Flu shots cut heart attacks

The question: “Is seasonal influenza vaccination associated with lower rates of adverse cardiovascular events?”

The answer: Why yes, yes it is. The flu puts enough of a strain on the heart that being vaccinated — whether it lessens the impact or prevents the flu entirely — cuts the risk of heart attacks. That’s according to data out of Houston Methodist Hospital.

Adults who received the vaccine were 37% less likely to be hospitalized for the flu and 82% less likely to be admitted to the ICU because of it. Among people admitted to the hospital with the flu, those vaccinated were 59% less likely to be admitted to the ICU. Vaccinated patients admitted to the ICU spent four fewer days in the ICU than unvaccinated patients.

The serine-Alzheimer’s connection

Some people take the supplement serine, hoping it might help treat Alzheimer’s. That might be a very bad idea, according to some findings out of UC San Diego.

Researchers there found that elevated levels of an enzyme called PHGDH appear to be an early warning sign of Alzheimer’s. While the mechanism isn’t clear, they do know that higher PHGDH leads to higher levels of serine. So if PHGDH is involved in Alzheimer’s, it might mean that serine is as well. Thus, “Anyone looking to recommend or take serine to mitigate Alzheimer’s symptoms should exercise caution.”

Covid tidbits

Age is just a number

If you get a bad enough case of Covid to put you in the hospital, you could emerge with ‘brain fog’ as bad as if you had aged 20 years — and it could last more than a year. (So found British brain-science researchers after conducting cognitive tests on discharged patients.)

That means 20-year-olds could end up shopping for Miatas, 50-year-olds will be shooing whippersnappers off their lawns, and 60-year-olds will start reminiscing about when movies were a nickel.

Having Omicron may not protect you

The prevailing wisdom was that Covid exposure meant Covid protection — not full protection, but at least as much as from a single shot of a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. But that may not be true with the omicron variant, as South African scientists are discovering.

At least two sub-variants of Omicron — BA.4 and BA.5 “can evade neutralizing antibodies generated by infections from BA.1,” and that’s leading to a surge in cases there.

The good news: Vaccination does work against those sub-variants, so the only people this is likely to affect are the unvaccinated.

Going up

Cases and hospitalizations are both going up again, following (not surprisingly) the loosening of masking requirements. Deaths, however, are going down (but typically lag hospitalizations by two weeks). If deaths don’t start rising, though, it could be a good sign that Covid is mostly under control — really bad if you get it, but usually not fatal.

Weight weight, don’t tell me

People with a higher body mass index are more likely to … wait a sec. How did BMI become the measure of ‘correct’ weight? Why do we use it so often, and how reliable is it? The Conversation has some answers:

“Here’s everything you need to know about BMI — and why using it as the sole measure of your health is nonsense, starting with a quick history lesson.”

(Fun fact: “BMI started as a way to describe the average white man in the 1800s.”)

Emotional dopamine

Dopamine doesn’t just make you feel rewarded — it also seems to be important for your ability to recognize emotions. If you have patients taking dopamine agonists like haloperidol or clozapine, that could be an issue.

British psychologists found that those drugs affect — and often impair — “social cognition.” But the effects aren’t straightforward. For example, they gave haloperidol to healthy people who had varying levels of dopamine in their blood:

In people with low dopamine, the drug increased their ability to recognize emotions, while in people with high dopamine, the drug impaired their ability.

The usual mantra: More research is necessary … but it seems that when someone’s dopamine levels are … adjusted, the effects might be more than expected.

Adults with ADHD rejoice!

There’s a new drug in town — the first nonstimulant ADHD med since Strattera (in 2002) has been approved for adults.

Supernus’s Qelbree* got a green light for kids and teens last April, and now becomes only the fourth non-controlled ADHD med for grown-ups.

The Long Read: Marijuana Legality edition

One of the quirky issues with medical marijuana — in Georgia and elsewhere — is that, while it’s completely legal (for adults) in 18 states and legal for medical use in 37, the feds still classify it as schedule 1, up there with heroin.

Of course, ever since our nationwide discussion in the 1860s, federal law supersedes state law. That means the DEA could technically bust a guy with a joint sitting on his porch in Colorado. It also leads to Georgia’s odd situation, where cannabis is legal for some folks to possess for medical use, but not legal for them to obtain (because it would have to cross state lines).

And that’s why this story in the FDA Law Blog is interesting. The DoJ, it seems, considers marijuana enforcement a low priority.

“I do not think it the best use of the department’s limited resources to pursue prosecutions of those who are complying with the laws in states that have legalized and are effectively regulating marijuana.” —Attorney General Merrick Garland

There are eight exceptions coming out of the 2018 “Cole Memo,” but this item is already too long, so you’ll need to read more on your own….