Steroid cream concern

Sure, topical steroid creams are great for treating skin conditions, but apparently they have a significant downside — at least if you use them for a long time and at a high dose. According to Taiwanese researchers, it can lead to osteoporosis and “major osteoporotic fracture.”

It’s a pretty significant risk, too. Based on almost 130,000 osteoporosis cases, they found that high cumulative doses of steroids (that is, a combo of dose and time) was associated with a 34% greater risk of osteoporosis and at 29% greater risk of a fracture.

“Using topical corticosteroids to treat inflammatory skin conditions should be done very carefully,” said one of the researchers. “[C]linicians should be aware of these potential side effects.”

Surprising MS fighter

In the latest example of a drug for one disease working against another, we have HIV antiviral therapy, which (found a Swedish study) might help fight multiple sclerosis.

The idea isn’t new, but existing studies were too small to draw any meaningful conclusions. Now, though, the Swedes went all in — they looked at the health records of “virtually every person in British Columbia, Canada and Sweden who was medically recognised as HIV-positive dating back to 1992 in Canada and 2001 in Sweden.”

(Side note: This is why we use the serial comma. If you were confused, the study looked at all of Sweden plus Canada’s British Columbia province.)

What they found: People taking HIV drugs were 45% less likely to have MS. That’s overall — for women it was a whopping 72% lower risk.

At first they thought it could be the HIV itself that suppresses MS by reducing the number of CD4+ T cells. But then the HIV therapy should have counteracted that, so (they hope) it might be the therapy itself.

Current hypothesis:

The antiviral properties of HIV therapy might limit Epstein-Barr virus activity, thereby minimising both the risk of getting MS and of the disease progressing in those who have it.

You know the mantra: More research is needed.

Turning masks into landfills

When the pandemic started, the US was woefully unprepared; the national stockpile of personal protective equipment was more of a molehill than a mountain. Cue the rush by states to stock up on gowns and N95 masks.

But now that we’ve gone from pandemic to endemic, all that equipment is gathering dust, and a lot of it has expiration dates. So now “States are trashing troves of masks and pandemic gear as huge, costly stockpiles linger and expire.

In just the states that had figures to share with the Associated Press, more than 18 million masks, 22 million gowns, 500,000 gloves, and more were thrown out. More were auctioned off.

You might ask the obvious question: How does an N95 mask expire? It doesn’t, really, although it’s possible that the elastic bands (or rubber seal if it has one) might deteriorate a bit. That’s why they have expiration dates, although in reality if stored correctly this stuff is perfectly good for a long time. (The GPhA Buzz research department even looked at prepper websites to confirm this.)

But warehouse space isn’t free, and expiration dates are scary, so to the landfill they go.

PreP questions, unanswered

Back in April we wrote about a ‘morning-after pill’ called doxy-PEP that can prevent STIs after unprotected sex.

It’s worked very well … at least for men who have sex with men and transgender women. But a new University of Minnesota study found it may not work as well for cisgender, i.e., non-trans women. In fact, the study of 450 women in Kenya showed no significant reduction in new STIs at all.

That sounds like bad news, but it might be premature. It seems that there might be another explanation: Adherence.

Hair sample analysis revealed that while many participants claimed they were taking doxycycline regularly, only about a third actually had the drug in their system.

In other words, it’s as if the study didn’t happen at all. But at least they got to publish.

Overdosing on Ozempic

Poison control centers are reporting a surge in overdoses of Ozempic and other GLP-1 weight loss drugs.

From January through November, the America’s Poison Centers reports nearly 3,000 calls involving semaglutide, an increase of more than 15-fold since 2019.

What’s happening? Dosing errors, for the most part, that usually result in … let’s call it “non-insignifcant gastrointestinal distress.” It’s usually fixed with fluids and anti-nausea meds.

And who should we blame? According to CNN, it’s compounding pharmacies, of course! The article goes into all the reasons compounded versions could be part of the problem, burying at the bottom this tidbit:

Poison control centers say the reported symptoms don’t allow them to know whether the calls stem from the patented drugs or the compounded versions.

On the other hand, the Los Angeles Times, covering the same story, points its finger (more realistically) at “multiple factors contributing to the increase in overdoses” including rising popularity, more approved uses, different formulations and dosages, and patient error.

Scent of a woman’s tears

Guys, if a woman’s crying is annoying you, sniff her tears. Apparently that can make you less aggressive.

A new study out of Israel found that “Sniffing emotional tears from women reduced male aggression by more than 40% in computerised tests.” It carried over to the real world, too, with actual brain changes.

Further tests in a brain scanner revealed that tear-sniffers had more functional connectivity between regions that handle scents and aggression, while activity in brain networks for aggression was lower. “

Why would this work this way? Their guess is that it might have evolved as a defense mechanism for babies. But before they can jump to any conclusions they want to isolate the chemical that’s having the effect.

Paxlovid and rebounds

Enough people have had Covid rebound — a second infection on the heels of the first — that there was speculation that it might have been caused by the antivirals patients took (e.g., Paxlovid). It was a reasonable trade-off, because that second infection was much milder.

The speculation might end now, though, as a pair of new studies published by the CDC found “no consistent association” between antivirals and Covid rebound.

Together the reviews the agency did included more than 21,000 patients, so there’s plenty of data. The most likely cause of a Covid-19 rebound was simply a weakened immune system.

They said that viral rebound might occur in patients receiving antivirals because they’re at high risk for severe illness and might have factors such as a weakened immune system that could influence viral dynamics.