A tune full of music helps the chemotherapy go down (maybe)

The right music might reduce the nausea from chemo. And by “right music” Michigan State researchers mean “your favorite tunes.”

Their hypothesis: Music can improve a mood and thus reduce pain an anxiety, i.e., it has neurological effects. And, the MSU folks figured, “Chemotherapy-induced nausea is not a stomach condition; it is a neurological one.”

The small study (12 patients, 64 “events”) found that nausea severity did in fact decrease with the music, although they caution that it could be “the gradual release of the medication doing its job” rather than the music. Thus the next step will be to measure serotonin levels at the same time to determine the music’s effect.

Eat what you want!

Look out, Ozempic. University of Texas medical researchers have tested a drug that lets mice eat a Western high-sugar, high-fat diet and still lose weight.

The trick is cutting down the amount of magnesium that mitochondria can transport. When magnesium is plentiful, the mitochondria produce less energy and store more for later — as fat, of course. (And yes, the article is sure to explain that mitochondria “are cells’ power plants.”)

Deleting MRS2, a gene that promotes magnesium transport into the mitochondria, resulted in more efficient metabolism of sugar and fat in the power plants. The result: skinny, healthy mice.

The drug, which the researchers call CPACC, accomplishes the same thing. It restricts the amount of magnesium transfer into the power plants.

First they filed for a patent. Now they’re doing more research, including seeing if the results carry over to humans.

New drugs, positive trials

For ovarian cancer

Upifitamab rilsodotin has been considered as a treatment for ovarian cancer, and now it’s showing serious promise — it passed its phase-2 trials (it’s safe and effective) and is now going into phase-3 to find the right dosage and determine just how well it works in the real world.

For leukemia

A small, early trial found that revumenib, an experimental drug, achieved complete remission in 18 patients with leukemia.

“Revumenib works by inhibiting the activity of a protein called menin, which scientists say plays an important role in certain forms of leukemia.”

(But wait. If menin sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the target of a supplement that hopes to increase menin levels — low levels have been associated with low bone mass and skin thickness, cognitive decline, and even reduced lifespan.)

Good news about long Covid

For most people now, catching Covid-19 means at worst a dose of Paxlovid and a really bad cold. The big fear isn’t Covid itself, but long Covid — brain fog and muscle aches and worse for a year or more.

Good news: It seems that catching Omicron means having a much lower risk of long Covid.

A group in the United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy reported this month in The Lancet Oncology that the risk of Long Covid among cancer patients fell from about 17% in 2021 to 6% more recently, as cases shifted to Omicron.

Is it “an intrinsic property of Omicron”? The fact that that many people have been vaccinated or exposed? They aren’t sure, and one researcher point out that low risk isn’t no risk. “ “I definitely don’t want to get the virus.”

It could be a tick bite

People with unexplained gastrointestinal issues might have been a victim of a bite from the lone star tick … months ago.

The American Gastroenterological Association is letting healthcare folks know that it’s worth checking if “unexplained digestive symptoms are due to alpha-gal syndrome” caused by the tick. (Alpha-gal syndrome essentially makes you allergic to meat from mammals — the best kind of meat.)

Clinicians should consider alpha-gal syndrome in patients with unexplained gastrointestinal symptoms of abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, particularly those who live or have lived in an alpha-gal–prevalent area (this includes the Southeast, mid-Atlantic, Midwest and East Central U.S. regions)

Not creepy at all

You go to the hospital and get a routine(ish) ECG. No big whoop. But then the robotic voice of the hospital’s AI says, “You will die within 8 months. Accuracy: 85 percent.” And worse, it’s in a Canadian accent.

A research team at the University of Alberta has developed just such a system. Trained on 1.6 million ECGs done on 244,077 patients over 12+ years…

The algorithm predicted the risk of death from that point for each patient from all causes within one month, one year and five years with an 85 per cent accuracy rate, sorting patients into five categories from lowest to highest risk.

And if it has age, sex, and other lab results it’s even more accurate.

Short Takes

The feds won’t be marching in

No, the National Institute of Health won’t use the federal government’s “march-in” rights to essentially take over Astellas and Pfizer’s Xtandi patent. Xtandi is widely available and “NIH does not believe that use of the march-in authority would be an effective means of lowering the price of the drug.”

P&G gets NyQuil warning

The ingredients are supposed to be acetaminophen, dextromethorphan HBR, phenylephrine, and guaifenesin.

The ingredients on the label are acetaminophen, dextromethorphan HBR, doxylamine succinate, and phenylephrine.

The FDA is … displeased.