FDA approves food-allergy PrEP

No, there’s no cure for food allergies, but the FDA has finally approved Xolair — omalizumab to its enemies — to at least help when someone is accidentally exposed. (It’s been used this way off-label for a while.) Patients get an injection every few weeks to gradually build up a bit of immunity to a bunch of food allergens.

People who use Xolair must continue to avoid the foods that cause them reactions, such as peanuts, cashews, hazelnuts, walnuts, milk products, and eggs. The medication allows them to tolerate higher amounts of such foods without causing major reactions.

In case you forgot where you live, Xolair “ranges from about $2,900 a month for children to $5,000 a month for adults,” but hopefully is covered by insurance.

Inching toward an Alzheimer’s test

The medical world continues down the road that leads toward a simple blood test for dementia. The latest comes from a team of British and Chinese scientists who turned to the data — specifically, the UK’s Biobank research database.

They started with almost 53,000 blood samples more than a decade old, then looked at who among those sample-givers ended up developing dementia. Then they examined those patients’ proteins to see if there were biomarkers lurking within.

The good news: There were.

The less-good news: There were a whopping 1,463 proteins associated with dementia.

The good news: They were able to narrow it down to a handful.

They found that people whose blood carried higher levels of the proteins GFAP, NEFL, GDF15, and LTBP2 were consistently more likely to have developed Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, or dementia from any cause.

What sets this apart from other Alzheimer’s blood tests is that it can predict the disease a decade before it actually shows up. They’re hoping to turn the info into a simple blood test that can help patients get a jump on treatment … and maybe even prevention.

Speaking of simple tests, there’s breast cancer

The paper: “High sensitivity saliva-based biosensor in detection of breast cancer biomarkers: HER2 and CA15-3”.

The gist: a handheld device that can detect breast cancer from a bit of saliva. It comes out of the University of Florida (with help from Taiwanese engineers) that “works by placing a saliva sample on a test strip, which is treated with specific antibodies that respond to cancer biomarkers” and takes about five seconds to give a result.

Oh, and it uses off-the-shelf components, including for the brains. Said the team that developed it, “The method is user-friendly and holds significant promise for widespread use by the general public in the future.”

An ounce of cure, a pound of prevention

Abatacept injections can be used to treat rheumatoid arthritis — that’s not news, although it’s a second- or third-line treatment.

But why wait till the arthritis is established? Why not give at-risk patients the abatacept before they get it? That’s what British researchers tested, and lo and behold, abatacept kept patients from coming down with arthritis in the first place.

After twelve months of treatment, 6% of patients treated with abatacept had developed arthritis compared to 29% in the placebo arm. By 24 months, the differences were still significant, with a total of 25% progressing to rheumatoid arthritis in the abatacept arm compared to 37% in the placebo arm.

The army around the lungs

Evolution doesn’t leave a lot of unnecessary parts lying around. If something seems useless, you should probably dig deeper (looking at you, appendix). The latest example is the pleural cavity — the big sac around the lungs. It was thought to just be a cushion, but it turns out it might be an organ in its own right.

UC Riverside researchers were surprised to find macrophages — immune cells that “gobble up bacteria, viruses, cancer cells, and dying cells” — where they hadn’t been seen: in the lungs of sick people. A bit of digging later, and they discovered that the macrophages were hanging out in the pleural cavity, ready for action.

[D]uring an influenza infection, macrophages leave the exterior cavity and cross into the lungs where they decrease inflammation and reduce levels of disease.

Down the road: perhaps a drug that can signal to those macrophages to enter the lungs sooner and in bigger numbers. But as always, more research is needed.

Your non-pharma medical breakthrough of the week

If you’ve never read the Amazon reviews for Sugarless Haribo Gummy Bears, you might want to take a gander. The operative phrase is non-insignificant gastrointestinal distress.

That said, UC Davis researchers think they’ve figured out why sugar-free gummy bears can rival Taco Bell for clearing a bathroom quickly.

Not surprisingly, it’s all about gut bacteria. It seems that some people don’t have enough Clostridia microbes in their digestive tracts. Clostridia breaks down the sorbitol used to sweeten the candy. No bacteria means sorbitol overload, and…

At high levels, sorbitol can cause bloating, cramps and diarrhea. For some people, even a small amount causes digestive upset, a condition known as sorbitol intolerance.

They call it “sorbitol intolerance,” but the Amazon reviewers have more, er, colorful phrases. (“Gastrointestinal Armageddon” was one.)