The Monty Hall problem, BP meds-style

If a hypertension drug isn’t working for a patient, the solution isn’t to increase the dose, but to switch meds. Swedish researchers studied 280 patients on 4 drugs over a year. What they found is that — for reasons they haven’t teased out yet — there are optimal meds for each person. Taking more of an ineffective drug it seems, is just as ineffective.

“The effect of a change of medication can be twice as great as the effect of doubling the dose of the patient’s current medication.”

A major Parkinson’s breakthrough

For once, “game-changer” applies: A new test for Parkinson’s disease can accurately diagnose early signs of the disease long before symptoms appear, and with 90% accuracy. Although screening people isn’t around the corner, it is just down the street.

Not only will this enable patients to get a jump start on treatment, by confirming a sign of the disease — the presence of a misfolded protein called alpha-synuclein — it can pave the way for treatments … or at least show which way the road has to go.

Side note (and today’s Long Read)

The Parkinson’s test is a direct result of the work and funding of the Michael J. Fox Foundation — here’s the story.

Diabetics’ NSAID danger

Diabetics might want to avoid NSAIDs. Taking them even for a month “sharply raises the risk of an [heart failure] hospitalization” according to a new study out of Copenhagen University.

That doesn’t mean every diabetic is in danger, according to those shifty Danes, but certain subgroups should probably be monitored more closely…

… including the very elderly, patients with uncontrolled diabetes, those prescribed an NSAID for the first time, and patients already taking both a renin-angiotensin-system inhibitor (RASi) and a diuretic.

What’s the deal? Part may be temporary fluid overload from the NSAIDs’ effects on the kidneys, and part may be “direct effects on the heart by any of several proposed mechanisms.” Or, you know, both.

Of mice and men

Here at Buzz we like to point out when a new treatment appears that treats mice or rats. Sure, the implication is that humans will get it next, but that’s not always the case. One reason: Most rodents can’t vomit, and “Over the years, millions of dollars have been lost on treatments that failed after vomiting cropped up as a side effect.”

Fatty liver disease gets a (potential) drug

There’s no treatment for fatty liver disease in humans, but now there appears to be one for other primates — that’s good news could be on the way for we hairless apes.

It’s called DT-109 (not to be confused with JFK’s PT-109) and it comes out of the University of Michigan where medical researchers found that “DT-109 reversed fat buildup and prevented scarring in the livers of both mice and primates that had developed NASH [nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, the later, worse stage of fatty liver disease].”

If it pans out, DT-109 could make a big difference, what with fatty liver disease often leading to chronic liver disease and eventually the need for a transplant.

Flexibility and folate

On the one hand, being double-jointed might let you run away with the circus or become part of a bank-heist gang. On the other hand, its extreme form — hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) — can mean fragile connective tissue and a host of health issues.

Breakthrough: Both might be caused by a folate deficiency caused by a particular gene, according to Tulane University neuroscientists.

Those with this genetic variant can’t metabolize folate, which causes unmetabolized folate to accumulate in the bloodstream. The folate deficiency may prevent key proteins from binding collagen to the extracellular matrix. This results in more elastic connective tissue, hypermobility, and a potential cascade of associated conditions.

The treatment is simple: Methylated folate, which is already processed and available over the counter.

Short Takes: The sound and the fury

Before your baby’s born

Listening to music — with vocals — may make your child better able to understand speech (and thus more likely to get into a fancy private school and ivy league university).

While you’re giving birth

Scream. It might make the experience less painful. Just be sure to use the University of Michigan-designed Fitzmaurice vocal technique.