Another diabetes cure

This one comes out of Harvard, where researchers were pretty busy: They discovered a new hormone related to insulin production (“fabkin”), disabled that hormone in mice, and found that doing so cured their diabetes (the mice’s, that is).

Apparently, fabkin is able to regulate levels of ATP and ADP — you know, the energy molecules — and (via a process that’s way too long to describe here) thus “[control] the function of beta cells in the pancreas that are responsible for insulin production.”

When the researchers used an antibody to neutralize fabkin in mice, the animals did not develop diabetes. When the antibody was given to obese, diabetic mice, they reverted to a healthy state.

The SE Women of Pharmacy Leadership Weekend is coming up fast!

GPhA is excited to partner with the South Carolina Pharmacy Association to host the 19th Annual SE Women of Pharmacy Leadership Conference, January 14-16 at the Omni Grove Park Inn in gorgeous Asheville, N.C.

What does that mean for you? It means — assuming you’re a GPhA member — that you can get a discount on your registration (by using discount the code “STATE”).

Click here to check out the schedule and speakers, and of course to register!

Covid quickies

The post-Thanksgiving surge is here. “COVID-19 cases and deaths are rising all across the U.S. even before the Omicron variant takes hold” with one exception: Wisconsin*.

Cases in Georgia are up 31% in the past two weeks. BUT … that’s up 31% from a low number — e.g., only about 1,400 Georgians tested positive on December 8.

SSRIs might help treat Covid, but some (e.g., fluvoxamine) seem to be better than others. The mechanism isn’t clear, but one hypothesis is that some SSRIs have anti-inflammatory properties “independent of any serotonin effect.”

* Where people are apparently protected by that dairy air.
* It’s bigger than cheeses.

Benzos and anti-depressants can cause delirium

Older patients taking nitrazepam, mirtazapine, or some SSRIs* — are more likely to suffer delirium after hip or knee surgery. So report researchers out of the University of South Australia after reviewing data on more than 10,000 patients over the past 20 years.

Why might this be a big deal? “An earlier study found that older people who developed delirium following hip surgery had a 10 per cent higher death rate within one year compared to patients who were not affected.”

The top link goes to the news story; the paper itself is here.

* Citalopram, fluvoxamine, sertraline, or venlafaxine

Hormones, vitamin D, and statins

If you have patients taking statins, testing their vitamin D and hormone levels is a smart move. So suggests UC San Diego professor of medicine Pam Taub in a recent presentation. Essentially…

Taub said vitamin D and thyroid hormone deficiency could potentially decrease the efficacy of agents such as statins and SGLT2 inhibitors.

It could be as complex as hormone levels interfering with the statin, or as simple as people not taking their statins because of muscle issues … issues that could be fixed with simple vitamin D supplementation.

More sun, less MS?

Sunlight may protect kids from multiple sclerosis. So say neurologists at UC San Francisco and the Australian National University.

[T]hey found that the participants who spent an average of 30 minutes to one hour outdoors daily had a 52 percent lower chance of MS, compared to those who spent an average of less than 30 minutes outdoors daily.

How does it work? The article, and one of the lead researchers, point to vitamin D as the possible agent:

“Sun exposure is known to boost vitamin D levels. It also stimulates immune cells in the skin that have a protective role in diseases such as MS. Vitamin D may also change the biological function of the immune cells and, as such, play a role in protecting against autoimmune diseases.”

But here’s the rub: “Fortunately,” they say, “the use of sunscreen does not appear to lessen the therapeutic effects of sunlight in warding off MS.” Yet sunscreen blocks the very UVB radiation that stimulates our bodies to produce vitamin D, so could that really be the mechanism?

You know the mantra: More research is needed.

Drugs and the microbiome

We know how important the gut biome is for … well, for a lot of things, from overall health to mental state to longevity, and on and on. But — say researchers led by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory — we’re just beginning to learn what effects various drugs can have on that microbiome.

We found that drugs can have a more pronounced effect on the host microbiome than disease, diet, and smoking combined.”

Jock blood is good for your brain

Good news for couch-potato vampire mice: Drinking the blood of your athletic peers can make you young again.

That’s not exactly true, but it’s close: Sedentary mice injected with the plasma of more-athletic ones got a “brain boost” — they showed better memory and cognitive abilities (per a study out of Stanford).

Doses of runners’ plasma triggered many of the same brain effects as 28 days of vigorous activity. […] It boosted cell survival and division in the brain, for instance. Mice that received plasma from the jogging rodents also performed better on memory tests than did those injected with plasma from the sluggards.

The researchers think much of the effect involves the protein clusterin: “When we removed clusterin, the anti-inflammatory effects of runners’ plasma were diminished the most,” although they acknowledged that there are “at least nine additional molecules that may account for some of exercise’s impact on the brain.”

Meanwhile researchers in Norway are in the midst of a four-year clinical trial “to test whether blood from human runners benefits patients who have early Alzheimer’s disease.”