A biomarker for type 1 diabetes

It’s possible to know if a baby is likely to grow up to develop type 1 diabetes. Swedish researchers found that “several microbial biomarkers associated with future disease may be present as early as one year” in the gut bacteria of infants, and then take 10 years or more to actually manifest.

The big question they’re hoping to answer next: Does that mean it’s possible to change that biome with, say, prebiotics, and prevent the diabetes from becoming established?

Pharmacy technicians: You need this training

We’ll spell it out for you:

A) People need immunizations this year — and every year. It’s kind of a big deal these days.

B) If you have training giving immunizations, you stand out from the crowd. You’re worth more.

C) The best immunization training you can get comes from the Georgia Pharmacy Association.

This is the smart move to help your career and your bank account. (And your decorations — you get a nifty certificate, too.)

Get training. Improve your résumé, power up your career.

Important details:

• The entire program is six hours (that’s 6.0 hours of CE) — 3 hours in the classroom, 3 hours of home study.
• That live training is Saturday, April 15 in Sandy Springs, from 9:00 am till noon .
• Space is limited. Don’t wait. Click the button for the details and to register:

PBM companion bill advances

You hopefully know about the House’s bill to make PBMs behave (see Friday’s Buzz) — the Drug Price Transparency in Medicaid Act. Across the Capitol, the Senate’s version (the Pharmacy Benefit Manager Transparency Act) is moving along as well.

Although the bill had bi-partisan support and passed the Senate Commerce Committee with an 18-9 vote, the PBMs jumped on the fact that the vote wasn’t unanimous, calling the bill “contentious legislation” and saying, “the legislation risks increasing prescription drug costs and would take away—” but the rest was cut off as the PBM spokeperson’s pants caught fire. Well, metaphorically.

The bill should now head to the full Senate.

Who Covid hit hardest

The Lancet just published the largest state-by-state analysis of the impact of the Covid pandemic to tease out what affected Covid’s impact.

It revealed some obvious connections: “States that imposed more protective mandates […] and maintained them for longer, experienced lower infection rates.”

But with a twist: Those mandates didn’t affect death rates — only vaccination coverage made a difference there.

There were some political differences (higher infection and death rates in states that voted heavily Republican in the 2020 presidential election) and some racial differences (higher infection and death rates in areas with the highest populations of Black people).

It also revealed what didn’t make a difference: higher state public health spending and more public health personnel per capita.

And then there’s nuance — having a great healthcare system didn’t always affect outcomes; it depended on the people:

[O]ur results suggest that the more robust a health system, the better a state performed in the pandemic, but only in states where the public was willing to make use of health care services for vaccination or to get early treatment.

FDA: Not so fast, there

Responding to criticism of its accelerated-approval process being a bit too accelerated, the FDA floated draft guidance that would — if it becomes real guidance — require cancer drugs to undergo more rigorous trials before (possibly) getting that accelerated approval.

Osteo drugs also prevent other death

People with osteoporosis have a risk of dying after a fracture, but it turns out that certain drugs for the condition also help reduce patients’ overall risk of death.

The drugs (to cut to the chase) are alendronate/risedronate, denosumab, and zoledronic acid. Sure, they can reduce the risk of hip fracture, but what’s unusual is that those drugs reduced the chances of patients dying from other conditions. Why? They don’t know yet.

As one endocrinologist not part of the study wrote separately:

This plus other evidence has led to the hypothesis that drugs for osteoporosis, particularly bisphosphonates, might have salutary effects on tissues other than bone.

While we’re talking about bones…

A Dutch study found that when people have weak bones, they’re also more likely to be diagnosed with dementia. Although it’s not entirely clear why there’s a connection, two (of many) possibilities are that poor nutrition results in both conditions, or that the poor bone mass is a result of dementia via a yet-unknown mechanism.

Covid Short Takes

It’s that time of year

It’s been so long since Covid boosters were a talking point that … welp, now it’s time to think about the next round of boosters. Britain and Canada gave them the A-OK, but the US is weighing options.

A preventative, but not a vaccine

Finnish researchers have developed a nasal spray that prevents Covid-19 infection and works against every known variant. The downside: It only works for a few hours. The upside: That’s long enough for, say, dinner and a movie during a future pandemic.

One thing that doesn’t increase Covid death

Old wisdom: Having a substance-abuse disorder increases someone’s risk of death from Covid-19. New data out of Boston Medical: Nope.

In this retrospective cohort study of patients admitted to a safety net hospital during the early phase of the Covid-19 pandemic, [substance-abuse disorder] was not associated with the primary outcome of Covid-19-associated inpatient mortality.