Chillin’ with CBD

Marijuana can help with anxiety — insert cliché comment here — but it might not be the THC that does the job. According to Colorado University researchers, CBD alone works even better.

They split about 300 participants with anxiety into four groups, each using a product with a different combination of THC and CBD. After a month…

… all four groups reported decreased anxiety. But the cannabis groups saw greater reductions in perceived anxiety than the non-cannabis group, and those using CBD-dominant products showed the most improvement of all.

Fun fact: The research had to be done in students’ homes because federal law prohibits the possession of cannabis on college campuses, even for research.

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ICYMI: Opill OTC

The first OTC contraceptive, Opill, is now shipping to retailers — drugstores, convenience stores, and supermarkets — nationwide.

Infliximab for Crohn’s — don’t wait

British researchers looking for a Crohn’s disease biomarker made a surprising finding. Newly diagnosed patients who were given infliximab showed dramatic improvement.

This is surprising because infliximab isn’t typically a first-line treatment; it’s given when patients experience flare-ups that don’t respond to other treatments. But the Brits found that it’s best not to wait. Instead, a “top-down” treatment, starting with infliximab, was a heck of a lot better.

80% of people receiving the top-down therapy had both symptoms and inflammatory markers controlled throughout the course of the entire year compared to only 15% of people receiving the accelerated step-up therapy.

Getting infliximab sooner meant fewer ulcers, “higher quality-of-life scores, less use of steroid medication, and lower number of hospitalisations” — and were less likely to need abdominal surgery.

The X-for-Y Files: TB vax and liver cancer

If you have mice with liver cancer, make sure they’ve been vaccinated for tuberculosis. Just one dose of the BCG TB vaccine reduced liver tumors and helped mice live longer.

UC Davis researchers found that the BCG treatment boosted immune T cells — notably helping them (and macrophages) get into the liver tumors. Or, turning up the science….

“It also activated the body’s immunity and enhanced IFN-γ signaling, which contributes to an anti-HCC [hepatocellular carcinoma] effect.”

As the vaccine is a century old and absolutely safe, and liver cancer is notoriously difficult to treat, this can be used right away while more research is done on improving its effectiveness.

Captain Obvious plays the kazoo

“Study finds more pleasant-sounding medical device alarms could reduce annoyance without compromising effectiveness”

The scent of therapy

Here’s an interesting finding: UC Riverside researchers found that exposing fruit flies to certain scents actually changes the expression of some of their genes.

What was even stranger was that the compound they used — diacetyl, which can add a bit of buttery flavoring to food — made these changes in cells that don’t have olfactory receptors. Next they tried it on mouse and human cells. Same thing: The odor affected gene expression.

Well, huh.

Then it gets better. They found that not only did a sniff of diacetyl affect genes, it affected them in a good way. In fruit flies…

…exposure to diacetyl volatiles substantially slowed degeneration of photoreceptor cells linked to Huntington’s disease. In transgenic mice […] gene levels that are upregulated in cancers like neuroblastoma showed a significant reduction in mice exposed to diacetyl.

This is all proof-of-concept stuff, but the idea that there’s a chance of using scents as medicine on the genetic level … well, that’s intriguing, isn’t it?

Face-palm of the day

Prepare to sigh deeply and shake your head in wonder that humanity has made it this far. There are, it seems, people on TikTok who are promoting “budget Ozempic.” That should be a red flag right there. So what are these people suggesting? Are ya ready? If you can’t afford Ozempic, just use laxatives and stool softeners instead!

Spoiler: This is a bad idea.