Diabetics refusing treatment

Apparently 40 percent (!) of people who’ve been diagnosed with type-2 diabetes simply refuse to take insulin when directed to by their physicians.

Why? The study authors aren’t sure, but it’s likely a combination of the cost, a perceived stigma of taking it, or an unfounded fear of making the condition worse.

Convention room block open!

You can now reserve your room at the Omni Grove Park in for the 2020 Georgia Pharmacy Convention!

Convention registration opens March 1, but we’ve opened the room block early. Grab yours now before it fills — and before room block reservations end!

And don’t forget to submit your nominations for the 2020-21 GPhA Board of Directors!

Flu update in 37 words

Reported cases seem to be slowing down, meaning the season could have peaked. But the CDC is still concerned about the more dangerous A strain that seems to be spreading now.

Growing proteins

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are growing a bone-healing protein … in lettuce plants. The big potential market: diabetes patients.

“The current drug for diabetic patients with a fracture requires repetitive injections and hospital visits and as a result patient compliance is low. Here we gave an oral drug once a day and saw healing to be greatly accelerated.”

The protein, in case you were wondering, is insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1).

Pain: Let it be

Yale researchers found that people who try mindfulness once, even briefly, feel less pain.

The effect of mindfulness was so pronounced, they found, that even when participants were subjected to high heat on their forearm, their brain responded as if it was experiencing normal temperature.

With tetanus vaccine, once is enough

It seems that having one complete series of the tetanus and diphtheria vaccines is all you need — booster shots as adults are unnecessary. Oregon Health & Science University apparently confirmed what the World Health Organization has been saying.

There are plenty of jokes to be made, but this is a pretty cool medical story

A woman in Britain had yeast in her bladder, causing her to literally urinate alcohol — it’s called “urinary auto-brewery syndrome” and is related to a similar condition involving yeast in the gut. The downside: It delayed her getting a liver transplant because doctors thought she was drinking.

A better way to track the spread of a disease

Don’t model it in isolation, because most diseases don’t spread alone. Instead, realize that chaos theory takes effect, and “microscopic changes in the transmission rate trigger macroscopic jumps in the expected epidemic size.”

A better model: Look at the way memes and slang spread — aka “contagious social behaviors.”

Like multiple friends reinforcing a social behavior, the presence of multiple diseases makes an infection more contagious than it would be on its own. Biological diseases can reinforce each other through symptoms, as in the case of a sneezing virus that helps to spread a second infection like pneumonia. Or, one disease can weaken the host’s immune system, making the population more susceptible to a second, third, or additional contagion.

The Long Read: “CoviD-19 Endgame” edition

What’s likely to happen in the long run with the Wuhan coronavirus? Two mostly likely outcomes:

  • It continues to circulate like four existing coronaviruses, with a low mortality rate and little notice
  • It becomes a seasonal disease, like the flu

The CDC just said that “the spread of coronavirus in the United States appears inevitable.”