thetranscendedman
atranscendedman.bsky.social
thetranscendedman
@atranscendedman.bsky.social
Transparent to the transcendent.

Wrote a book on Long Covid. - https://jondouglas.dev/longhaul/

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. - Sagan
Pinned
For five years I've lived with long COVID and watched people push for answers without the tools they deserved.

So I'm building TrialPilot, a way to take part in real studies from home.

Any support or sharing would be deeply appreciated. ❤️

gofund.me/3f6830e8f
Donate to Patients Deserve Faster Answers - Help Build TrialPilot, organized by Jon Douglas
Hi, I’m Jon Douglas (@atranscendedman ). I’ve lived with long … Jon Douglas needs your support for Patients Deserve Faster Answers - Help Build TrialPilot
gofund.me
University of Pennsylvania, 465,717 children and adolescents, found that a second COVID infection during omicron doubled the risk of long COVID.

Reinfection raised rates of heart, brain, and immune symptoms, even after mild illness.

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...
Long COVID associated with SARS-CoV-2 reinfection among children and adolescents in the omicron era (RECOVER-EHR): a retrospective cohort study
Children and adolescents face a significantly higher risk of various PASC outcomes after reinfection with SARS-CoV-2. These findings add to previous evidence linking paediatric long COVID to multisyst...
www.thelancet.com
February 16, 2026 at 7:01 PM
Researchers analyzed 22 trials with 1995 adults and found intermittent fasting made little to no difference in weight loss or quality of life compared with regular diet advice, and little to no difference compared with no treatment over 6 to 12 months.

www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10....
Intermittent fasting for adults with overweight or obesity - Garegnani, LI - 2026 | Cochrane Library
Select your preferred language for Cochrane reviews and other content. Sections without translation will be in English.
www.cochranelibrary.com
February 16, 2026 at 6:00 PM
Researchers review 211 patients treated with engineered CAR T cells for autoimmune disease and find 62.6% developed mostly mild cytokine release syndrome, while many achieved drug free remission, signaling a shift beyond broad immunosuppression.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Clinical progress of engineered cellular immunotherapies for autoimmunity - Nature Biotechnology
Engineered cellular immunotherapy shows great potential for treating autoimmune diseases. Payne and colleagues review emerging clinical data of the most recently developed technologies.
www.nature.com
February 16, 2026 at 5:45 PM
London researchers review decades of lab and early human studies and find GLP 1 drugs used for diabetes may slow Alzheimer and Parkinson biology by reducing inflammation, protein clumps, and brain energy failure, but large trials still show mixed results.

www.jci.org/articles/vie...
JCI - The promise of GLP-1 receptor agonists for neurodegenerative diseases
www.jci.org
February 16, 2026 at 5:33 PM
Mohammed V University in Rabat researchers review evidence that altered antibodies and platelet-producing cells may help drive long COVID.

Afucosylated IgG and megakaryocyte changes could sustain inflammation and microclots months after infection.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Megakaryocytes and afucosylated IgG in post-acute COVID-19: Bridging immune dysregulation and vascular pathology — A narrative review
Post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC), also referred to as long COVID, encompasses a constellation of persistent symptoms lasting for at …
www.sciencedirect.com
February 16, 2026 at 5:24 PM
Tel Aviv University in Israel, 4,795 participants, found smartwatch data showed heart recovery lagged behind symptoms.

After moderate to severe COVID 19, heart rate took about 60 days to return to baseline, long after people felt better.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Smartwatch-derived versus self-reported outcomes of physiological recovery after COVID-19, influenza, and group A streptococcus: a 2-year prospective cohort study
Accurate detection of recovery from communicable diseases enables timely care and helps prevent complications and chronic conditions. We aimed to inve…
www.sciencedirect.com
February 16, 2026 at 5:23 PM
Wroclaw Medical University researchers reviewed studies of adults with type 2 diabetes and found COVID 19 disrupts cholesterol and triglycerides, raises HbA1c, and fuels inflammation and oxidative stress, raising long term heart and metabolic risks.

www.eurekaselect.com/article/153034
www.eurekaselect.com
February 16, 2026 at 5:22 PM
University of California San Francisco, 985 adults, five years of ublituximab cut MS relapses to 1 per 50 patient years and kept 92% free from confirmed disability progression.

Early high efficacy treatment showed lasting benefit with stable safety.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
Five Years of Ublituximab in Multiple Sclerosis
This open-label extension study investigates the long-term clinical efficacy and safety of ublituximab in people with relapsing multiple sclerosis.
jamanetwork.com
February 16, 2026 at 5:20 PM
Scientists argue that deep B cell depletion may reset the immune system in autoimmune disease, offering drug free remission.

But without biomarkers to track harmful cells, true cure remains uncertain and immune retuning may be another path.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Immune reset and immune retune: approaching cure? - Nature Reviews Rheumatology
The emergence of potent depletion therapies for the treatment of refractory autoimmunity has led to the concept of immune reset. Understanding whether immune reset equates to cure, and whether cure is...
www.nature.com
February 16, 2026 at 5:18 PM
Yale School of Medicine researchers review mucosal immunity and find that nasal, oral, and vaginal vaccines can build tissue resident memory T and B cells plus local IgA, blocking infection at entry sites where shots often fall short.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Harnessing mucosal immunity for protective vaccines - Nature Reviews Immunology
Many clinically relevant pathogens enter the body through mucosal surfaces, yet conventional parenteral immunization is insufficient to elicit robust mucosal immunity. This Review examines the unique ...
www.nature.com
February 16, 2026 at 3:12 PM
Bambino Gesu Children’s Hospital in Rome treated 8 children with life threatening autoimmune disease using CAR T cells that target rogue B cells.

All improved, 3 with lupus reached full remission, and some organ damage was reversed.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...
CAR-T therapy provides relief for children with autoimmune diseases
Symptoms and organ damage abated in young children and teenagers whose conditions had resisted other treatments.
www.nature.com
February 16, 2026 at 3:08 PM
London, 349 adults studied, researchers found little evidence of widespread organ damage in long COVID.

The clearest signal was vascular, with 1.75 times higher odds of high blood pressure, rising to 3 times in those with fatigue.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...
Multi-organ structural and functional deficits in association with long COVID: a population-based case-control study
Background Multi-system impacts of long COVID remain unknown. We compared multi-system deficits between people with long COVID and controls. Methods A case-control study recruited from the Avon Longit...
www.medrxiv.org
February 16, 2026 at 12:43 AM
University College London and University of Bristol scientists in rodents found that GLP 1 reopens blocked heart capillaries by relaxing pericytes through KATP channels, restoring blood flow after ischemia and helping prevent no reflow after heart attack.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com
February 15, 2026 at 5:29 PM
University of Minnesota scientists report that ageing immune cells become inflammatory, exhausted or senescent, and can actively drive organ damage and frailty, suggesting that rejuvenating immunity could extend healthspan.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The ageing immune system as a driver of systemic ageing - Nature Reviews Immunology
Ageing of the immune system is now realized to drive systemic ageing, and there is interest in targeting immune ageing in order to promote healthy ageing. Here, the authors detail how ageing affects d...
www.nature.com
February 15, 2026 at 5:17 PM
Happy Valentine's Day!
February 14, 2026 at 5:29 PM
Emory University researchers studied 114 adults and used AI to uncover 3 biologically distinct autism subtypes.

One group with high anxiety and social withdrawal showed brain changes that improved after oxytocin, hinting at more personalized treatments.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...
Generating Biologically Relevant Subtypes of Autism Spectrum Disorder with differential responses to Acute Oxytocin Administration in a Randomized Trial using Random Forest Models and K-means Clusteri...
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a heterogenous condition that has no biologically relevant subtypes yet. Here, we utilized a multidimensional approach considering social deficits in ASD alongside ne...
www.medrxiv.org
February 14, 2026 at 3:17 PM
University of Pennsylvania scientists studying mice found that chronic infection creates a distinct tissue resident exhausted CD8 T cell state that cannot revert to true memory cells.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Tissue-resident exhausted and memory CD8+ T cells have distinct ontogeny, function and roles in disease - Nature Immunology
Here the authors show that persistent antigen stimulation drives the generation of CD8+ tissue-resident exhausted T cells with distinct developmental origins, function and therapeutic responsiveness w...
www.nature.com
February 14, 2026 at 3:06 PM
UCSF study of 13 people with MS found that certain killer T cells that attack Epstein-Barr virus are far more abundant in spinal fluid than blood, suggesting EBV-linked immune cells may help trigger the nerve-damaging response in multiple sclerosis.

www.ucsf.edu/news/2026/02...
Immune Cells Linked to Epstein-Barr Virus May Play a Role in MS
A study from UCSF shows a previously unknown connection between the Epstein-Barr virus, known to play a role in MS, and an understudied type of immune cell.
www.ucsf.edu
February 14, 2026 at 2:41 PM
University of Pennsylvania, 139,320 children and young adults with COVID 19 found that severe obesity before infection more than doubled the risk of later heart problems and raised GI issues, while mental health links were mixed.

www.journalofinfection.com/article/S016...
Pre-COVID-19 Body Mass Index and Postacute Cardiovascular, Gastrointestinal, and Neuropsychiatric Outcomes Among Children and Young Adults With SARS-CoV-2 Infection: An EHR-based Cohort Study from the...
In this cohort study, pre-COVID-19 BMI status was associated with the risk and pattern of postacute cardiovascular and gastrointestinal outcomes among children and young adults. Association between pr...
www.journalofinfection.com
February 14, 2026 at 2:33 PM
Montreal researchers at IRCM studied mice and human T cells and found that SLAMF6 acts as a brake on anti tumour immunity.

Blocking it with new antibodies boosted T cell activity, reduced exhaustion, and slowed tumour growth.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
SLAMF6 as a drug-targetable suppressor of T cell immunity against cancer - Nature
SLAMF6 functions exclusively as a T cell inhibitory receptor, which is triggered by cis homotypic interactions.
www.nature.com
February 13, 2026 at 7:52 PM
Aethlon Medical in San Diego reported new preclinical Long COVID data showing its Hemopurifier binds extracellular vesicles from patient samples and reduces microRNAs tied to immune dysregulation, supporting its potential as a multi disease therapy.

www.aethlonmedical.com/news-media/p...
Aethlon Medical Announces Fiscal Q3 2026 Financial Results and Corporate Update
Clinical and research programs continue to advance, supported by year-to-date cost efficiencies Conference Call Today at 4:30 p.m. ET SAN DIEGO,…...
www.aethlonmedical.com
February 13, 2026 at 7:49 PM
ME/CFS is one thing Chris Williamson wants to tackle when he's on the other side of it.
February 13, 2026 at 5:29 PM
Chris Williamson on the wild things people suggested to "cure" his chronic condition and why he won't stop talking about it, because it's his real, lived experience.
February 13, 2026 at 5:25 PM
Researchers show certain COVID 19 spike antibodies can fuse infected lung cells with monocytes, forming giant cells that release intense inflammation.

In mice, low antibody doses worsened disease without raising viral load.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org
February 13, 2026 at 4:58 PM
Virginia Tech scientists studied milk from 7 white tailed deer and found it contains SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies and rapidly destroys viral RNA within 30 minutes, suggesting deer milk may block transmission rather than spread the virus.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
www.biorxiv.org
February 13, 2026 at 4:58 PM