Smoothing that glucose curve … with blackcurrants

Eat some blackcurrants after a meal to balance your body’s glucose response — so say Finnish scientists, and when it comes to blackcurrants, who knows more than the Finns?

They found that — probably because of the berries’ polyphenolic compounds — eating just 75g (about 2 ½ oz in Freedom Units) does a nice job of evening out the post-meal sugar hit. Or, to be science-y, people who ate them had…

…attenuated postprandial glycaemic response, which was seen in reduced maximum glucose and insulin, delayed fall of glucose, and delayed rise of free fatty acids because of hypoglycaemia.

Is it here yet?

When am I gonna be able to get a Covid-19 vaccine? The answer: Who knows? (Or, rather, it depends.) Could be before Christmas … but probably not. Now quit asking or I swear I will turn this car around.

Oh, and Pfizer’s got a problem: Supply-chain issues mean the company won’t be able to deliver quite as much quite as quickly.

Nominate Someone for a 2021 GPhA Award

The submission deadline is February 1, 2021!

Do you know a Georgia pharmacist who deserves recognition for his or her work?

Perhaps an amazing young pharmacist, an outstanding innovator, or someone who has worked hard to fight drug abuse? Or maybe it’s someone who has spent a lifetime in service of others and the profession of pharmacy.

It’s that time of year — time to start choosing the best of the best in Georgia pharmacy, and that means we need your nominations for the 2021 awards.

They’ll be presented at the 2021 Georgia Pharmacy Convention in Amelia Island, Florida.

Who are we looking for? Check out the details on that awards page, including criteria and a link to nominate.

• Distinguished Young Pharmacist Award
• The Excellence in Innovation Award for Pharmacy Practice
• The Larry L. Braden Meritorious Service Award
• The Bowl of Hygeia

These are GPhA awards, but the nominations come from you — and that’s what gives them meaning!

Remember: The deadline for submissions is February 1, 2021.

Is your tree a 2020 tree?

If you’ve got a Christmas tree, it’s not complete without a proper 2020 ornament. Fear not — Giant Microbes has you covered.

Sunscreens mists are safe

There have been some issues with sunscreens in the past few years, including the banning of some of their ingredients because of damage to marine life.

But another issue was the particles in spray-on sunscreen. Would the aerosol get into lungs and wreak havok?

That’s what grad students are for! Penn State researchers sprayed ’em with aerosol sunscreen:

“We simulated what we considered to be a worst-case scenario for someone being exposed to aerosolized nanoparticles while applying sunscreen, and that scenario is a person applying it to their arms because the spray is so close to their face.”

Result: No worries! “People can continue using mineral-based aerosol sunscreens without fear of exposure to dangerous levels of nanoparticles or other respirable particulates,” they said.

Decriminalizing marijuana?

The U.S. House of Representatives voted to decriminalize marijuana — taking it off the list of controls and allowing to be regulated and taxed.

It doesn’t matter: The legislation is going nowhere and everyone knows it.

It matters: It’s the first time either federal chamber voted to decriminalize pot.

The allergy-catching computer

Artificial intelligence — sorry, machine learning — is getting pretty darned useful. A new trick: reading the text of patient safety reports in a hospital and knowing, from just that free-text, if a patient is having an allergic reaction to a med or food.

The nifty thing is that it’s not just looking for keywords like “redness” or “freakishly swollen.” It’s able to analyze the whole of the text.

It not only caught almost all the reactions, it “reduced the number of cases for manual review by 63.8 percent.”

Vaping may be dropping

I say “may be” because it’s based on self-reporting by teenagers. So here:

…have a grain of salt.

That said, Stanford researchers found that “Vaping among teens and young adults has decreased dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, with two-thirds of e-cigarette users reporting that they’ve either cut back or quit.”

And no, it wasn’t just that they were home more and afraid of getting caught. “One in 4 respondents who cut back or quit said they were motivated by concern that vaping could weaken their lungs.”

Giant viruses squeeze in

If you thought viruses just added some DNA to cells to help replicate, Virginia Tech researchers found something much worse: “[T]hey found giant virus genomes embedded—some in their entirety—in the genomes of their hosts.”

Yep, the viruses copied their entire genomes — that’s like slipping a recipe for chocolate chip cookies into a recipe for Texas chili. Or something like that.

They just looked at phytoplankton, but there’s no reason this couldn’t apply to other organisms….

The Long Read: Ape Safety edition

Sure it’s most important to protect us humans from Covid-19, but researcher working with great apes have to worry about their charges as well. Here’s how they do it.