Governor Kemp to speak at convention

The headline says it — Georgia Governor Brian Kemp will be speaking at the Georgia Pharmacy Convention on Thursday, June 9, at the general session. That will be followed by a fundraising luncheon for his reelection campaign.

You won’t want to miss hearing the governor speak! If you haven’t registered for the convention, you can still do it on-site. And be sure to attend the fundraising luncheon: Click here for information and a registration form.

Covid protection … from food allergies

Here’s an odd twist to an odd virus: Having a food allergy decreases your risk of Covid-19. The NIH researchers who conducted the study think allergic inflammation might reduce the levels of the ACE2 receptor that SARS-CoV-2 likes to bind to. (They also considered that people with food allergies might go out less often and have less exposure, but that turned out not to be the case.)

Take away the frying pan, give them the fire

Giving antipsychotics to dementia patients in nursing homes was a bad idea — it made it much more likely for them to fall, among other issues. For the last decade there’s been a push to cut back.

And … it worked. Sort of.

Researchers from the University of Michigan found that the VA nursing homes they studied simply switched the patients “to other behavior-changing drugs that have little evidence that they can reduce troubling dementia-related behaviors.”

What other drugs? Antiepileptics, antidepressants, and opioids.

Over nine years…

the use of antiepileptic or mood stabilizing medications rose by 17 percentage points, to over 40% of veterans receiving these types of medications. Most of this increase was driven by increased prescribing of gabapentin — an epilepsy drug which is often prescribed for pain with little evidence to back up its use in dementia — which doubled during the nine-year period.

Salt and the skin

Patients with atopic dermatitis may have a simple treatment: Cut down on the salt. Well, the sodium. Dermatologists at UC San Francisco found that even a 1-gram increase in sodium caused a noticeable jump* in risk.

Gene variant stops Alzheimer’s

While the cause(s) of Alzheimer’s is (are) still a mystery, we do know a few things for sure in terms of genetics. One has to do with a gene called APOE. There are three variants you might inherit: APOE2, APOE3, and APOE4. While having APOE2 protects you from Alzheimer’s, APOE4 increases your risk. (APOE3 doesn’t hurt or help.)

Why? Don’t know. But here’s a big finding that Stanford researchers made: There’s a mutation of that nasty APOE4 variant that neutralizes the risk; it’s called R251G.

So, while we don’t know the whys yet, knowing that this R251G variant does something to curb Alzheimer’s is a Very Big Deal.

“If we, as a field, can figure out exactly how the R251G mutation reduces risk, then maybe we can come up with a small molecule drug that gets into the brain and mimics what R251G is doing.”

A different kind of flu treatment

Flu vaccines convince the body to attack the virus as it enters the body, but (obviously) don’t always work. So UC Riverside bioengineers have a new weapon: A drug that prevents the virus from accessing a protein it needs to replicate.

The influenza B virus uses a process called SUMOylation to force proteins to do its bidding. So the engineers created a — wait for it — SUMOylation inhibitor that effectively stops the process.

Of course this is all in the lab, so “more work is needed for a thorough understanding” of the process before it can be made into a flu cure.

Cigarettes: Out of sight, out of mind

The Aussies discourage smoking (successfully!) by requiring cigarette boxes to be plain olive drab with the brand name in a standard font … and a horrifically graphic anti-smoking image.

1. Flip the globe to the US of A.
2. Forget the idea that the images will discourage people.

Instead, UC San Diego researchers think there’s another benefit. They found that smokers who received cigarette packs with graphic warning labels hid their packs 38% more often.

That, they think hypothesize, might reduce the perception (of those around them) that smoking is acceptable. And that, they think, might be one reason the Aussies’ packages are so successful at cutting smoking.

If you want to see some examples, click the tiny thumbnail below. I kept it small so as not to frighten the squeamish. Or, really, the non-squeamish.

Caffeine quickie

Today’s reason to drink coffee is courtesy of researchers from the University of Colorado, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Minnesota. Their study — of more than 14,000 adults over 24 years — found that drinking 2-3 cups of coffee a day reduces the risk of acute kidney injury.

As is often the case, though, it’s not clear if the effect comes from coffee or from caffeine. Regardless, overall, people who drank coffee “still had an 11% lower risk of developing AKI compared with those who did not.” Why? Don’t know. “Further evaluation of the physiological mechanisms underlying the cardiorenal protective effects of coffee consumption is necessary.”

Today’s non-pharma health story: Bang on the drum all day

Teaching autistic kids to drum might help treat their symptoms. Really, that’s the water-cooler synopsis.

British researchers found that just an hour a week of drum practice (preferably during daylight hours) improved the kids’ dexterity, rhythm, and timing “in addition to improved concentration and social interactions.”

[T]he emphasis that drumming places on timing, hand-eye coordination, and the need to continuously monitor and correct mistakes […] enhance the attention, inhibition and thinking skills that are keys to “social outcomes and physical and mental health well-being.”