The real Covid killer

All through the pandemic, we thought it was a cytokine storm that killed patients — an overwhelming inflammation throughout the body. But when Northwestern University scientists asked their computer to look into it, a different culprit emerged: unresolved secondary bacterial pneumonia.

What the AI teased out of the data points a pretty clear finger:

• “Nearly half of patients with Covid-19 develop a secondary ventilator-associated bacterial pneumonia.”
• “Those who were cured of their secondary pneumonia were likely to live…”
• ”… while those whose pneumonia did not resolve were more likely to die.”

So the virus itself doesn’t do the killing directly, but rather causes that secondary bacterial pneumonia, which is often deadly. They hope knowing this can save lives by giving physicians a better target for treating Covid patients.

Needed: a new kind of pharmacy tech

In case you haven’t noticed, technology — especially information systems — is (are) playing a bigger role in how pharmacies run. And that means a pharmacy can’t rely on the 12-year-old wunderkind to stop by on her way home from school to fix your computer problems.

And that’s why Becker’s Hospital Review covers “The growing demand for pharmacy informatics technicians.”

Pharmacy informatics technicians […] provide “oversight and integrity of computer systems and software applications involved in pharmacy order entry, dispensing, compounding systems, automation, telehealth and digital and virtual care.”

And that’s why pharmacy techs should think about tweaking or adding to their training. Here’s what pharmacies need — your choice whether you see it as an overwhelming list, or a deep pile of opportunity (and résumé lines): experience in “predictive analysis, process improvement, budget expectations, cost containment, standardization, inventory control, governance, and automation education and training.”

Wengovy and friends

Yeah, I’m getting tired of these stories too, but GLP-1 agonists are in the news and we’re all stuck with that until a celebrity dies of some rare disease.

More than just a lifestyle drug

Novo Nordisk would love its Wegovy to be classified as having a medical benefit rather than as a ‘lifestyle drug.’ So it’s focusing on showing the heart benefits: “It doesn’t take a lot of leaps of faith to understand if you lose weight, you will have a lower risk of heart disease.”

A five-year study “to assess whether Wegovy reduces the risk of major cardiovascular events” is ending this summer, and the results could change who gets the drug … and who’s willing to pay for it.

But there’s a downside

Losing weight (when it’s healthy) is a good thing, but there’s a side effect if it happens quickly like, say, with a drug like Ozempic: hair loss. The body treats it as a major stressor, and (as one dermatologist explained), “Telogen effluvium is a diffuse shedding of hair that occurs approximately three months after a major stressor.”

The good news is that it generally goes away. The hair loss, that is, not the hair itself. But weight-loss-drug users should be prepared.

Drops could be dropped

A new eye spray just got FDA approval for dilating pupils — Eyenovia’s Mydcombi, “a fixed-dose combination of the two popular dilating meds tropicamide and phenylephrine.”

The thought is that having a chemical sprayed into your eye is more comfortable than getting drops.

All right, there’s more: It uses a much smaller dose, a much smaller overall spray (“about a fifth of the volume of a traditional eye drop”), and fewer preservatives.

The gut-Parkinson’s link

Finnish researchers have found a cause of Parkinson’s disease: a bacteria called Desulfovibrio that can be found in the gut. This could be big news — the exact cause of Parkinson’s is unknown. Until, perhaps, now.

What they found is that “The disease is primarily caused by environmental factors, that is, environmental exposure to the Desulfovibrio bacterial strains.” But not every strain — there are certain strains of Desulfovibrio that didn’t cause any issues, while the troublesome ones created larger aggregates of the alpha-synuclein protein that’s a hallmark of the disease.

And genetics? “Only a small share, or roughly 10%, of Parkinson’s disease is caused by individual genes.”

Caveat: This was only tested in C. elegans worms, but still they hope that targeting this particular bacteria could lead to “potentially alleviating and slowing the symptoms of patients with Parkinson’s disease.”

The Long Read: Skeeter Beater edition

For people who seem to be mosquito magnets, help is on the way in the form of new repellants that are safer, longer lasting, and even better than the DEET gold standard.

Short Takes

What else can they do?

Weight-loss drugs could be brought to bear against Alzheimer’s and other diseases. How? By “improving glucose utilisation and tamping down inflammation in the entire body — including the brain.”

Depression and anxiety can make long Covid worse

Anxiety and depression can cause “thinking deficits,” and people with thinking deficits are more likely to suffer from long Covid. “This perception of cognitive deficits suggests that affective issues — in this case anxiety and depression — appear to carry over into the long Covid period.”

We’ll check in in about five years

Japanese researchers say they’ve had success with a different kind of antidepressant. One of these delta opioid receptor agonists, a drug called KNT-127, had “significant anti-depressant activity, quick action, and minimal side effects.” Not surprisingly with antidepressants, they don’t know why it works.