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Remember Lushy’s Second Law of the Media? When an article claims, ‘science says…’ or ‘new study shows…’, assume that it doesn’t until proven otherwise. A recent spate of lurid media headlines provide yet another case study in why you shouldn’t take the legacy media at their word. Especially when it comes to science.
Here’s the alarming headline:
A new study has revealed a tenuous but plausible link between picking your nose and increasing the risk of developing dementia.
Scary! Because – let’s be honest here, readers – who hasn’t picked a winner at some point? As the old school-yard rhyme went, Everybody’s doin’ it, doin’ it, pickin’ their nose and chewin’ it, chewin’ it. So, apparently we should all be living in terror of incipient senile decay.
In cases where picking at your nose damages internal tissues, critical species of bacteria have a clearer path to the brain, which responds to their presence in ways that resemble signs of Alzheimer’s disease […]
A team of researchers led by scientists from Griffith University in Australia ran tests with a bacteria called Chlamydia pneumoniae, which can infect humans and cause pneumonia. The bacteria has also been discovered in the majority of human brains affected by late-onset dementia.
It was demonstrated that in mice, the bacteria could travel up the olfactory nerve (joining the nasal cavity and the brain). What’s more, when there was damage to the nasal epithelium (the thin tissue along the roof of the nasal cavity), nerve infections got worse.
This led to the mouse brains depositing more of the amyloid-beta protein – a protein which is released in response to infections. Plaques (or clumps) of this protein are also found in significant concentrations in people with Alzheimer’s disease.
Sounds like an open-and-shut case?
Not so fast.
While it’s not certain that the effects will be the same in humans, or even that amyloid-beta plaques are a cause of Alzheimer’s, it’s nevertheless important to follow up promising leads in the fight to understand this common neurodegenerative condition.
Science Alert
Well, nice of them to insert that little caveat. But it doesn’t go near far enough to explain why we shouldn’t really be panicking about occasionally digging for gold in the nose-mines. It’s also a mystery why the report claims that “plucking your nose hair” is also potentially dangerous, let alone nose picking.
Because the actual study says nothing at all about nose picking or plucking nose hairs.
At best the study results suggest infection with C. pneuomoniae can spread rapidly to the brain – in mice […]
While C. pneumoniae bacteria may be more common in people with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, association with the hallmark amyloid plaques in the mouse study does not necessarily mean one causes the other.
The Conversation
In fact, there are inherent problems in using mice to study Alzheimer’s.
Mice don’t naturally get Alzheimer’s. They can accumulate the amyloid plaques associated with Alzheimer’s in humans, but they don’t show the same memory problems seen in human. In any case, the mice in the study were euthanised at most 28 days after exposure – long before they had time to develop any resultant disease.
So, pick away. Clean the face chimney as industriously as you want.
You’re not likely to lose your mind over it.
