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Hm, so statins for everyone? What’re the downsides?

The main side effects of statins are muscle pain and brain fog (from some statins -- others cross the blood-brain barrier much less).

The benefit of statins is to not only lower LDL cholesterol, but also inflammation, which is now actually a stronger risk factor for cardiovascular disease than cholesterol: https://www.empirical.health/blog/inflammation-and-heart-hea...

Layering PCSK9 inhibitors, ezetimibe, and statins can lower ApoB/LDL cholesterol by 85–90%, which would have been unheard of until recently.

On the horizon, drugs in clinical trials lower Lp(a) (the strongest hereditary risk factor for heart disease) by 94%. Currently, there are four RNA-based drugs in trials that effectively silence the gene that makes Lp(a) in liver cells: lepodisiran, olpasiran, pelacarsen, and zerlasiran.


Thanks! I've been looking into this a little recently, so thanks for the very timely article and advice.

Do you have any info on good ways to nail down personal sources of inflammation relevant to cardio health, or do you think that just general anti-inflammatory diet/habits is the best we can do right now? We were hunting down a source of mold in our house recently due to some blood markers recently, which got me thinking about inflammation sources and cardio health (we found a big patch of mold between our floors and removed it, blood markers immediately improved).


I had the brain fog. I switched from atorvastatin (dizziness) to pravachol (no dizziness), and then again to higher effective dosage of rosuvastatin (still no dizziness). I went from LDL 152 to LDL 83.

But I have high Lp(a) and so I'm prescribed a baby aspirin every other day. This counteracts the Lp(a) clotting effect but doesn't fix its genetic cause.

It's a journey.


I was recently prescribed rosuvastatin (my first time taking any statin), and I had some very intense brain fog. How would you describe the feeling of what you experienced? The best way I could describe it to my friends and family was that I felt like I lost a quarter of my IQ and slept only 5 hours every night(I was getting great sleep, it just felt that way).

It was such a strange feeling. It's a weird feeling to know you're brain just isn't working as it has always worked.


I had dizziness from atorvastatin and nothing from Pravachol and Rosuvastatin. The conclusion I draw is that you have to find something that works. But this is uncharted territory. Your docs won't know and you have to kind of force the issue.

> About 10% of people develop muscle aches

> Concerns about statin effects on the brain, such as cognitive impairment or dementia, are unfounded

https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/what-are-the-ris...


I’m old enough that my parents/spouse’s parents are all on statins. They all report side-effects, mostly digestive issues.

I’ll eat a healthy diet, exercise, and live a life without persistent diarrhea. I’ll take statins if/when they are medically necessary, and no sooner.


If you’re unlucky enough to have one of the genetic factors that predisposes you to atherosclerosis then it’s going to be statins and maybe PCSK9 inhibitors.

For the average person, diet and lifestyle choices could be enough, but adherence can be difficult. Monitoring LDL as an imperfect but useful marker and then introducing low-dose statins on a sliding scale proportions to severity is a good idea.

Statins are not completely side effect free (no medication really is) but they’re generally well tolerated. Statin side effects are an interesting area of research because they have a very high nocebo effect rate: People hear so much about statins and their side effects from popular media that when they’re prescribed a statin in older age they start thinking everything is a side effect of the statin. There are some actual known side effects of statins which scale with dose and some of which can be maybe offset by supplements like CoQ10, but the side effects are generally mild. I’d take the side effects over heart disease after watching some older family members struggle and then die due to heart problems.


Yep - the SAMSON trial suggests that nearly all side effects attributed to statins are actually just nocebo: https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacc.2021.07.022

Possible side effects include muscle damage, liver damage, and type 2 diabetes.

My experience with them was a brain fog so bad I could hardly do my engineering job effectively. Quite unfortunate as I've read that side effect isn't very common.

Not with tool calling?

Because noise?

This is somewhat related to a large dataset browsing service a friend and I worked on a while back - we made index files, and the browser ran a lightweight query planner to fetch static chunks which could be served from S3/torrents/whatever. It worked pretty well, and I think there’s a lot of potential for this style of data serving infra.

Yeah, wasn’t impressed with GN’s theories about the politics/motivations/etc behind these big market shifts. It’s much simpler, there’s limited supply capacity and a more lucrative use of the hardware now. The market will find a new equilibrium.

In the context of the massive amount of throwaway packaging involved in the food supply chain, or every other part of the supply chain for every consumable we use, how big a deal is that? Are electronics uniquely impactful in terms of sustainability versus eg plastic clamshells to transport apples?

I guess you could strap a few kw generator in the bed with some jerry cans as backup. Would take longer, but if by loiter time you mean time out in the field where you’re not moving, then maybe that’d work. Would be cool if there was the equivalent of siphoning gas from one to another.

Is there electric infrastructure in the places you’re describing? If so, should be really easy to throw down some moderate-speed L2 chargers in various parts as a last resort. They’re incredibly cheap and don’t need much maintenance.


Seems like EV trucks need the ability to do the equivalent of siphoning gas, or carrying some Jerry cans.


Level 1 and 2 charging are something of an equivalent to siphoning gas, and maybe too easily overlooked. Carry a wall plug and dryer plug adapter and you can plug in just about anywhere. RV plug in the camping area of a national park. Utility plug on the back of a work shed in the middle of nowhere.

Won't charge you fast, sure, but can be the difference to charge you enough to make it to the next stop, in some cases.


Yeah, I meant siphon gas truck-to-truck, but it seems most worksites would be wired or have generation of some sort, so mobile charger should be able to do something in a pinch. I have had situations where a normal 1400W wasn’t enough to keep pace with keeping the battery warm enough to make any headway on an actual charge, though, but that remote AND cold is a another level.


V2V (vehicle to vehicle) charging is a standard option supported by CCS and NACS. So far implementations are limited, with most of the current focus on V2H (vehicle to home) or maybe V2G (vehicle to grid). The Ford F-150 Lightning supports V2H but not V2V today. (Interestingly, the Tesla Cybertruck does support V2V.)


That is almost literally the entirety of it. If we could do that, EV would be lit. EV is honestly better for remote environments in most other regards.


Or you know, PUT A FUCKING GAS GENERATOR IN A GIANT BED THAT YOU HAVE OUT BACK.

Im legit suprised this isn't a thing yet. I saw the Rivian gear tunnel when it got first announced, and I was almost sure that they are gonna offer a generator+fuel tank to fit into there for range extension.

You can do an efficient diesel or multi gas 1 Cyl engine, and you can make a system where you can put one or 2 of them in the bed along with any aftermarket gas tank, and now you have something that is "mission configurable".


Haha yeah, Jerry cans plus genny seems like it might do it.


Seems like someone motivated could make an open source alternative to ESO’s lineup and make it impossible for them to make a monopoly in that niche. I wonder if you put out a call to all volunteer fire departments, if they have enough devs collectively to oust the aholes.


Distributed. New transmission lines have big nimby issues, and many existing corridors are already getting overloaded. There are recurring attempts to reform the permitting process (in the last Congress it was called EPRA/energy permitting reform act), but… we’ll see.

Bureaucracy is the main thing holding back clean energy right now, rather than economics. You can see this in how Texas, which has lax grid regulation but isn’t biased towards clean energy has far surpassed CA, which subsidizes and got a big head start, in wind/solar generation in a few years.


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