F.L.U. in the U.S.A.

Georgia is now one of seven states, plus Puerto Rico, where flu activity is the highest. The bad news: Nearly 5,000 Americans have been hospitalized due to the flu so far this season. The sort-of good news: That number is similar to previous years (meaning maybe this season won’t be quite so horrific).

Lithium post-radiation treatment

Cancer patients who take radiation therapy might have some brain damage — mild, but enough that for kids it can cause “difficulties learning or socializing and even holding down a job later in life.”

The answer could be lithium. A study out of Sweden found that lithium seems to help reduce that radiation damage. Although they aren’t entirely sure how it works, it appears to foster the creating of new neurons in the hippocampus … but only within areas that were irradiated.

“From this, we conclude that lithium, given along the lines of this model, can help to heal the damage caused by radiotherapy, even long after it was caused.”

Cannabis ups and downs

People with type 1 diabetes should avoid using marijuana regularly. Anything more than occasional use make them “more than twice as likely to develop potentially fatal complications,” specifically diabetic ketoacidosis.

On the other hand…

People suffering from migraines (or other headaches), found that inhaling cannabis reduced those symptoms by almost half. Interestingly, those results came via an app developed by Washington State University to track just that kind of effect.

Quick vaping-flavor update

Coincidentally echoing the vaping industry’s talking points, Donald Trump said he backtracked on his promise to have the FDA ban flavored vaping products because he was concerned it would only cause teens to turn to unregulated products on the black market.

Proponents of a ban point out that, with teenage vaping and nicotine addiction skyrocketing, it’s better to make it harder for kids to get these products than to do nothing.

Krispy Kreme, here we come

Could being overweight be good for you? Maybe so. A new study out of Denmark looked at more than 35 years of body-mass index and mortality and concluded that, as cardiovascular risk has decreased, “the BMI associated with lowest all-cause mortality may have changed.”

What those shifty Danes found is that the sweet spot for BMI might actually be “overweight” — that is, between “normal” and “obese.” (Specifically, a BMI between 25 and 29.9.)

[T]hose in the ‘obese’ category ended up having the same risk of death as those in the ‘normal’ range, even when factors such as age, sex, family history of disease, socio-economic status, and smoking were taken into account.

This means that in the past 40 years, the weight category associated with the longest lifespan has gone from ‘normal’ to squarely in the ‘overweight’ camp.

Is this thing on?

Donald Trump has again said that Americans will be able to import drugs from Canada (taking advantage of the government price regulation there). Unfortunately, the Canadians have already said “No*.” Besides, the current plan would only allow states to ask the feds for permission to import drugs … before being rejected by Canadian authorities.

ICYMI

Don’t eat any Romaine lettuce. No, this is not a repeat from 2018.