Blood pressure after dark

Next time you sell a sphygmomanometer to someone over 40, make sure to tell ’em to check their BP at night. There are some people — about 15%, according to Oxford researchers — who “may have a form of undiagnosed high blood pressure that occurs only at night-time.”

Worse, these “reverse-dippers” are at higher risk of cardiovascular disease (although that might be explained by them not knowing they have the condition.)

RIP Martin Grizzard

Long time GPhA member and past Board of Pharmacy member and president, Martin Thurman Grizzard, 83, of Thomaston, died Monday, September 12, 2022, at his residence.

Grizzard was born October 17, 1938, in Hixson, Tennessee, the oldest of four boys. He was a graduate of Hixson High School and a 1964 graduate of Mercer University’s Southern School of Pharmacy.

In 1965, the Grizzards moved to Thomaston where Martin was employed as a staff pharmacist at Upson County Hospital. A year later, he and his friend, the late Bentley Adams, opened Northside Drugs, of which Mr. Grizzard eventually became the sole owner.

Grizzard was actively involved in the operation of the business for 52 years. He was appointed to the Georgia State Board of Pharmacy by Governor George Busbee, and served on that board for 10 years, including as president from 1984 to 1985.

Coffee is still good for you

Another week, another story about how coffee is good for you. This one comes out of Australia, and finds basically the same thing other studies have: “Drinking two to three cups of coffee a day [1–2 typical mugs] is linked with a longer lifespan and lower risk of cardiovascular disease.”

And it’s not about the caffeine; this was true even for decaf drinkers. Oddly, it was also true for instant coffee, which can hardly be considered coffee at all.

Get out and meet people

If you want to age faster, smoke. If you want to age faster than that, be lonely and uphappy.

A new study out of the US and China found that the molecular damage associated with aging is accelerated by a number of factors — and “Being lonely and unhappy accelerates aging more than smoking.”

Other factors linked to aging acceleration include being single and living in a rural area (due to the low availability of medical services).

Herpes vs cancer

The bad news: You have cancer. The good news: We can treat it. The other news: We’re gonna do it with herpes.

A phase-1 trial of a drug made by UK-based Replimune, essentially a modified version of the herpes simplex virus, wasn’t perfect — but it did seem to work in a quarter of patients with skin, oesophageal, or head and neck cancers.

The genetically engineered RP2 virus, which is injected directly into the tumours, is designed to have a dual action against tumours. It multiplies inside cancer cells to burst them from within, and it also blocks a protein known as CTLA-4 – releasing the brakes on the immune system and increasing its ability to kill cancer cells.

Next up: expanded trials.

Rats may not be our friends

First the gerbils^* brought the Black Death. Now it seems that rodents in general are reservoirs of the kinds of fungus that cause human diseases.

The question University of New Mexico biologists we asking: Does the fungus live in the soil (eating plant matter) or does it live in rodents and enter the soil when they day.

The answer, it seems, is B.

“We found that many of the rodents we sampled from areas in the Southwestern US were harboring the type of fungi that can cause lung infections in humans, such as the fungus that leads to Valley Fever.

Right now the southwest is the hotspot, but don’t you worry. “Valley fever will expand substantially northward and eastward over the next century as a result of climate change impacting environmental conditions.”

(If you’ve seen a lot of fungus stories lately, you’re not (necessarily) hallucinating. Last week was Fungal Disease Awareness Week.)

* What, you thought it was rats? Nope.

R&D still doesn’t cost that much

Yet another study — this one out of UC San Diego — finds that, despite what drug companies claim, there’s no link between their drug prices and their R&D spending.

Looking at 60 drugs approved by the FDA from 2009 to 2018, they found no association between the R&D expense and the price the company charged. Nor was there a connection between the price they charged and the drugs’ therapeutic value.

“Our findings provide evidence that drug companies do not set prices based on how much they spent on R&D or how good a drug is. Instead, they charge what the market will bear.”

Earlier studies show that most drug profits go instead to shareholder dividends, CEO pay, and stock buybacks.