Opioids, pain, and cancer pain

People who use opioids for cancer pain are less likely to become abusers than those who use opioids for other kinds of pain. That’s what Canadian researchers discovered after analyzing (technically analysing) prescription information for nearly 1.7 million British Columbians.

In fact, they found, “Patients receiving chronic prescription opioid treatments for non-cancer pain are about eight times more likely to start injection drug use.” (Emphasis ours.)

With all the studies focused on illicit use, this is one of the few that considered what might make a legit opioid user turn to the hard stuff.

Oral antivirals: important webinar TODAY from federal health authority types

TODAY, January 12, the CDC, FDA, and NIH are offering a free one-hour webinar, “What Clinicians Need to Know About the New Oral Antiviral Medications for COVID-19.“ It’s from 2:00 to 3:00pm EST.

They’re going to “describe the recent EUAs and NIH treatment guidelines, patient prioritization, and resources for healthcare providers.“

Perhaps most importantly, they’ll cover when to prescribe antiviral medications, how to discuss risk/reward with patients and answer patients’ questions, and how to prioritize patients if medications are in short supply.

Click here for details; you’ll also be able to get the slide sets before the call starts.

For the live version, simply click here to launch Zoom a few minutes before it starts. If it asks for a passcode, that’s 180866.

No cost, no CE, no registration. Just the info you need. (A recorded version will be available on the webpage a few hours after the live event ends.)

The crisis is over

Forget antibodies, anti-virals, and certainly vaccines — the way to beat Covid is to drink your own urine. This comes from anti-vaxxer and ex-con Christopher “No credentials whatsoever” Key (who considers himself the “vaccine police”).

“The antidote that we have seen now, and we have tons and tons of research, is urine therapy,“ he proclaimed soon after his release from jail. ”OK, and I know to a lot of you this sounds crazy, but guys, God’s given us everything we need.”

To be fair, urophagia or urine therapy isn’t new. Supposedly it was practiced by Gandhi, Idi Amin, Steve McQueen, Keith Richards, and Jim Morrison. Make your own judgement.

Tackling metastasis

Normal cells have normal electrical patterns, but cancer cells have erratic patters. In fact, those erratic patterns cause normal cells to become confused about their jobs — they turn into tumors, then eventually disrupt nearby cells, like microwaves affecting pacemakers. Metastasis.

So, thought Tufts researchers, can we do something to those electrical patterns and stop metastasis? As a matter of fact, yes. The tool: existing, FDA-approved ion channel blockers.

So far they’ve tried it in vitro and in animal models, but disrupting the ion channels “can in fact significantly reduce tumor cell invasion in a dish and metastasis in an animal model of breast cancer.“

Covid testing quickies

Eight is (hopefully) enough: The Biden administration is requiring all health insurers to cover the cost of up to eight at-home Covid-19 tests per month, beginning this coming Saturday.

“The new coverage requirement means that most consumers with private health coverage can go online or to a pharmacy or store, buy a test, and either get it paid for up front by their health plan, or get reimbursed for the cost by submitting a claim to their plan.“

=AND=

Keep it in your nose: Although there’s evidence that a throat swab is better at detecting Omicron than a nasal swab is, the FDA is “warning” consumers not to swab their throats with at-home Covid tests. Not because it’s dangerous, but because if you don’t do it correctly you might not get correct results. (In Europe, though, it’s common to swab both.)

And we all know the FDA won’t suddenly change course on it’s advice.

Vitamin D and migraines

It’s possible (say Chinese researchers), that vitamin D supplements might help with migraines. “Help” meaning it could reduce the number of “headache attacks,“ but not their duration or severity. Still, that would be great news for migraine sufferers.

So why only possible? The study — a meta-analysis — was based on only six randomized controlled trials with about 300 total patients, which the researchers admit is small evidence. Still, it’s enough to trigger our favorite mantra: More research is needed.

The diabetes—Covid cycle

Yay, another twist to SARS-CoV-2 infections. Apparently not only does Covid-19 make diabetes worse, and diabetes make Covid-19 worse, but CDC data show that “SARS-CoV-2 infection might also induce newly diagnosed diabetes.“

So if you have patients with diabetes, pre-diabetes, or a few boxes of Krispy Kreme under their arm … you might want to offer that warning.

The air in here

Sure, Covid is airborne, but apparently about as airborne as a Russian fighter jet. Simulations carried out by the industrious folks at the University of Bristol’s Aerosol Research Centre find that “Coronavirus loses 90% of its ability to infect us within five minutes of becoming airborne.“

This contradicts U.S. research that found the virus was detectable after three hours. But (and it’s a big one), the U.S. research “involved spraying virus into sealed vessels called Goldberg drums, which rotate to keep the droplets airborne.” The Brits, on the other hand, have a whole research center dedicated to aerosols, so their experiment was closer to the real world.

What does it mean?

“It means that if I’m meeting friends for lunch in a pub today, the primary [risk] is likely to be me transmitting it to my friends, or my friends transmitting it to me, rather than it being transmitted from someone on the other side of the room.”