Spit, don’t prick

Why stick yourself with a needle when you can just lick something? That’s not just good advice for tailgating at the Grateful Dead reunion tour, it might soon be something for diabetics to consider.

Scientists at Canada’s L’Université de Sherbrooke have made a sensor sensitive enough to detect glucose levels in the saliva — something that hasn’t been possible because the concentration was so low. But by supercharging the engineered DNA (called aptamers) used in biosensors, they made a device that can replace a finger-prick with a sensor-lick for measuring glucose.

Not only was the sensor accurate at measuring glucose concentrations in the liquid — providing readings in just 30 seconds — it also retained its sensitivity for up to one week….

Oh, and their new technology can also work with other biomarkers such as one that indicates gum disease.

The snozzberries test for LSD.

The path towards older worms

If you’re tired of your roundworms dying (and having to explain to your kids that Squiggles has gone to live with a nice family upstate), there’s good news out of the University of Liverpool.

It seems that rilmenidine, the blood pressure drug, “at young and older ages increases lifespan and improves health markers, mimicking the effects of caloric restriction.”

So instead of cutting your worms’ diets to the bare minimum, you might be able to help them live longer by adding an Albarel supplement.

Even if that doesn’t translate to humans, they discovered that rilmenidine affects a cellular receptor^* called nish-1, meaning nish-1 could be a target for other longevity drugs.

^* Techically an I1-imidazoline receptor

Novo targets compounders (again)

Instead of claiming they don’t have the right to compound semaglutide (the company lost that fight already), now those shifty Danes at Novo Nordisk have changed tacks. They’re claiming that the compounded semaglutide they found in a few pharmacies isn’t as strong as the real deal — it’s a lower dose.

So yes, Novo is suing two Florida pharmacies for selling a lower dose of the medication they don’t think those pharmacies should be allowed to sell at all. (How this hurts Novo isn’t clear.)

The company is also claiming some of the compounded versions contain a peptide called BPC-157 that isn’t allowed in compounded meds. (If Novo found a shady compounder playing fast and loose with the law, good for them — but that seems like a criminal issue rather than a civil one.)

Speaking of Novo Nordisk…

The company has showered medical pros with $25.8 million over a decade to get them to recommend its weight loss meds.

Example: Dr. Lee Kaplan, chief of obesity medicine at Dartmouth College’s medical school. He’s been pushing Wegovy on the one hand while receiving $1.4 million from Novo “for consulting work and travel between 2013 and 2022,” in the other hand, according to Reuters.

“To prevent and defeat a serious chronic condition like obesity, we need to do more than supply the right medicine,” Novo said. “This is why we work with medical professionals, institutions and other experts to conduct research and educate and raise awareness about obesity.”

Because apparently Americans aren’t aware of obesity. (Keep that $25.8 million in mind next time a drugmaker says its drugs are so expensive in order to pay for research and development.)

Elsewhere: Where the piece of cloth is tyranny

The anti-vax attorney general of Texas is suing Pfizer over its Covid vaccine. He claims that the vaccine wasn’t actually 95% effective as Pfizer’s tests showed, but only 0.85% effective. And, as Reuters reported, “He also said the pandemic got worse even after people started taking the vaccine.”

Uh-huh. Also: The moon landing was fake and birds aren’t real … but that’s another story. He did give us a lovely hyperbolic use of the word “tyrannical”:

“Pfizer did not tell the truth about their Covid-19 vaccines,” Paxton said in a statement. “We are pursuing justice for the people of Texas, many of whom were coerced by tyrannical vaccine mandates to take a defective product sold by lies.”

Captain Obvious doesn’t mix her vices

“Combined use of alcohol and THC can affect rat brains, study finds” —University of Illinois

In other medical news

Plastic surgeons are contemplating one of life’s great mysteries.