On the off chance you missed this…

The FDA has approved the Pill — specifically Perrigo’s Opill — for over the counter sale in the US. There is no age restriction, and pricing hasn’t been set; it’s expected to be on shelves by early next year.

Sweet and sour wound treatment

If you’re like a lot of practitioners, you’ve treated wounds with either honey or acetic acid (probably by using vinegar). But, found British microbiologists, it’s the combination of honey and vinegar that gives the best chance of curing a wound.

By comparing the use of vinegar and acetic acid alone, then in combination with medical-grade honey, the researchers found that it was specifically the combination of the two substances which was best.

“When we put these low doses together, we saw a large number of bacteria dying which is really exciting,” said the lead researchers. Oh, and pure acetic acid isn’t the way to go; you want vinegar — and pomegranate vinegar seemed to be the most promising.

An eye drop instead of a needle

Surprisingly, not everyone likes the idea of getting a needle stuck in their eye, even if it’s to treat retinal vein occlusion, a not-that-uncommon eye disease. As an alternative, Columbia researchers have developed an eye drop that — at least in the lab — works just as well to reduce the swelling in the veins that cause the disease.

The eye drops contain an experimental drug that blocks caspase-9, an enzyme that triggers cell death, and was found by Troy’s lab to be overactive in blood vessels injured by RVO.

Next up: prepping for human trials.

Weekly insulin aces its trial

A phase-3 trial of insulin icodec, a once-weekly form of insulin for people with type 2 diabetes, found that it’s safe and effective “and helped them maintain healthy blood sugar levels better than insulin injected daily.”

This is one of five phase-3 trials of the drug, each testing a slightly different use case. So far they’ve all shown the same ‘safe and effective’ results.

Bonus: Includes our favorite phrase, “game-changing.”

A different culprit for Gulf War Illness

Normally you can count on either inflammation or gut bacteria to account for medical issues, but UC San Diego researchers found what they think is an important exception: Gulf War Illness.

Formerly thought to have been an inflammation issue, the UCSD folks “suggest that impaired mitochondrial function, and not inflammation, is the main driver of GWI symptoms and should be the primary target of future clinical interventions.”

“Inflammation does appear to be linked to GWI, but our work suggests that it’s actually a side effect of the primary issue, which is impaired cell energy.”

You have shamed our family!

Novartis has been accused by the UK’s Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority of ‘bringing discredit upon the pharma industry’ for providing misleading information about Entresto on its website. It’s not clear what the penalty will be, but dessert is clearly out of the question.

Cybersecurity: This is not an ad, even if it sounds like one

How’s your cybersecurity? More specifically, if you were hit with an attack, could you handle it? If you think you’re not a target, you’re not thinking like a hacker. They don’t go after specific targets — they’ve got bots out there searching for any system that’s vulnerable, and healthcare is a juicy one to find.

HCA Healthcare is one of the latest victims, with 11 million patient records being exposed. But don’t worry! The data breach was limited to patient names, addresses, telephone numbers, emails, dates of birth, gender, treatment locations, treatment dates, and next appointment dates. “There has been no disruption to the care and services HCA Healthcare provides.”

So maybe chat with your data provider … and be sure you have insurance coverage. oi

Southern flu update

After a pretty rough flu season in the southern hemisphere — including a surprising number of younger people (5–16) being hospitalized — rates there are dropping. But that bad start doesn’t bode well for us this fall. Of note, all but one of the hospitalized kids had not been vaccinated.