Tag all the pills!

How can you make life tough for drug counterfeiters? Embed security codes in the pills themselves. Or as Purdue University calls them, “edible security tags.”

Shining various LED light sources on the tag excites the fluorescent silk microparticles, causing them to generate a different random pattern each time.

Digital bits can then be extracted from an image of those patterns to produce a security key, which a pharmacy or patient would use to confirm that a drug is authentic.

Salt in the wound

In the cancer, to be specific. UGA researchers have found that sodium chloride nanoparticles can break through a cancer cell’s wall, even though that cell is trying to keep its sodium level balanced. Once inside, boom: too much sodium and a dead cancer cell.

The key: “This mechanism is actually more toxic to cancer cells than normal cells, because cancer cells have relatively high sodium concentrations to start with.”

HEART program needs you

We told you about the Georgia HEART Hospital Program, which lets you donate money to go to Georgia’s rural hospitals, then get 100% back as a tax credit — this costing you zilch.

In the past, the program hit its goal quickly, but this year — because of the Trump administration’s tax changes — “The donations dried up immediately because the return on investment for a donation dried up instantly*.”

This means you can still donate money to the HEART program and help rural hospitals at no cost to you.

Check out GeorgiaHeart.org for the details, and think about donating. It costs you nothing, but it can make a huge difference to rural healthcare.

* Yes, that’s correct. People stopped donating because they couldn’t make money on their donations.

F for fertility (and fish oil)

It’s still preliminary, but those shifty Danes have found that fish oil supplements might help with fertility (on the man’s side, that is).

[M]en who used the nutritional supplement — known for its key ingredient, omega-3 fatty acid — had higher semen volumes and total sperm counts, as well as increased levels of free testosterone, compared to men who didn’t use as frequently or at all.

“The drug epidemic is probably killing a lot more Americans than we think”

When health officials say something like “63,000 people died from drug-related causes,” they may be severely underestimating the number. Why? Because that only counts direct deaths from drug — i.e., overdoses.

When you factor in deaths where drugs are a significant factor — from impaired driving to suicide to infectious disease — the real number of drug-related deaths may be twice as high according to research from the University of Pennsylvania and Georgetown.

Nexium, breast cancer, and memory

If you have patients recovering from breast cancer, maybe proton pump inhibitors (e.g., Nexium, Prilosec, and friends) aren’t a good choice.

A study out of OSU found that PPIs seem to affect the patients’ concentration and memory.

On average cognitive problems reported by PPI users were between 20 and 29 percent more severe than issues reported by non-PPI users.

Elsewhere: How to Insult a Canadian™ edition

“Well at least scurvy isn’t still a thing down here.”