Asthma can strike at the worst time

If you have patients with asthma, you might want to warn them about getting triggered during those cold winter nights.

“Many people don’t realize that the energy expenditure of sexual activity is about equivalent to walking up two flights of stairs^*. Reported cases are infrequent, possibly because those suffering an asthma flare may not realize the trigger^†.”

…and picking up your phone to call for help might be a bad idea

“Smartphones are Reservoirs of Allergens According to New Research”

^* If done correctly
^† They might be otherwise engaged

Today GPhA, tomorrow … the world?

Think you’ve got what it takes to hold a national office — a position with APhA? The time is nigh to apply to be a candidate!

Positions you can run for range from 2024 president — aka, 2023 president-elect — to trustee and officer positions in (on?) APhA academies. (There are more than a dozen positions available.)

IMPORTANT: The application deadline is November 28, 2022. For all the details and a link to the candidate applications, just click here.

Parkinson’s and a chemical balancing act

Adenosine and dopamine have a kind of ‘pushmi-pullyu’ relationship, discovered researchers at Oregon Health & Science University. Dopamine promotes action, adenosine puts the brakes on.

So what? you ask. So it means a potential new avenue for treating Parkinson’s, where dopamine loss is thought to be a cause. If it turns out to be an adenosine-dopamine balance issue, that could be a darned big breakthrough.

Doom and Gloom™

Where are the Boy Scouts when we need them?

We are not prepared for the coming Covid winter (says Stat News) as pandemic fatigue means cutting testing and the impending end of free vaccines and treatment. But at the same time, new variants are nasty, and we won’t be tracking the spread.

The good news is that Israel and South Africa are still tracking and reporting, so we can keep an eye on them.

And that winter is coming

According to the Mayo Clinic’s crystal ball, “Covid-19 cases are projected to increase by nearly 40 percent over the next two weeks.” (The clinic is ending its predictions on November 30 because there isn’t enough reliable reporting anymore….)

But who will think of the clowns?

Coming soon: the helium crisis. The world is running out, and we need it not just to lure children into the sewers, but to run MRI machines.

The good news is that the good ol’ US of A has a lot of the world’s supply, but the bad news is that getting at what’s left could be expensive … at least until we come up with the equivalent of fracking. (But hopefully without the whole ‘poisoning the water’ thing.)

27+ hours of CE!

Attention procrastinators! Still need CE credits so you aren’t tossed out on the street when your license isn’t renewed next year?

Check it out: GPhA is offering a boatload of year-end CE — more than 27 hours^* of on-demand CE webinars available for just $199 ($269 for non-members).

Yep, we’ve made almost all our CE webinars available in one awesome package, with courses for pharmacists, technicians, and both, on too many topics to list here.

But it’s only through December 31!

Don’t end up living under an overpass and showering at the Y. See all the courses and sign up today at GPhA.org/27hours!

^* Not to be confused with “127 Hours,” which is very very different.

Captain Obvious is keeping his hands to himself

“Need to check yourself for prostate cancer? You should probably avoid Tiktok and YouTube”

Eating your veggies (for your guts)

Yesterday we told you how the right gut microbes can make cancer meds work better, and eating fiber is one way to grow ’em. So may be eating tomatoes. If you’re a pig, at least.

Researchers at an Ohio State University found that…

Two weeks of eating a diet heavy in tomatoes increased the diversity of gut microbes and altered gut bacteria toward a more favorable profile in young pigs.

Now whether that “more favorable profile” is the kind of profile we wrote about yesterday — heavy in Bifidobacterium — isn’t clear. There are lots of good gut bacteria, but they all don’t have the same effects. In the OSU study, for example, they only refer to bacteria “found to be linked with positive health outcomes.”

You know the drill: More studies are needed.

Fun fact: Tomatoes are biologically fruits, but — thanks to a Supreme Court decision in 1983, they are legally vegetables.

Kissing frogs is probably okay

If you feel the need to drug yourself into a psychedelic high, the National Park Service urges that you not do it by licking psychedelic toads.

“As we say with most things you come across in a national park, whether it be a banana slug, unfamiliar mushroom, or a large toad with glowing eyes in the dead of night, please refrain from licking.”