Forget the cream — think oral instead

Bald men are sexy — that’s not up for debate. But if for some reason you want to grow hair back, there’s minoxidil cream. Pro tip, though: It works better orally.

Minoxidil has to be converted to an active form by sulfotransferase enzymes that may or may not be present in sufficient quantities in hair roots. When the drug is taken orally, it is automatically converted to an active form.

The dose is incredibly small (we’re talking a fraction of even the lowest-dose pill), and it’s an open secret among dermatologists. But don’t expect it to be marketed that way.

“Oral minoxidil costs pennies a day. There is no incentive to spend tens of millions of dollars to test it in a clinical trial. That study truly is never, ever going to be done.”

Let them pay! Let them pay!

Old folks say Medicare should pay pharmacists to provide a bunch more testing and treatment services.

A survey from the absolutely unbiased Future of Pharmacy Care Coalition found that 82% of older Americans want the government to reimburse pharmacists so they can provide testing and treatments for Covid-19, flu, strep throat, and other infectious diseases. (In fact, 54% of them felt strongly about it.)

Local note: Georgia’s Congressman Buddy Carter is part of a bi-partisan group that has introduced a bill — HR 7213, the Equitable Community Access to Pharmacist Services Act — that would do just that.

We’ve got more Braves tickets

Let’s play ball — or at least watch the second-place Atlanta Braves play the first-place New York Mets in the final game of the season! It’s Sunday, October 2; the game starts at 1:35 p.m. (but the fun starts that morning when you wake up and think, “Today is the Braves game!”).

Go to GPhA.org/braves to buy your tix, but do it quickly before the latest block sells out!

Mets fans are … well, maybe not welcome, but certainly tolerated (if they keep their heads down).

♫ Bring the kiddies, bring the wife
guaranteed to have the time of your life….

It’s okay to bend over

Grandma was wrong about not slouching. “Having ‘good’ posture doesn’t prevent back pain, and ‘bad’ posture doesn’t cause it” according to musculoskeletal physiotherapists at Australia’s Curtain University. That pain is caused by other ways of abusing your back.

So what can you do? Mix it up.

Movement is important for back health, so learning to vary and adopt different postures that are comfortable is likely to be more helpful than rigidly adhering to a specific “good” posture.

Monkeypox update

The WHO is warning that monkeypox cases have jumped big time in the past week* to more than 35,000 around the world, including 14,000 in the US of A.

As vaccine supplies slowly ramp up, health officials struggle to slow the spread of a disease that lasts about six weeks and is only spread by very close physical contact. If only there was something people could do to protect themselves.

* Mathematicians nod in sympathy.

Herbs against colitis

If you have a mouse with colitis, Japanese researchers have good news. A traditional herbal remedy called daikenchuto can treat it. And they know why.

Daikenchuto is a combo of Japanese pepper, ginger, ginseng, and maltose powder. So how can that treat one of the most prevalent causes of bowel disease in North America?

It turns out that the guts of mice with colitis are low on a particular family of lactic acid bacteria. Without that bacteria, they don’t have enough of a metabolite called propionate. Propionate helps regulate out-of-control immune cells.

So daikenchuto restores the balance of bacteria, bringing propionate levels back to normal, reducing inflammation, and de-colitising the mice. The only downside is that it might be too inexpensive a treatment for drug makers to bother trying to monetize.

In case you missed it the first 612 times

Yet another study — this one in the New England Journal of Medicine — confirms yet again that fluvoxamine, ivermectin, and metformin cannot effectively treat Covid-19. “None of the trial drugs resulted in a lower severity of symptoms than identically matched placebo.”

Safer safes?

CVS says it’s adding time-delay safes for controlled substances to some of its pharmacies, starting with five western states. The goal is to prevent robberies and diversion “by electronically delaying the time it takes for pharmacy employees to open the safe.”

Now, as long as the robbers understand how a time-delay safe works….

Eeeeeew

TMI: “CDC Characterizes National Incidence of Fungal Infections”

Arizona and California reported 97% of coccidioidomycosis cases, and Minnesota and Wisconsin reported 75% of blastomycosis cases. Illinois reported the greatest percentage (26%) of histoplasmosis cases.