Stopppppppppp the presses!

The new position statement from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine declares, “Sleep is essential to health”.

The danger of Covid senioritis

Georgia is one of 11 states where the at least 20 percent of seniors still haven’t received a Covid shot. That’s a problem because they’re (as we know) particularly vulnerable. Unfortunately, they’re also vulnerable to “conspiracy theories [and] a belief in pseudoscience,” making experts worry about a surge in cases over the summer.

“All epidemics are local at the end of the day, and transmission is person to person. There is going to be a hot pocket of transmission if someone becomes infected and others around them are unvaccinated. This is not Epidemiology 101, this is common sense.”

Speaking of Georgia’s danger zones…

Stewart County, home of the privately run Stewart Detention Center, is seeing a spike in Covid-19 cases outside the center, giving the county the second-highest infection rate in the state.

Inside it’s worse; the center already had one major outbreak and four deaths, more than any other ICE detention center. Having a lot of people concentrated in a relatively small camp is a recipe for spreading disease, for sure.

And where is the highest infection rate? That would be Chattahoochee County, home to Fort Benning.

Don’t it make your brown hair gray

It’s not a myth (says a study out of Columbia University), stress can turn your hair gray.

[T]he researchers developed a mathematical model that suggests stress-induced changes in mitochondria may explain how stress turns hair gray. “We often hear that the mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell, but that’s not the only role they play. Mitochondria are actually like little antennas inside the cell that respond to a number of different signals, including psychological stress.”

Good news, though: When the stress goes away, the original color can come back.

“These are crazy numbers”

If Medicare has to pay for Aduhelm — and it does — it could cost taxpayers more than the entire budget for NASA.

Analysts put the cost of the drug at between $5.8 and $29 billion for a single year. NASA’s budget is $23 billion, and we know it actually accomplishes something. (The CDC’s budget is a mere $8 billion, and it’s also pretty darned effective.)

And there’s nothing you and your little friends can do about it. That’s what Biogen is demanding, and thus that’s what Medicare has to pay — by law. [insert evil laugh here]

Plenty of other drugs cost more than Aduhelm, which is made by Biogen [which has decided to price it] at $56,000 annually. What makes it different is that there are millions of potential customers, and the drug is expected to be taken for years.

So, who wants to tell Medicare patients that their premiums are about to go up?

29 … billion … dollars …

Superfungus alert

It seems that everyone’s least-favorite deadly drug-resistant fungus — Candida auris — is taking advantage of the pandemic. Brazil is the latest country (following Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Chile, and yes, the U.S.) to report an outbreak of C. auris.

It’s not clear why the resurgence — it might be “related to changes in infection control practices during the pandemic, including limited availability of gloves and gowns, or reuse of these items, and changes in cleaning and disinfection practices.”

Faster, stroke patient! Faster!

Making people recovering from a stroke walk faster seems to improve their recovery, increasing the chance they can walk and chew gum at the same time. Seriously. It’s all about dual-task walking — “the brain function that enables people to walk and perform another task simultaneously.”

You might expect that the trick is to practice doing two things at once. Common sense. But British researchers found that walking faster was actually a better way to recover.

“When we compared slower walkers and people who walked at a faster pace — still slower, but closer to walking speeds we expect to see in people who have not had a stroke — both increased their walking speeds after the training. However, those who could walk faster at the beginning of the training also improved their ability to walk and think at the same time.”

If a GPhA Buzz podcast fell in the forest, would it make a sound?

Poll results — would you listen to it if we launched one (short, weekly, and good)?

• About 44 percent of you said you’d be totally into a Buzz podcast

• 36 percent said you’d like to be, but just don’t have the time

• 20 percent said you don’t listen to podcasts.

What will we do with this info? No idea yet. Just musing.

Coffee vs liver disease

If you don’t want to die from chronic liver disease, drink more coffee. At least, that’s what a new British study suggests. While there’s already evidence that coffee can prevent liver cancer, this new research adds chronic and fatty liver disease to the list. After crunching info from the records of more than half a million people over more than a decade…

The analysis revealed that after taking into account factors such as body mass index, alcohol consumption, and smoking status, those who drank any amount of coffee, and of any sort, had a 20% lower risk of developing chronic liver disease or fatty liver disease (taken together) than those who did not consume the brew. The coffee drinkers also had a 49% lower risk of dying from chronic liver disease.

Two interesting notes: First, while regular ground-coffee drinker saw the biggest effect, it applies to decaf and even instant coffee. Second, the sweet spot seems to be between three and four cups (that’s about 1½ to two big ol’ U.S.-size mugs).