Easy diabetes prediction

German researchers have found a quick way to determine whether someone is likely to develop diabetes — whether they’re pre-prediabetic, if you will.

It’s a simple equation based on a blood test and two numbers: the insulin value and the glucose value. The idea is that neither alone gives enough information, but taken together they rate the “control loop for sugar metabolism” to determine a static disposition index, aka the risk of diabetes.

The equation essentially measures the feedback loop between glucose sensitivity and beta-cell function, but the details are beyond us to explain. Good news, though: The full paper is available free for those who want those deets.

Our number two story

Good news if your Imodium sales are lagging: Climate change, and the warmer weather it’s bringing, will also be bringing more campylobacteriosis, aka the disease that causes a lot of diarrhea.

British scientists looked at the data of a million campylobacteriosis cases in England and Wales over 20 years. Then they cross-referenced the weather data and “found a clear link between illness and climate.”

Specifically, when days are longer and temperature or humidity is higher, there’s more of the disease. While day length isn’t going to change (much), the other two … yeah.

Exactly why the disease spreads more under those conditions isn’t clear — it could be that Campylobacter bacteria thrive in warmer and wetter conditions, or it could be due to behavioral changes when it’s hot and humid. Either way, expect to see a bunch more.

The latest legislative update is out

Georgia’s legislative session is going from first gear to second, and Melissa Reybold’s latest legislative update is in. Check it out to keep up with the advocacy team’s season as the preliminary work is being done, especially on a couple of bills we’re watching closely.

Oral insulin is almost here

Needles, schmeedles — an oral form of insulin will begin human trials next year.

A team of Norwegian and Australian biochemists has developed a nanoscale coating^* for insulin that’s got a few tricks up its metaphorical sleeves. First, it keeps the insulin from being digested by stomach acids. Second, it’s broken down by liver enzymes. But the coolest part is that it’s broken down by specific enzymes that are only present when blood glucose is high.

“This means that when blood sugar is high, there is a rapid release of insulin, and even more importantly, when blood sugar is low, no insulin is released.”

It’s been tested successfully on worms, mice, rats, and baboons. Human trials will start next year, and they hope to have a commercial product ready by 2026 or ’27.

But wait, there’s more! It doesn’t need to be refrigerated, and rather than a capsule, it was incorporated into a sugar-free chocolate. (Said the team leader, “This approach was well received.”)

^* As you probably guessed, it’s a chitosan and glucose copolymer that’s applied to insulin bound to silver sulfide (Ag2S) quantum dots. Obviously. 

Mouth breathers, take notice

If you breathe through your mouth, you might not live as long as nose breathers. That’s the conclusion we decided to reach after reading about Florida State researchers’ small study (20 people). That study found breathing through the nose had some cardiovascular benefits, not to mention being less embarrassing.

The research team found that the volunteers’ diastolic blood pressure was lower when they breathed through the nose […] In addition, nasal breathing shifted the nervous system into a more parasympathetic state (“rest and digest” rather than “flight or fight”) during the rest condition.

The differences weren’t huge, and the study didn’t go into why this was the case, but it’s a boon to grad students as the results, the Floridians say, “justify future longer-term studies in other populations.”

A treatment for mild Covid

If you’re a reasonably healthy person who gets Covid-19, you probably don’t need to worry about hospitalization, so you probably don’t need Paxlovid. But you’ll still want to get better faster.

Enter simnotrelvir, an antiviral that Chinese scientists tested on 1,200 “mostly healthy” patients with mild Covid symptoms. They combined it with the protease inhibitor ritonavir for an extra boost, and named the combo Xiannuoxin.

Result: Patients taking Xiannuoxin cut about 36 hours off their Covid symptoms, and had a much lower viral load — so they also reduced the spread.

Blocking metastasis

While you’re trying to kill cancer, it would also be helpful to keep it from spreading. That can be done by compounds called motuporamines. Those were discovered in the ’90s, but they didn’t quite make it as actual treatments.

But now medicinal chemists at the University of Central Florida think they’ve found one (“Motuporamine C”) that — thanks to some tweaks they made to it — will bind to enzymes on cancer cells and keep them from metastasizing.

They tested this on mice with an aggressive form of pancreatic cancer. “The compound worked and blocked the spread of these cells to the liver. Thus,” said the lead researcher, “we really have something special.”

Now they’re looking for funding to begin pre-clinical trials.

Drugs to watch?

Every year the folks at science consultant Clarivate release a list of drugs or almost-drugs to watch, which they named … “Drugs to Watch.” It also includes drug trends to watch, which helps boost it to 96 pages long.

What do they think you should watch in 2024? There are 13 of ’em that the company thinks have the potential to become blockbusters in the next five years:

• High-dose aflibercept
• Budesonide
• Datopotamab deruxtecan
• Efanesoctocog alfa
• Ensifentrine
• Exagamglogene autotemcel and Lovotibeglogene autotemcel
• Mirikizumab
• Niraparib + abiraterone
• RSVpreF and RSVpreF3
• Talquetamab
• Zolbetuxima

If you want the details you’ll need to read the full report, which we’re providing to save you the trouble of filling out the form to get your own copy. Our pleasure.