Some men just want to watch the world burn

At this point, we might have to accept that people who get health advice from social media deserve what happens next. The latest: Did you know that the sun isn’t dangerous, and that the whole skin cancer/premature aging hoax is part of a conspiracy to sell more products? Mm hmm. Thousands of researchers and dermatologists around the world are in on it.

That’s the logic being peddled by people who are, it seems, trying to influence the spread of skin cancer, like one chucklehead calling himself “Tan Man”…

… who encourages tanning without sunscreen because he believes the product is “bad for the skin” and the environment, claiming the skin is meant to “absorb the full unadulterated power of the sun’s rays.”

Another member of the brain trust says you don’t need sunscreen — just get lots of vitamin D “because the vitamin makes it ‘almost impossible to develop an autoimmune disease’.”

When you sow the sun, you reap the melanoma.

… and they have a plan

The White House has a plan to address the dangers of xylazine in street drugs. And the plan is … to come up with plans.

Specifically, six plans to tackle six areas: testing, research, data collection, supply disruption, treatment, and harm reduction.

But seriously, parts of the plan of plans include developing a naloxone-like antidote, considering rescheduling xylazine as a controlled substance, designating a specific diagnostic code to track deaths, and possibly working to legalize test strips^*.

The goal is to cut deaths by 15% within 2 years.

^* That’s right — we warn people about xylazine in drugs, but make it illegal for them to test for it. 

Dahlia vs diabetes

A molecule found in the dahlia plant, butein, can help stabilize blood sugar levels, according to Kiwi researchers. They already believed that butein by itself might do that, but when they looked at using the dahlia plant to get it, they found the improved glucose tolerance “was not mediated by butein alone but by butein combined with the closely related flavonoids, sulfuretin and/or isoliquiritigenin,” which happen to be in the flower.

All this was in pre-clinical trials, but they’ve already started the process “to bring a natural dahlia-extract supplement to the market.” Make of that what you will.

Today’s non-story story

Can vitamin D help prevent heart problems? Maybe. An Aussie study hinted that “vitamin D supplements may reduce the risk of cardiovascular events such as heart attacks in people aged over 60,” but “The researchers emphasised that the findings are not conclusive.”

That’s an understatement. Try to make sense of this logic-twisting quote:

“While previous randomised controlled trials have not found that taking supplements is beneficial for this outcome, the findings of the D-Health Trial suggests it is premature to say vitamin D supplementation does not alter the risk.”

Semaglutide problem … and possible solution

The global shortage of semaglutide continues, with the UK’s health department now recommending that no new patients start on the drug, which is in shortage all over the place — even in Canada.

That said, an analysis of claims by PBM Prime Therapeutics found that it may just be a matter of waiting a bit, as “Most patients using weight-loss drugs like Wegovy stop within a year.” (It might be due to side effects or cost; the company was only looking at records, so it doesn’t know for sure.)

Short Takes

Why isn’t a malaria vaccine available in the US?

Because we don’t really need one.

When is it time to stop a study?

When seven of your 40 patients die and five others develop respiratory issues. (Although the company claims that “11 of the 12 events, including six of the seven deaths, were assessed as unlikely or unrelated to the study drug.”)