It isn’t safe

Here’s an unexpected finding: People who use opioids for dental pain have an notably higher likelihood to overdose.

[O]verdose rates were two-and-a-half times higher among patients who filled a prescription for an opioid medication after a dental procedure, compared with those who didn’t fill such a prescription.

Even worse, overdose rates were also higher for their family. That’s what University of Michigan pediatric researchers discovered after looking at the records of 3.5 million dental-procedure patients, and seeing how many OD’d within 90 days.

Covid numbers — so-so and good

The so-so news: CDC expects a rise in Covid-19 cases through May as variants continue to spread.

The good news: After that, though, the agency expects a sharp drop in July as vaccinations take hold. (Variants, though, remain a “wild card.”)

More than you know

A University of Washington analysis found that the actual pandemic death toll worldwide is likely twice as high as has been reported, based on a deep dive into health and death numbers.

The under-estimates aren’t necessarily nefarious; they’re in part because of — depending on the country — early unrecorded deaths, overwhelmed health systems, or insufficient testing.

The basic recipe the UW folks used (read the details here):

• Start with expected deaths in a location based on past trends (for a given week).
• Remove some expected deaths from the tally; Covid actually saved some lives by reducing accidents and cutting other infections (e.g., flu).
• Compare that figure to the actual number of deaths. The “excess” can be attributed to the pandemic, directly or indirectly.
• So remove the indirect deaths from that excess — delayed health care, death due to pandemic mental health disorders, and deaths from chronic conditions that were simply sped up by Covid infection.
• The remaining “excess deaths” can be attributed directly to the pandemic.

And that number is a heck of a lot higher than has been reported.

In the United States, the analysis estimates, 905,000 people have died of Covid since the start of the pandemic. That is about 38% higher than the current death estimate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 561,594. The new figure also surpasses the estimated number of U.S. deaths in the 1918 flu pandemic, which was estimated to have killed approximately 675,000 Americans.

Shout-out to Peyton

Congrats to UGA’s Peyton Moon of Jefferson, Ga., who just earned her PharmD from UGA with a 4.0 GPA — that’s 4.0 in both undergrad and graduate courses! She was granted the title of “First Honor Graduate” for the class of 2021, and we just know she’ll be a GPhA member as soon as she catches her breath.

Naturally avoiding coffee

A new British study found that people who are at risk for cardiovascular disease tend to avoid avoid drinking too much coffee or having too much caffeine.

Participants with essential hypertension, angina, or heart arrhythmia were all more likely to drink less caffeinated coffee and to be non-habitual or decaffeinated coffee drinkers compared with those who did not report related symptoms.

Wait wait wait. Couldn’t it be that people who drink less coffee are more likely to have these conditions? That coffee is, indeed, a miracle treatment? The researchers wondered the same thing, so they used a nifty statistical technique to figure it out.

And that’s what led to the surprising result: “When they analyzed the data, it showed that having a particular genetic variant determined how much coffee a person drank.”

“If your body is telling you not to drink that extra cup of coffee, there’s likely a reason why,” she adds. “Listen to your body — it’s more in tune with your health than you may think.”

Moderna’s booster does the trick

The company said it’s Covid-19 vaccine booster shot works against the B.1.351 and P1 variants. That’s good news because B.1.351 — aka “the South African variant” is currently the scariest of what’s out there; current vaccines are much less effective against it.

Even with normal blood pressure, meds might be a good thing

No heart disease history? No high blood pressure? You still have some risk of heart attack or stroke, and a study in The Lancet found that taking hypertension meds can lower that risk.

[A] 5 mm Hg reduction of systolic blood pressure reduced the risk of major cardiovascular events by about 10%, irrespective of previous diagnoses of cardiovascular disease, and even at normal or high–normal blood pressure values.

The authors’ recommendation: It may be worth it to prescribe blood pressure medication to people regardless of their BP, if they’re at risk for cardiovascular disease — e.g., if they have a sedentary lifestyle.

The American Heart Association is onboard.

An enzyme against kidney disease

Salt and kidney damage go together like, well, salt and kidney damage. But now researchers at the University of South Australia* found a critical piece of information: an enzyme called NEDD4-2.

In short (because this is the last story of today’s issue) NEDD4-2 helps regulate sodium absorption. If there’s not enough, the kidneys suck up the sodium until they’re damaged.

Even people on a low salt diet can get kidney damage if they have low levels of NEDD4-2 due to genetic variations or mutations in the gene.

Ergo, you might stop chronic kidney disease by finding a way to increase NEDD4-2 levels … and thus help some 700 million people around the world.

* Yes, its mascot is a koala