The X for Y Files: brain cancer

Patients taking glitazones for cholesterol or diabetes could be seeing an extra benefit: They might lower the risk of brain cancer.

Or, put another way, glitazones “could be repurposed to prevent brain metastasis in cancer patients who are at high risk of secondary cancers.” That’s what British neuropathologists concluded after a study of more than 10,000 patients, including 7,500 with brain tumors:

The researchers found long-term glitazone drug use by diabetic patients was associated with reduced primary and secondary brain tumour risk compared with diabetic patients on other medications.

Interesting bits about the flu vaccine

October is the sweet spot

Kids tend to be vaccinated in their month they were born — that’s when they’re likely to go back for an annual checkup. And that led researchers at Harvard Med to check out how well they were protected from the flu.

Based on how many of those kids got sick, they were able to figure out that “The lowest rate of influenza diagnosis was seen for children born in October,” suggesting that October is the best month to get vaccinated.

Effectiveness fades

After about 41 days, the flu vax loses about 9% of its effectiveness every month.

That’s what Canadian researchers found based on “data from lab and health administration databases in the province [Ontario] from the 2010-11 through the 2018-19 flu seasons.”

The twist: That only applies to adults; the Canucks found the vaccine didn’t lose effectiveness in kids (i.e., people through age 17) at least up to about 153 days after vaccination.

The next big cancer treatment

CAR-T treatment was a major milestone for blood cancers, but now come tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, or TIL — a potential Very Big Deal for solid tumors.

TIL works by taking immune cells from a patient’s tumor, beefing them up (“giving them the Club Med treatment,” as one researcher put it), then reinserting them into the tumor — kinda like the little weakling leaving the corrupt kingdom only to return as a conquering hero.

TIL isn’t new in the lab, but for the first time the FDA has given accelerated approval to a TIL therapy called Amtagvi.

Granted, the therapy isn’t simple — it involves chemo, the weakening of the immune system, and interleukin-2 — but this is just the beginning.

Drug interaction science

Which drugs might interact with one another? A lot of what we know is based on experience, but now there might be a way to determine interaction ahead of time.

It’s all about the transporter proteins that take the drugs out of the GI tract. Researchers at MIT, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Duke have found a way — using tissue samples and, of course, AI — to determine which transporters carry which drugs.

Identifying the transporters used by specific drugs could help to improve patient treatment because if two drugs rely on the same transporter, they can interfere with each other and should not be prescribed together.

Right now this process is pretty much in the proof-of-concept stage, but it could mean an easy way to flag interactions before they occur.

The Long Read/Elsewhere: Portugal

While the U.S. struggles to contain the opioid epidemic, Portugal took an entirely different tack. While here we turned to arrests and prison sentences, there they focused on “health care, drug treatment, job training, and housing.” And it’s working.

The contrast is striking. In the U.S., drug deaths are shatteringly common, killing roughly 112,000 people a year. In Portugal, weeks sometimes go by in the entire country without a single fatal overdose.

Here’s a comparison: Georgia, which has about the same population as Portugal, averages about 1,408 overdose deaths per year. (In 2021, more than 1,700 Georgians died of opioid-related overdoses.) Portugal sees about 80.

One word

Every single placenta tested by University of New Mexico Health Sciences researchers contained microplastics. Every. Single. One.

The researchers found the most prevalent polymer in placental tissue was polyethylene, which is used to make plastic bags and bottles. It accounted for 54% of the total plastics. Polyvinyl chloride (better known as PVC) and nylon each represented about 10% of the total, with the remainder consisting of nine other polymers.

In unrelated news, endocrine issues — including obesity, metabolic syndrome, and early puberty — have been rising steadily and concerningly over the past decades.

Quick Colorado follow-up

Just in case you’re interested: The other day we told you how Colorado’s Prescription Drug Affordability Board determined that the price of Enbrel was too high for patients to afford. Now the board has taken the next step and approved setting a price cap for the drug. Not the actual dollar amount, just the idea of a price cap.

The vote by the Prescription Drug Affordability Board kicks off a six-month process to determine what price would be appropriate for Enbrel. The board also has the option to ultimately vote against a price ceiling at the end of the process.