Ripple effects

The opioid epidemic has led to an increase in heart infections — infective endocarditis — especially among young, poor, white men. And it’s nationwide.

These patients underwent cardiac or valve surgery more often, had a higher median length of stay, and a higher hospitalization cost, but a lower inpatient mortality.

Herpes vaccine for rodents

If you worry that your mice or guinea pigs might contract genital herpes, good news: UPenn researchers have apparently developed a vaccine that prevents it — i.e., “the immunization led to ‘mostly sterilizing immunity’ from the virus—the strongest type of immunity.”

This vaccine stimulates three types of antibodies: one that blocks the herpes virus from entering cells, and two others that ensure the virus doesn’t “turn off” innate immune system protective functions.

Holy grail for type 2?

The FDA approved Novo Nordisk’s oral semaglutide (its friends call it Rybelsus) as a once-daily pill to treat type 2 diabetes.

The company, and some pharma wonks, are calling the GLP-1 receptor agonist the holy grail (small “g”) of diabetes treatment … which you can believe will mean it’s priced accordingly.

While we’re talking about diabetes…

Researchers from Australia and Canada have found how the gut biome affects serotonin production. The bacteria, for reasons of their own, communicate with serotonin producers, which affects glucose production. (Or, as they put it, “The gut microbiome regulates host glucose homeostasis via peripheral serotonin.”

Finding which bacteria do that is the next step, so there’s a chance to use the knowledge to regulate blood-sugar levels.

A drink for cancer patients

Nestlé, which has long had a reputation for caring about people’s health, is introducing a new drink for cancer patients: Boost Soothe. What’s the gimmick? It’s designed with patients’ side effects in mind, specifically “oral discomfort and taste alteration.”

What color ribbon are you supposed to wear?

Surprise — docs fight billing proposal

Stopping surprise medical bills — when hospital patients are treated by an out-of-network provider without their knowledge and find themselves on the hook for thousands of dollars — looked liked it was going to be solved in a bipartisan way.

Not so fast! Physicians are fighting back because they don’t like the proposed solution, which would set benchmark prices for OON payments.

Bonus: The article quotes our own Buddy Carter.

E-cig updates

Walmart won’t sell them anymore.

Senators wants the FDA to ban them, at least temporarily.

TV networks are refusing to run their ads.

There’s a Smurf joke here somewhere

A Rhode Island woman was diagnosed with “acquired methemoglobinemia” when she walked into a ER because she was turning blue. It turned out to be a rare reaction to benzocaine, which she had used for a toothache.

The ironic treatment: methylene blue.