Fentanyl babies

Mothers who use fentanyl during pregnancy are having children with distinct physical features, and some of them are serious … and disturbing.

[T]he infants all had small heads, short stature, and distinctive facial features. Multiple infants had cleft palate, “rocker bottom” feet, and malformed genital organs. Other common features included short, broad thumbs, a single palmar crease, and fused toes.

Another other reason to get vaccinated

Here’s a surprise: “people who are vaccinated have a significantly lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease.” And by “vaccinated” they don’t mean against Covid or the flu. They mean vaccinated against anything.

First (a year ago) a University of Texas study found this applied to the flu vaccine. But then the same researchers expanded to see the effect of the Tdap, shingles, and pneumococcus vaccines, crunching the records of 1.65 million people over 65.

Remarkably, all 3 of the vaccines showed similar and quite significant benefits against Alzheimer’s disease. In an 8-year follow-up period, the risk of Alzheimer’s was 30% lower (7.2% versus 10.2%) in patients who had the Tdap vaccine versus those who hadn’t. For the shingles vaccine, the reduction in risk was 25%, 8.1% versus 10.7%. And for the pneumococcal vaccine, the risk was 27% lower, 7.9% versus 10.9%.

Holy wow — a 30% lower risk just from a routine vaccination. What’s weird is that the effect (at least for the flu shot) only comes from vaccination, not from infection.

Why is this happening? They’re still working to figure out the mechanism, but they think “that vaccines might work to protect against Alzheimer’s by ‘long-term reprogramming of innate immune cells,’ also called ‘trained immunity”.’

A pineapple’s worth

Like most people, you’ve probably laid awake at night wondering, “How much does the immune system weigh?” You can sleep soundly now as Israeli scientists have the answer: It weighs about as much as a pineapple (or six hamsters^*, as Science Alert points out).

^* Also 240 paperclips or 24 AA batteries

Icodec vs degludec

When the smoke cleared from the cage match between weekly (icodec) and daily (degludec) insulin injections, it was just about a draw — that’s according to British researchers who led a 12-country study of 582 people with type 1 diabetes.

“What we have found is that once-weekly icodec injections showed non inferiority to once-daily injections of degludec in reducing HbA1C after 26 weeks. Although there is a slightly higher rate of hypoglycaemia under this regime, we found this could be easily managed.”

Potential caveat: “Funding for this trial was provided by Novo Nordisk.”

AI designs new gastric acid treatment

We know that the gastric proton pump is responsible for excess stomach acid, and that existing proton-pump inhibitors come with some serious side effects. So Japanese scientists asked an AI to design a molecule that would bind to the proton pump and stop it from over-pumping.

The AI came up with a bunch of weird molecules, and the team synthesized the ones they thought looked most promising. The sixth one (“DQ-06”) worked. Then the humans stepped in and tweaked it to create “DQ-18,” a version that works better than the gastric acid inhibitor they were comparing these compounds to.

Obviously this is all in the lab, but it’s a real (potential) drug with a structure humans would likely not have come up with.

“I was skeptical when I saw some of the strange chemical structures, including DQ-02 (the second one they tested) and related ones,” said one researcher. “But we suspected there must be a reason AI suggests such strange chemicals.”

Breast cancer breakthrough

A group of pharmacology researchers, including some from Georgia Tech and Emory University, have figured out how breast cancers metastasizes. It’s a totally new mechanism, and it opens the door to treatment.

What they found: A protein called dynein is what powers the cancer cells through the soft tissue. Stop the dynein, stop the metastasis.

“[W]e found that dynein is extremely important for cell locomotion, which suggests a whole new method for cancer management. Instead of killing the cancer cells with radiation or chemotherapy, we are showing how to paralyze them.”

As for how to stop the dynein — that’s still up in the air.

Glioblastoma force multiplier

Cerebrospinal fluid is useful stuff, protecting the brain and all that. But it has a dark side: It can make glioblastoma cells more resistant to ferroptosis, which is how chemo/radiation therapy kills the cancer.

Draining the cerebrospinal fluid is a bad idea, obviously, but Aussie scientists found a possible solution: trifluoperazine, the 70+ year old anti-anxiety drug. It seems to “resensitize” the glioblastoma cells, allowing the therapy to work better.

Next up: Human trials, made easier because trifluoperazine has been considered safe and effective since the 1950s.