Walgreens walkout

By the time you read this, Walgreens pharmacy staff across the country will have walked out for three days over their working conditions. This follows walkouts from CVS pharmacies that started last week in Kansas. (Read the Reddit thread here.)

What about you?

Take our anonymous survey. (And when we say “anonymous,” we mean it — we do not want any personal information, period.) It’s all of four questions, plus a chance to tell us about your working conditions.

We want to share this information with the Board of Pharmacy so it will be crystal clear the kind of conditions Georgia pharmacists and technicians are dealing with.

Please go to GPha.org/workingconditions and take the 5 minutes to share your story.

Contraceptives vs arthritis

An interesting twist to contraceptives: Apparently The Pill can protect women from rheumatoid arthritis. It’s not a small effect, either, according to the Swedish researchers who did the study. Taking contraceptive pills lowered the risk of arthritis by 19% while they were taking them, and 11% after they stopped.

Then another twist: Getting hormone treatments for menopause increases the risk. Yep, “women who were treated with hormones ran a 16% higher risk of rheumatoid arthritis than those who never received such treatment.”

Why the difference? Well, they’re hormones, sure, but they’re different hormones, and of course there are the physiological changes that comes with menopause. But for that, more research is needed.

Indy pharmacies line up to dispense THC oil

It seems that about a quarter of Georgia’s independent pharmacies — about 100 out of the 400 in the state — have signed up with the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission to dispense low-THC oil to the 27,000 people who hold Low THC Oil Registration cards.

(Shout-out to Atlanta News First for correctly calling it “low-THC oil” and not “medical marijuana.” Looking at you, ABC News.)

I know there are some strong opinions about the subject, so please don’t read this as an endorsement for any particular point of view. GPhA does not have an official opinion on the sale of low-THC oil by pharmacies.

Short takes

Where sleep disorders and ADHD meet

The narcolepsy drug Solriamfetol, aka Sunosi, seems to work against adult ADHD, according to a small trial by Mass General researchers. That’s likely because it …

… increases the amounts of certain natural substances in the brain — specifically, dopamine and norepinephrine — that control sleep and wakefulness, thus sharing some of the properties of current ADHD medications.

HRBs and PPIs affect MMFs

Patients taking mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) should be careful if they’re taking either esomeprazole of ranitidine for acid reflux. A study out of India found that either of those drugs reduced the bioavailability of MMF. If they need those acid-reflux drugs, they should monitor their MMF levels or switch to enteric-coated mycophenolate sodium instead.

Best Buy will sell glucose monitors

Best Buy is dipping its toe into the healthcare waters — it’s planning to offer the Dexcom G7 glucose monitoring system.

It’s a simple process: A patient signs up with virtual healthcare company Wheel, and is then assigned a physician. The physician prescribes a glucose monitor and sends a prescription to pharma-tech company HealthDyne which processes it and sends the Dexcom G7 directly to the customer.

Best Buy said will sell the G7 for $179.99 with a 30-day insulin supply, but its involvement isn’t clear. (Why can’t patients go directly to Wheel?) Maybe Best Buy’s job is to tell you that you have a serious virus and the Geek Squad will clean it up for just $79.99.

Why antidepressants take so long to work

Most meds start working right away, but SSRIs and SNRIs can take a week or more. As Jerry Seinfeld would ask, “What’s up with that?”

The answer, according to an international group of researchers led by those shifty Danes, seems to be that the drugs actually get the brain to build new synapses in the neocortex and hippocampus. And that’s not something that can happen overnight.

That’s not to say they’re 100% certain that greater synaptic density is how these drugs work, but PET scans did show noticeable changes after several weeks on an SSRI. That would seem to point to those brain changes as the mechanism … or at least part of it.

Bitter coffee can help you lose weight

Drinking coffee, it seems, can help you lose weight — with or without caffeine. A team of Harvard researchers discovered this … and the huge caveat: It seems that a single teaspoon of sugar will counteract the weight-loss effect. Milk or cream doesn’t make much of a difference, though.

[A]n increase in coffee consumption of one cup of unsweetened coffee was linked to a decrease in weight of around 0.12 kilograms (0.26 pounds). On the other hand, when people increased their daily sugar intake by one teaspoon in any food or drink, they gained 0.09 kilograms (0.20 pounds).

Why does it work? It might help burn calories or it might suppress appetite, but some of the suggestions (e.g., “ enhancing physical performance”) apply to caffeine rather than coffee, and this study was about both caff and decaf varieties. So, as always, more studies are needed.