Rite Aid to focus on pharmacists

Rite Aid wants its pharmacists to “spend more time providing clinical services to patients” as it revamps its stores to, it hopes, take advantage of how much patients trust their pharmacists.

Gut bacteria linked to fibromyalgia

It may or may not be causal, but there appears to be a clear link between fibromyalgia and the species of bacteria in women’s guts.

A side-by-side comparison of women with and without fibromyalgia revealed over a dozen different species of gut bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract of study participants with fibromyalgia in comparison to a healthy control group without the disease.

Reminder for techs

Back in March we told you how PTCB was streamlining its certification process. Just a friendly reminder — if you haven’t already, you’ll need to create an NABP e-Profile before your next recertification deadline. Check out the details from PTCB.

Newest “female Viagra” gets FDA approval

The FDA has approved Vyleesi, a drug designed to increase sexual desire in premenopausal women. Obviously inviting comparisons to Viagra/Cialis/Levitra, Vyleesi isn’t a pill — it’s administered with a self-injector 45 minutes before anticipated sexual activity. And yes, that does raise the question of how someone can have no desire for sex, but anticipate it at the same time.

Unlike the previous “female Viagra” (Sprout Pharmaceuticals’ Addyi), Vyleesi has fewer side effects, doesn’t restrict alcohol use, and can be taken as needed rather than every day.

Easier hospital shopping?

The Trump administration says it’s going to require hospitals to provide prices for various procedures in an “easy-to-read, patient-friendly format” so patients can potentially shop around for the best price for non-urgent care.

The Affordable Care Act required hospitals to make their pricing available, but the results — cloaked in various non-standard codes and jargon — aren’t understandable by most people. If HHS does in fact create a new rule, the goal will be to make those prices clear.

Interesting aside: Economists aren’t sure if this will make prices go down (more consumer info), or up (easier coordination of price hikes). The latter, it seems, is what happened in Denmark with concrete….

Are pregnant women taking the supplements they need?

The answer: Many are not getting what they need, and many others are taking too much of what they don’t need, especially sodium.

A significant number of pregnant women are not meeting recommendations for vitamins D, C, A, B6, K, and E, as well as folate, choline, iron, calcium, potassium, magnesium, and zinc even with the use of dietary supplements.

Almost all pregnant women in this study were at risk of excessive consumption of sodium, and many were at risk of excessive consumption of folic acid and iron.

Splinter group

If a patient has a recurring headache, you could suggest it might be wood splinters in his brain.

A computerized tomography scan revealed that he had several pieces of wood with a combined length of 11 cm stuck in his brain. Asked how on Earth he had ended up with so much wood deep inside his skull, [the patient] recalled an accident that had occurred half a decade prior.