GPhA on DEA and low-THC

GPhA has released an official statement regarding the letters from the DEA that were received by independent pharmacies registered as dispensaries for low-THC oil. You can read that statement here.

Cigna and Humana won’t be hooking up

Soon after Taylor Swift was named Time’s Person of the Year, Cigna and Humana announced that they were calling off their proposed merger. Cigna instead will engage in a bit of treating itself with a $10 billion stock buyback (well, stock buyback authorization).

ChatGPT and drugs

If you’ve read anything about ChatGPT, the AI chatbot, you know it’s great at brainstorming ideas and working with text (“Rewrite this letter to my insurance company to make it more forceful”), but it can’t be trusted with facts.

That includes drug info. Sure, ChatGPT might be able to pass the bar, but Long Island University pharmacists found that the free version was was only accurate about drugs about 25% of the time.

For example, when asked about a potential drug interaction between verapamil and Paxlovid, the AI said there were none reported. In reality, the combo can lead to excessively lower blood pressure. (To be fair, the older version they used only had info through September 2021, just a few months after Paxlovid was approved.)

Just to see…

Here’s a little twist: We asked the newer version of ChatGPT — which has access to real-time Internet information — the same thing. It didn’t cite the risk of excessively lower blood pressure, either. Instead, it said that yes, the drugs can interact, but it brought up a different issue:

Paxlovid is metabolized in the body by an enzyme called CYP3A. Verapamil inhibits this enzyme, which can lead to higher levels of Paxlovid in your system. This might increase the risk of Paxlovid’s side effects.

(It then recommends talking with a healthcare provider.)

A new target for MS

Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease, so treatments focus on the immune system. That, after all, is what goes into overdrive and leads to demyelination — damage to the myelin sheaths surrounding nerves.

Medicinal chemists in Canada think they have a better way; they’ve developed a compound that targets the glutamate system instead. It’s currently in the lab only (and in animal models), but test results were encouraging — “a stunning effect” according to one researcher.

Study results showed that the newly synthesized lead compound not only reduced MS-like symptoms, it also may repair the damaged myelin in two different pre-clinical models of MS.

Next up is turning the “drug like” molecules into an actual drug they can set on the path toward human testing.

ICYMI: First CRISPR treatment approved

The FDA has approved the first CRISPR-based treatment for any human illness — two gene-editing therapies for the most severe form of sickle cell disease.

The edited cells produce a form of hemoglobin known as fetal hemoglobin, restoring normal function of red blood cells. While not a cure for the disease, the hope is the therapy, brand name Casgevy, is designed to be a one-time treatment that will alleviate symptoms for a lifetime.

Can chocolate rescue a junk diet?

If you know someone with bad eating habits, you might be able to help their brains with a bit of chocolate. (Technically it’s the cocoa extract, but someone with an unhealthy diet is more likely to go for chocolate.)

Apparently “500 mg per day of cocoa flavanols had cognitive benefits for older adults who had lower habitual diet quality,” according to Mass General researchers who studies 573 adults over two years.

The second part is the interesting bit: It only had those effects on people with bad diets. Healthy folks? No joy. (Except from the chocolate.)

You always kinda suspected it

The crazy^* cat lady? There might be something to it after all. It seems that cat ownership can more than double a person’s risk of schizophrenia, according to Australian researchers who analyzed 17 studies from 11 countries conducted over 44 years.

It might be due to the good ol’ Toxoplasma gondii parasite, but that part isn’t clear. What is clear is that there’s a connection between owning a cat and a risk of schizophrenia, although the cause/effect direction isn’t known — maybe people with schizophrenia risk just like owning cats.

^* Don’t get angry. We’re not saying people with schizophrenia are crazy — that’s just the name of the myth, and “cat lady with a mood disorder” doesn’t have the same ring.