the last refuge for a lot of species we keep wondering why we don't see anymore.

Current status and future perspectives on the mechanistic and pathophysiological understanding of long COVID 🚨JUST DROPPED YESTERDAY and rips open the black box of Long COVID: Viral persistence up to at least 24 months. Fibrin microclots that laugh at fibrinolysis. Autoimmune storm. Mitochondrial sabotage. An up-to-date full mechanistic map is finally here! No more guessing. This changes everything, let’s dig into this overview👇, better yet…..read it yourself!! #MustRead ➡️Global Impact & Context: - Long COVID (PASC) affects >400 million people worldwide, incurring >$1 trillion in annual economic costs, - Core symptoms, debilitating fatigue, cognitive dysfunction (“brain fog”), sleep disturbances, and post-exertional malaise (PEM) in 50–80% of cases, persist months to years’ post-infection, with a mechanistic overlap to ME/CFS, ➡️Core Mechanisms: 1. Immune Dysregulation: - Persistent systemic inflammation features elevated cytokines (IL-6, TNF-α, IL-1β) detectable up to 14 months, driving T-cell exhaustion (reduced CD8+ IFN-γ/TNF-α production) and monocyte activation (COX-2, IL-8Rβ, CXCR6), - Autoantibodies (anti-GPCR, anti-PITX2, anti-FBXO2, ANA/ENA) persist 12–14 months and correlate directly with fatigue, dyspnoea, palpitations, and cognitive impairment with molecular mimicry, gut dysbiosis and latent herpesvirus reactivation (EBV, HHV-6) amplifying autoimmunity, 2. Viral Persistence & Reactivation: - SARSCoV2 RNA, spike protein, and antigens remain detectable in brain, muscle, gut and plasma up to 14–24 months in ~60% of cases, fuelling chronic low-grade inflammation, - EBV/CMV reactivation signatures are common with spatial transcriptomics highlighted as a possible next tool to map tissue reservoirs, 3. Endothelial/Microvascular Pathology: - Glycocalyx shedding (elevated SDC-1), capillary rarefaction and endothelin-1 elevation create a pro-thrombotic state, - Platelet hyperactivation releases vWF/FVIII, forming anomalous fibrin(ogen) microclots that resist fibrinolysis and these circulate and fragment during exertion, causing hypoxia, ischaemia-reperfusion injury, and PEM, 4. Autonomic Dysfunction: - Present in ~50% of patients (POTS predominant), driven by hypovolaemia (70%), small-fibre neuropathy (20–40%), vagus-nerve damage and microclot-induced compensatory tachycardia with 4-fold norepinephrine spikes, 5. Mitochondrial Impairment & Neuroinflammation: - Skeletal-muscle biopsies show reduced respiration, cytochrome c oxidase activity and WASF3-mediated supercomplex disruption, producing rapid lactate rise and PEM within 48 h, - Systemic cytokines breach the blood–brain barrier, sustaining microglial activation and cognitive sequelae, ➡️Diagnostic & Therapeutic Gaps: - No validated biomarkers or subtype-specific criteria exist. - Graded exercise is contraindicated. - Observational promise exists for IVIg, low-dose naltrexone and apheresis, but large RCTs are urgently required. ➡️Future Priorities: Calls for subtype-specific research, large-scale RCTs, advanced techniques (spatial transcriptomics, proteomics), and interdisciplinary collaboration to develop precision diagnostics and therapies. ‼️This exceptional review delivers a masterful, evidence-based roadmap that not only clarifies Long COVID’s complex pathophysiology but stimulates the scientific community toward urgently needed mechanistic breakthroughs and effective, patient-centred interventions. ‼️Bottom line: Long COVID is not a single disease but a complex, multisystem condition that can impact your life seriously! #AvoidSars2 #AvoidReinfections A huge thanks to all authors, @DrMark_Faghy @DavidJoffe64 @PutrinoLab @DaniBeckman @resiapretorius @Sunny_Rae1 are only some of them!👏👏 nature.com/articles/s4385…

― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Sensible Thing

Millennial/Gen X daughters are facing massive economic disadvantages because of the expectation they’ll be responsible for eldercare, even if there’s other siblings or it’s their in-laws. Anecdotally, this feels true and wholly depressing

4/7 1. Quantitative MRI perfusion (qMRI or arterial spin labeling). Measures cerebral blood flow regionally. Hypoperfusion in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus shows up here when the standard MRI is clean. This is the test that catches the flow problem behind brain fog.

2/7 A standard MRI measures brain structure. Tissue density. Lesion presence. Ventricle size. It does not measure cerebral blood flow at the level where cognition happens. It does not measure mitochondrial density. It does not measure autonomic regulation of cerebrovascular tone.

The second longest lasting was the XBB clan. It emerged around August of 2022 and lasted until early 2024. Again, here is the original RBD and the RBDs 17 months later. 3/

The longest running clan is the current one. BA.2.86 emerged around July 2023 and is still going strong. This is the RBD of the original BA.2.86, and some of its descendants from 17 months later. 2/

Finally online - sharing our findings that #Lyme disease bacteria can live in female reproductive organs for over a year and increase risk for gynecological disease!!! We found this increased risk in mice and humans! 😱 (thread below) medrxiv.org/content/10.110…

my therapist advised, "learn to calm your own storm instead of venting to others. it may feel therapeutic to let it all out, but you reinforce negative thoughts. it’s no one’s job but yours to pull yourself out of your problems. journal, meditate, exercise,and release." felt that

You find this palpable lump in a patient with abdominal pain and weight loss. What’s the diagnosis?

Spouses of Alzheimer's patients are 6 times more likely to develop Alzheimer's themselves. They share daily saliva exchange for decades. Their oral bacteria converges to the same strains. In 2019 Cortexyme published a paper in Science Advances showing Porphyromonas gingivalis, the bacterium behind gum disease, was present in over 90% of postmortem Alzheimer's brains. They also found its DNA in the cerebrospinal fluid of living Alzheimer's patients. P. gingivalis is the keystone pathogen of periodontitis. The CDC says 47% of American adults over 30 have periodontitis right now. The mechanism is specific. P. gingivalis produces enzymes called gingipains. Two types: one cuts proteins at lysine residues, the other at arginine. Tau, the protein that holds your neuronal scaffolding together, is loaded with both amino acids. In cell culture, gingipains shred soluble tau within one hour of infection. The fragments seed the paired helical filaments that become tangles. Tangles are Alzheimer's. Mice fed P. gingivalis through the mouth grew amyloid plaques in their brains. Hippocampal neurons died. The bacteria crossed the blood-brain barrier and started chewing through the same proteins that fail in human Alzheimer's patients. Cortexyme built a drug called atuzaginstat to block gingipains. Phase 1 was clean. They ran a 643-patient Phase 2/3 trial called GAIN. The FDA hit it with a partial clinical hold for liver toxicity. The drug missed both primary endpoints. In August 2022 Cortexyme shut the program down, renamed itself Quince, and pivoted to bone disease. The subgroup with the highest baseline P. gingivalis loads still showed cognitive improvement on secondary endpoints. The bacteria itself kept showing up in postmortem brains across independent studies after the trial closed. Periodontal disease shows up 10 to 20 years before cognitive symptoms in people who later develop Alzheimer's. By the time someone forgets a name, the bacteria has been working for two decades. The intervention point is upstream of your skull.

This therapy may be able to reverse alpha-gal syndrome, aka tick induced meat allergy... Soliman Auricular Allergy Treatment (SAAT) uses acupuncture in the ear, a single needle placed for 3-4, weeks to help the immune system "reset." Western medicine isn't really sure how it works but there's some evidence that it's quite effective. (PMID 35003502) 126 patients treated, 121 (96%) reported symptom remission. More studies are needed, but this is compelling data. Red meat (beef, lamb, venison) and dairy + collagen are incredibly nutrient-rich foods that are vital for optimal health. Not being able to eat these is a big deal. I hope this therapy is studied more widely and this information gets to those who are suffering with alpha-gal. Please share if you know someone who has this issue.

A lesson I learned this year is that a person's capacity for growth is directly linked to how much truth they can face about themselves without running away.