Of mice and men

Wait, what? “[M]ice respond more to the antidepressant effects of the drug ketamine when administered by men and not by women.”

University of Maryland researchers had anecdotal evidence of the men vs. women thing, and, if true, it would skew their mice work. So they decided to study the effect.

Mice, they found, preferred the scent of women. In fact, they preferred it so much that being around men increased the mice’s stress levels. That stress activated a brain hormone called corticotropin-releasing factor; CRF, for unknown reasons, makes ketamine work better. Solution: Give the mice CRF with their ketamine.

When the researchers had women administer the ketamine along with an injection of CRF, the mice finally responded to ketamine as if they were being treated with an antidepressant.

This (probably) isn’t true for humans, but “the brain mechanism underlying their findings could help determine why some people do not respond to ketamine antidepressant therapy.”

Beware folic acid and Covid

Apparently, taking a folic acid prescription increases not only your chance of getting Covid-19, but also your chance of dying from it. And not small numbers, either. The study, out of UC Davis and the University of Alabama, found that people taking folic acid (aka B9, aka folate) were “1.5 times more likely to get Covid-19. They were also 2.6 times more likely to die from Covid-19.”

Important: This wasn’t people taking a low-level OTC supplement (less than 1 mg a day) — this was about the prescription-level (e.g,. 5 mg) stuff.

There’s good news. If those patients also get a prescription for methotrexate, that mitigates the risk.

2022 boosters clear hurdle

The FDA has approved both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s Omicron-fighting Covid booster vaccines. Next up, a CDC committee and then (presumably) a full CDC approval.

That is not how life expectancy works

“Americans born in 2021 can expect to live for just 76.1 years — the lowest life expectancy has been since 1996,” says the lede from Stat News.

Wrong wrong wrong.

Yes, the Covid-19 pandemic dropped US life expectancy 2.7 years. But that number does not mean that’s what an individual can expect to live. Grrrr.

Life expectancy is an average of a population; a gauge of its overall health — to compare country to country, or 2022 to 1966. But it doesn’t apply to individuals.

The Atlanta Braves overall batting average is .253, but that doesn’t mean every Braves player can expect a hit 1/4 of the time. Outliers like Mike Ford (.000) and Alex Dickerson (.121) are like kids who died in childhood, while Chadwick Tromp (one game, .750) is the WWI vet celebrating his 108th birthday. Neither affects what Matt Olsen does at the plate.

The takeaway from that new life expectancy number is “Yikes, Covid-19 really did kill a lot of people.”

* People in the Middle Ages lived into their 70s and 80s all the time, but high child mortality helped skew the data so the average was 40-whatever.

Niacin and migraine

If you don’t get enough niacin, your chance of getting a migraine goes up. And there’s actually a magic number: 21 mg per day.

Chinese researchers (looking at data on American adults) found that the results of the niacin/migraine connection follow an L-shaped curve, meaning once you hit that 21.0 mg/day mark, your risk plummets.

Eat ice cream, fight Covid

A protein called lactoferrin, which is in anything made with mammal’s milk, seems to have “astounding antiviral properties,” at least according to researchers at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy.

It turns out that lactoferrin has several different mechanisms of action against SARS-CoV-2, inhibiting the virus from entering cells, moving around within them and replicating.

The only problem is getting enough of it and having it stay around, considering the body will just digest it. (“To get enough lactoferrin to have a possible beneficial effect, one would have to drink gallons of milk a day.”)

Chewing gum or pills might work, though, and that’s what they’re planning to test. In the meantime, there are always lactoferrin gel capsules — you might even sell them.

[Prof. Jonathan] Sexton calculates that about a gram a day, four 250 milligram capsules, should do it. He advises two in the morning and two a night [on an empty stomach].

It may work, it may not, but it certainly won’t hurt.

Nuts to you

Peanuts can help you lose weight … according to a Texas Tech/University of South Australia study funded by The Peanut Institute.

For those of you keeping track, this is at least the third Texas Tech story touting the benefits of peanuts, and funded by the same organization.

The Long Read: Fighting Long Covid edition

An Emory University immunologist explains ‘How researchers are zeroing in on the self-targeted immune attacks that may lurk behind long Covid.’