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Richard Franki is the associate editor who writes and creates graphs. He started with the company in 1987, when it was known as the International Medical News Group. In his years as a journalist, Richard has worked for Cap Cities/ABC, Disney, Harcourt, Elsevier, Quadrant, Frontline, and Internet Brands. In the 1990s, he was a contributor to the ill-fated Indications column, predecessor of Livin' on the MDedge.
Cancer with meatballs and the unkindest frozen cut
Two great tastes that cause cancer together
Spaghetti and meatballs. They go together like chocolate and peanut butter. It almost feels wrong to eat one without the other; but if you’re worried about cancer, you may have to go meatless.
The latest blow to an enjoyable meal comes courtesy of a study published in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research, which tested how lycopene – a carotenoid found in tomatoes that has notable anticancer properties – is absorbed by the body when in the presence of iron, which meat contains plenty of. When the study subjects drank a tomato-based shake infused with iron, lycopene was far less present in the blood and digestive system than in subjects who drank an iron-free tomato shake.
The study authors claim that either the iron is oxidizing with the lycopene or that the iron turns the mix of tomato and fat into something like separated salad dressing, preventing everything from mixing together when it enters the body.
Tastes like chicken
It’s an enduring oncologic mystery: How can some cancer cells endure what should be a lethal therapeutic beating, only to bounce off the canvas after an eight-count to deliver a devastating relapse-counterpunch of their own?
A new study offers an unsavory answer: cannibalism.
Turns out that dining on one’s weaker cancer cell neighbors during a chemotherapy barrage provides just enough energy to rope-a-dope and stage a late-round comeback.
Breast cancer cells with wild-type TP53 genes are particularly prone to revival after taking a beating at the hands of doxorubicin or other chemotherapy drugs. Like many of their cancerous compatriots, they retreat to a corner of the therapy ring during chemo and go gloves up in a state of senescence.
But researchers at Tulane University noticed that, in the midst of that pharmaceutical pummeling, those senescent wild-type TP53 cells start doing something that their other senescent, cancerous neighbors don’t: They engulf other cancer cells. Why? Seems those breast cancer cells with the wild-type TP53 gloves are equipped with gene expression programs similar to macrophages.
What’s more, the cannibals’ appetite for fellow cells appears to confer a survival advantage when the chemo rounds end.
We at the Bureau of LOTME will resist the impulse to ring out this item with a tasteless Donner Party punchline. Instead, we’ll indulge our high-brow inner child by retooling an elementary school comedy classic.
Why don’t cancer-cell cannibals eat cancer-cell comedians? They taste funny.
Poop, what is it good for?
One thing you can cross off the list: Cutting meat.
That might seem pretty obvious, but there’s actually a bit of history here. In a book published in 1998, anthropologist Wade Davis shared an account of an elderly Inuit man trapped alone in a storm. He had no tools and no food, so he made a knife out of his own frozen stool and used it to kill and butcher a dog.
That story, which has since become something of an urban legend, directly inspired the career of another anthropologist, Metin Eren, PhD, of Kent State University in Ohio. As director of the school’s laboratory of experimental archaeology, Dr. Eren decided that the time had come to prove or disprove the poop-knife hypothesis.
First, he and his team had to make such a knife. To produce the needed raw materials, Dr. Eren went on an 8-day “Arctic diet” that included lots of beef, turkey, and salmon, with some applesauce and butternut squash risotto thrown in, while a colleague stuck to a more Western diet. Their samples were then frozen to –58° F and sharpened with metal files.
“I was surprised at how hard human feces could get when frozen,” Dr. Eren told Live Science. “I started to think, ‘Oh my gosh, this might actually work!’ ”
The team’s attempts to cut refrigerated pig hide, however, were not successful. “Like a crayon, it just left brown streaks on the meat – no slices at all,” he said.
Today’s lesson? Don’t meat your heroes or their poop knives; they’re sure to disappoint you.
Two great tastes that cause cancer together
Spaghetti and meatballs. They go together like chocolate and peanut butter. It almost feels wrong to eat one without the other; but if you’re worried about cancer, you may have to go meatless.
The latest blow to an enjoyable meal comes courtesy of a study published in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research, which tested how lycopene – a carotenoid found in tomatoes that has notable anticancer properties – is absorbed by the body when in the presence of iron, which meat contains plenty of. When the study subjects drank a tomato-based shake infused with iron, lycopene was far less present in the blood and digestive system than in subjects who drank an iron-free tomato shake.
The study authors claim that either the iron is oxidizing with the lycopene or that the iron turns the mix of tomato and fat into something like separated salad dressing, preventing everything from mixing together when it enters the body.
Tastes like chicken
It’s an enduring oncologic mystery: How can some cancer cells endure what should be a lethal therapeutic beating, only to bounce off the canvas after an eight-count to deliver a devastating relapse-counterpunch of their own?
A new study offers an unsavory answer: cannibalism.
Turns out that dining on one’s weaker cancer cell neighbors during a chemotherapy barrage provides just enough energy to rope-a-dope and stage a late-round comeback.
Breast cancer cells with wild-type TP53 genes are particularly prone to revival after taking a beating at the hands of doxorubicin or other chemotherapy drugs. Like many of their cancerous compatriots, they retreat to a corner of the therapy ring during chemo and go gloves up in a state of senescence.
But researchers at Tulane University noticed that, in the midst of that pharmaceutical pummeling, those senescent wild-type TP53 cells start doing something that their other senescent, cancerous neighbors don’t: They engulf other cancer cells. Why? Seems those breast cancer cells with the wild-type TP53 gloves are equipped with gene expression programs similar to macrophages.
What’s more, the cannibals’ appetite for fellow cells appears to confer a survival advantage when the chemo rounds end.
We at the Bureau of LOTME will resist the impulse to ring out this item with a tasteless Donner Party punchline. Instead, we’ll indulge our high-brow inner child by retooling an elementary school comedy classic.
Why don’t cancer-cell cannibals eat cancer-cell comedians? They taste funny.
Poop, what is it good for?
One thing you can cross off the list: Cutting meat.
That might seem pretty obvious, but there’s actually a bit of history here. In a book published in 1998, anthropologist Wade Davis shared an account of an elderly Inuit man trapped alone in a storm. He had no tools and no food, so he made a knife out of his own frozen stool and used it to kill and butcher a dog.
That story, which has since become something of an urban legend, directly inspired the career of another anthropologist, Metin Eren, PhD, of Kent State University in Ohio. As director of the school’s laboratory of experimental archaeology, Dr. Eren decided that the time had come to prove or disprove the poop-knife hypothesis.
First, he and his team had to make such a knife. To produce the needed raw materials, Dr. Eren went on an 8-day “Arctic diet” that included lots of beef, turkey, and salmon, with some applesauce and butternut squash risotto thrown in, while a colleague stuck to a more Western diet. Their samples were then frozen to –58° F and sharpened with metal files.
“I was surprised at how hard human feces could get when frozen,” Dr. Eren told Live Science. “I started to think, ‘Oh my gosh, this might actually work!’ ”
The team’s attempts to cut refrigerated pig hide, however, were not successful. “Like a crayon, it just left brown streaks on the meat – no slices at all,” he said.
Today’s lesson? Don’t meat your heroes or their poop knives; they’re sure to disappoint you.
Two great tastes that cause cancer together
Spaghetti and meatballs. They go together like chocolate and peanut butter. It almost feels wrong to eat one without the other; but if you’re worried about cancer, you may have to go meatless.
The latest blow to an enjoyable meal comes courtesy of a study published in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research, which tested how lycopene – a carotenoid found in tomatoes that has notable anticancer properties – is absorbed by the body when in the presence of iron, which meat contains plenty of. When the study subjects drank a tomato-based shake infused with iron, lycopene was far less present in the blood and digestive system than in subjects who drank an iron-free tomato shake.
The study authors claim that either the iron is oxidizing with the lycopene or that the iron turns the mix of tomato and fat into something like separated salad dressing, preventing everything from mixing together when it enters the body.
Tastes like chicken
It’s an enduring oncologic mystery: How can some cancer cells endure what should be a lethal therapeutic beating, only to bounce off the canvas after an eight-count to deliver a devastating relapse-counterpunch of their own?
A new study offers an unsavory answer: cannibalism.
Turns out that dining on one’s weaker cancer cell neighbors during a chemotherapy barrage provides just enough energy to rope-a-dope and stage a late-round comeback.
Breast cancer cells with wild-type TP53 genes are particularly prone to revival after taking a beating at the hands of doxorubicin or other chemotherapy drugs. Like many of their cancerous compatriots, they retreat to a corner of the therapy ring during chemo and go gloves up in a state of senescence.
But researchers at Tulane University noticed that, in the midst of that pharmaceutical pummeling, those senescent wild-type TP53 cells start doing something that their other senescent, cancerous neighbors don’t: They engulf other cancer cells. Why? Seems those breast cancer cells with the wild-type TP53 gloves are equipped with gene expression programs similar to macrophages.
What’s more, the cannibals’ appetite for fellow cells appears to confer a survival advantage when the chemo rounds end.
We at the Bureau of LOTME will resist the impulse to ring out this item with a tasteless Donner Party punchline. Instead, we’ll indulge our high-brow inner child by retooling an elementary school comedy classic.
Why don’t cancer-cell cannibals eat cancer-cell comedians? They taste funny.
Poop, what is it good for?
One thing you can cross off the list: Cutting meat.
That might seem pretty obvious, but there’s actually a bit of history here. In a book published in 1998, anthropologist Wade Davis shared an account of an elderly Inuit man trapped alone in a storm. He had no tools and no food, so he made a knife out of his own frozen stool and used it to kill and butcher a dog.
That story, which has since become something of an urban legend, directly inspired the career of another anthropologist, Metin Eren, PhD, of Kent State University in Ohio. As director of the school’s laboratory of experimental archaeology, Dr. Eren decided that the time had come to prove or disprove the poop-knife hypothesis.
First, he and his team had to make such a knife. To produce the needed raw materials, Dr. Eren went on an 8-day “Arctic diet” that included lots of beef, turkey, and salmon, with some applesauce and butternut squash risotto thrown in, while a colleague stuck to a more Western diet. Their samples were then frozen to –58° F and sharpened with metal files.
“I was surprised at how hard human feces could get when frozen,” Dr. Eren told Live Science. “I started to think, ‘Oh my gosh, this might actually work!’ ”
The team’s attempts to cut refrigerated pig hide, however, were not successful. “Like a crayon, it just left brown streaks on the meat – no slices at all,” he said.
Today’s lesson? Don’t meat your heroes or their poop knives; they’re sure to disappoint you.
U.S. increases in RA burden outpace global averages
according to a new analysis of RA activity in 195 countries.
Percentage changes in the incidence, prevalence, and disability-adjusted life-year (DALY) rates for RA all reached double digits in the United States over the study period, but global increases for those measures stayed in the single digits, except for DALY, which did not increase, Saeid Safiri, PhD, of Tabriz (Iran) University of Medical Sciences and associates wrote in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
Data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2017 show that RA incidence in the United States had the largest increase (20.7%) among the three measures, rising from 19.3 cases per 100,000 population in 1990 to 23.4 in 2017. Overall incidence for the 195 countries included in the study went from 13.7 to 14.9 cases per 100,000, for an increase of 8.2%, the investigators reported.
That pattern largely repeats for prevalence: an increase of 17.5% in the United States as the number of cases went from 336.5 per 100,000 in 1990 to 395.5 in 2017, and an increase of 7.4% globally, with the number of prevalent cases rising from 229.6 to 246.5 per 100,000, they said.
The DALY numbers – think of each DALY as 1 lost year of “healthy” life, the World Health Organization says – tell a somewhat different story. The United States had DALY rate of 53.2 per 100,000 in 1990, but by 2017 it had climbed to 60 per 100,000, an increase of 12.8%. Over that same time period, the global rate fell by 3.6% as it went from 44.9 to 43.3, Dr. Safiri and associates reported.
That long-term decline does, however, disguise a more recent trend. The global DALY rate “decreased from 1990 to 2012 but then increased and reached higher than expected levels in the following 5 years to 2017,” they wrote.
RA rates in the United States in 2017 were, as noted, above average, but they were not the highest. The United Kingdom achieved the RA trifecta of highest incidence (27.5 per 100,000), highest prevalence (471.8 per 100,000), and highest DALY rate (73 per 100,000) among the 195 countries in the study. At the other end of the three scales, Indonesia had the lowest incidence (5.6 per 100,000) and prevalence (91.1 per 100,000), and Sri Lanka had the lowest DALY rate (14.2 per 100,000), they said.
“Age-standardized prevalence and incidence rates are overall increasing globally. Increasing population awareness regarding RA, its risk factors and the importance of early diagnosis and treatment with disease-modifying agents is warranted to reduce the future burden of this condition,” the research team concluded.
GBD is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The current analysis also was supported by Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran, Iran. The investigators did not declare any conflicts of interest.
SOURCE: Safiri S et al. Ann Rheum Dis. 2019 Sep 11. doi: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2019-215920.
according to a new analysis of RA activity in 195 countries.
Percentage changes in the incidence, prevalence, and disability-adjusted life-year (DALY) rates for RA all reached double digits in the United States over the study period, but global increases for those measures stayed in the single digits, except for DALY, which did not increase, Saeid Safiri, PhD, of Tabriz (Iran) University of Medical Sciences and associates wrote in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
Data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2017 show that RA incidence in the United States had the largest increase (20.7%) among the three measures, rising from 19.3 cases per 100,000 population in 1990 to 23.4 in 2017. Overall incidence for the 195 countries included in the study went from 13.7 to 14.9 cases per 100,000, for an increase of 8.2%, the investigators reported.
That pattern largely repeats for prevalence: an increase of 17.5% in the United States as the number of cases went from 336.5 per 100,000 in 1990 to 395.5 in 2017, and an increase of 7.4% globally, with the number of prevalent cases rising from 229.6 to 246.5 per 100,000, they said.
The DALY numbers – think of each DALY as 1 lost year of “healthy” life, the World Health Organization says – tell a somewhat different story. The United States had DALY rate of 53.2 per 100,000 in 1990, but by 2017 it had climbed to 60 per 100,000, an increase of 12.8%. Over that same time period, the global rate fell by 3.6% as it went from 44.9 to 43.3, Dr. Safiri and associates reported.
That long-term decline does, however, disguise a more recent trend. The global DALY rate “decreased from 1990 to 2012 but then increased and reached higher than expected levels in the following 5 years to 2017,” they wrote.
RA rates in the United States in 2017 were, as noted, above average, but they were not the highest. The United Kingdom achieved the RA trifecta of highest incidence (27.5 per 100,000), highest prevalence (471.8 per 100,000), and highest DALY rate (73 per 100,000) among the 195 countries in the study. At the other end of the three scales, Indonesia had the lowest incidence (5.6 per 100,000) and prevalence (91.1 per 100,000), and Sri Lanka had the lowest DALY rate (14.2 per 100,000), they said.
“Age-standardized prevalence and incidence rates are overall increasing globally. Increasing population awareness regarding RA, its risk factors and the importance of early diagnosis and treatment with disease-modifying agents is warranted to reduce the future burden of this condition,” the research team concluded.
GBD is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The current analysis also was supported by Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran, Iran. The investigators did not declare any conflicts of interest.
SOURCE: Safiri S et al. Ann Rheum Dis. 2019 Sep 11. doi: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2019-215920.
according to a new analysis of RA activity in 195 countries.
Percentage changes in the incidence, prevalence, and disability-adjusted life-year (DALY) rates for RA all reached double digits in the United States over the study period, but global increases for those measures stayed in the single digits, except for DALY, which did not increase, Saeid Safiri, PhD, of Tabriz (Iran) University of Medical Sciences and associates wrote in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
Data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2017 show that RA incidence in the United States had the largest increase (20.7%) among the three measures, rising from 19.3 cases per 100,000 population in 1990 to 23.4 in 2017. Overall incidence for the 195 countries included in the study went from 13.7 to 14.9 cases per 100,000, for an increase of 8.2%, the investigators reported.
That pattern largely repeats for prevalence: an increase of 17.5% in the United States as the number of cases went from 336.5 per 100,000 in 1990 to 395.5 in 2017, and an increase of 7.4% globally, with the number of prevalent cases rising from 229.6 to 246.5 per 100,000, they said.
The DALY numbers – think of each DALY as 1 lost year of “healthy” life, the World Health Organization says – tell a somewhat different story. The United States had DALY rate of 53.2 per 100,000 in 1990, but by 2017 it had climbed to 60 per 100,000, an increase of 12.8%. Over that same time period, the global rate fell by 3.6% as it went from 44.9 to 43.3, Dr. Safiri and associates reported.
That long-term decline does, however, disguise a more recent trend. The global DALY rate “decreased from 1990 to 2012 but then increased and reached higher than expected levels in the following 5 years to 2017,” they wrote.
RA rates in the United States in 2017 were, as noted, above average, but they were not the highest. The United Kingdom achieved the RA trifecta of highest incidence (27.5 per 100,000), highest prevalence (471.8 per 100,000), and highest DALY rate (73 per 100,000) among the 195 countries in the study. At the other end of the three scales, Indonesia had the lowest incidence (5.6 per 100,000) and prevalence (91.1 per 100,000), and Sri Lanka had the lowest DALY rate (14.2 per 100,000), they said.
“Age-standardized prevalence and incidence rates are overall increasing globally. Increasing population awareness regarding RA, its risk factors and the importance of early diagnosis and treatment with disease-modifying agents is warranted to reduce the future burden of this condition,” the research team concluded.
GBD is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The current analysis also was supported by Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran, Iran. The investigators did not declare any conflicts of interest.
SOURCE: Safiri S et al. Ann Rheum Dis. 2019 Sep 11. doi: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2019-215920.
FROM ANNALS OF THE RHEUMATIC DISEASES
iPhone trypophobia and chicken kissin’
Please, no photos
What does the new iPhone have in common with honeycombs and lotus flowers? They all strike terror and nausea in the hearts of trypophobics everywhere.
Trypophobia, in case you haven’t heard, is the fear of irregular patterns of holes or bumps clustered together. It sounds weird, until you look at photos like this and your skin starts to crawl. Now, we can add the iPhone 11 to the list of fear-inducing everyday objects. The new phone design includes three camera lenses, and it’s giving people … issues. Sure, amateur photographers are ecstatic, but social media users collectively shuddered over their keyboards when the tri-camera was revealed.
Trypophobia is not widely studied, but it’s been theorized that the revulsion is a biological instinct against things that look unsafe or diseased. Safe to say this might lead to Apple losing that core demographic – the trypophobe population. They’ll be switching to Androids en masse.
Don’t kiss your chickens after they hatch
All in all, it’s pretty easy to avoid getting salmonella. Refrigerate your food properly. Don’t eat undercooked ground meats. Oh, and don’t kiss the chickens you’ve been raising in your backyard.
Okay, that’s not the only takeaway from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention update on the 2019 salmonella outbreak that has so far affected just over a thousand people in 49 states. Because the outbreak has been linked to the increased prevalence of backyard poultry, with 67% of patients interviewed reporting contact with chicks and/or ducklings, the CDC has issued a slew of recommendations on how to avoid salmonella.
Some of them are common sense: Don’t let small children handle livestock, and wash your hands after contact. Some are a bit bizarre: Don’t let poultry wander through your house, and don’t eat or drink where livestock roam and live (eww).
Then there’s the gem: Don’t kiss your chickens, or snuggle them and then touch your face and/or mouth.
We know baby chickens or ducks are adorable. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with loving your livestock like a cat or dog. Just don’t, um, love your livestock.
Dept. of unintended consequences
This week’s case report is brought to you by the entomologists of Texas Medical Center in Houston.
The original problem: Large numbers of birds, such as grackles and pigeons, which may carry diseases and make a mess with their droppings, were gathering in large numbers in Texas Medical Center’s live oak trees. The campus is visited by 10 million people seeking health care each year.
The solution: Cover the trees with nets to prevent the birds from gathering.
The new problem: The lack of predatory birds has “created a haven for a flourishing population of Megalopyge opercularis, commonly referred to as asps,” according to investigators at Rice University. The asp in question happens to be one of North America’s most toxic caterpillars, and they are 7,300% more abundant in the netted trees, compared with nonnetted trees nearby.
The discussion: “I’ve been stung by a lot of things, and an asp sting definitely ranks high up there,” said Mattheau Comerford, one of the investigators. “It feels like a broken bone, and the pain lasts for hours. I was stung on the wrist, and the pain traveled up my arm, into my arm pit, and my jaw started to feel pain.”
The LOTME recommendation: In this case, the rats with wings … er, we mean pigeons, seem to be the lesser of two evils. Of course, compared with poisonous caterpillars, even kissing a chicken would be the lesser of two evils.
Please, no photos
What does the new iPhone have in common with honeycombs and lotus flowers? They all strike terror and nausea in the hearts of trypophobics everywhere.
Trypophobia, in case you haven’t heard, is the fear of irregular patterns of holes or bumps clustered together. It sounds weird, until you look at photos like this and your skin starts to crawl. Now, we can add the iPhone 11 to the list of fear-inducing everyday objects. The new phone design includes three camera lenses, and it’s giving people … issues. Sure, amateur photographers are ecstatic, but social media users collectively shuddered over their keyboards when the tri-camera was revealed.
Trypophobia is not widely studied, but it’s been theorized that the revulsion is a biological instinct against things that look unsafe or diseased. Safe to say this might lead to Apple losing that core demographic – the trypophobe population. They’ll be switching to Androids en masse.
Don’t kiss your chickens after they hatch
All in all, it’s pretty easy to avoid getting salmonella. Refrigerate your food properly. Don’t eat undercooked ground meats. Oh, and don’t kiss the chickens you’ve been raising in your backyard.
Okay, that’s not the only takeaway from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention update on the 2019 salmonella outbreak that has so far affected just over a thousand people in 49 states. Because the outbreak has been linked to the increased prevalence of backyard poultry, with 67% of patients interviewed reporting contact with chicks and/or ducklings, the CDC has issued a slew of recommendations on how to avoid salmonella.
Some of them are common sense: Don’t let small children handle livestock, and wash your hands after contact. Some are a bit bizarre: Don’t let poultry wander through your house, and don’t eat or drink where livestock roam and live (eww).
Then there’s the gem: Don’t kiss your chickens, or snuggle them and then touch your face and/or mouth.
We know baby chickens or ducks are adorable. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with loving your livestock like a cat or dog. Just don’t, um, love your livestock.
Dept. of unintended consequences
This week’s case report is brought to you by the entomologists of Texas Medical Center in Houston.
The original problem: Large numbers of birds, such as grackles and pigeons, which may carry diseases and make a mess with their droppings, were gathering in large numbers in Texas Medical Center’s live oak trees. The campus is visited by 10 million people seeking health care each year.
The solution: Cover the trees with nets to prevent the birds from gathering.
The new problem: The lack of predatory birds has “created a haven for a flourishing population of Megalopyge opercularis, commonly referred to as asps,” according to investigators at Rice University. The asp in question happens to be one of North America’s most toxic caterpillars, and they are 7,300% more abundant in the netted trees, compared with nonnetted trees nearby.
The discussion: “I’ve been stung by a lot of things, and an asp sting definitely ranks high up there,” said Mattheau Comerford, one of the investigators. “It feels like a broken bone, and the pain lasts for hours. I was stung on the wrist, and the pain traveled up my arm, into my arm pit, and my jaw started to feel pain.”
The LOTME recommendation: In this case, the rats with wings … er, we mean pigeons, seem to be the lesser of two evils. Of course, compared with poisonous caterpillars, even kissing a chicken would be the lesser of two evils.
Please, no photos
What does the new iPhone have in common with honeycombs and lotus flowers? They all strike terror and nausea in the hearts of trypophobics everywhere.
Trypophobia, in case you haven’t heard, is the fear of irregular patterns of holes or bumps clustered together. It sounds weird, until you look at photos like this and your skin starts to crawl. Now, we can add the iPhone 11 to the list of fear-inducing everyday objects. The new phone design includes three camera lenses, and it’s giving people … issues. Sure, amateur photographers are ecstatic, but social media users collectively shuddered over their keyboards when the tri-camera was revealed.
Trypophobia is not widely studied, but it’s been theorized that the revulsion is a biological instinct against things that look unsafe or diseased. Safe to say this might lead to Apple losing that core demographic – the trypophobe population. They’ll be switching to Androids en masse.
Don’t kiss your chickens after they hatch
All in all, it’s pretty easy to avoid getting salmonella. Refrigerate your food properly. Don’t eat undercooked ground meats. Oh, and don’t kiss the chickens you’ve been raising in your backyard.
Okay, that’s not the only takeaway from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention update on the 2019 salmonella outbreak that has so far affected just over a thousand people in 49 states. Because the outbreak has been linked to the increased prevalence of backyard poultry, with 67% of patients interviewed reporting contact with chicks and/or ducklings, the CDC has issued a slew of recommendations on how to avoid salmonella.
Some of them are common sense: Don’t let small children handle livestock, and wash your hands after contact. Some are a bit bizarre: Don’t let poultry wander through your house, and don’t eat or drink where livestock roam and live (eww).
Then there’s the gem: Don’t kiss your chickens, or snuggle them and then touch your face and/or mouth.
We know baby chickens or ducks are adorable. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with loving your livestock like a cat or dog. Just don’t, um, love your livestock.
Dept. of unintended consequences
This week’s case report is brought to you by the entomologists of Texas Medical Center in Houston.
The original problem: Large numbers of birds, such as grackles and pigeons, which may carry diseases and make a mess with their droppings, were gathering in large numbers in Texas Medical Center’s live oak trees. The campus is visited by 10 million people seeking health care each year.
The solution: Cover the trees with nets to prevent the birds from gathering.
The new problem: The lack of predatory birds has “created a haven for a flourishing population of Megalopyge opercularis, commonly referred to as asps,” according to investigators at Rice University. The asp in question happens to be one of North America’s most toxic caterpillars, and they are 7,300% more abundant in the netted trees, compared with nonnetted trees nearby.
The discussion: “I’ve been stung by a lot of things, and an asp sting definitely ranks high up there,” said Mattheau Comerford, one of the investigators. “It feels like a broken bone, and the pain lasts for hours. I was stung on the wrist, and the pain traveled up my arm, into my arm pit, and my jaw started to feel pain.”
The LOTME recommendation: In this case, the rats with wings … er, we mean pigeons, seem to be the lesser of two evils. Of course, compared with poisonous caterpillars, even kissing a chicken would be the lesser of two evils.
Measles cases continue to decline
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A total of 24 measles cases were confirmed in August, and the total for the year is now 1,241 cases in 31 states. Only seven of those cases were added during the most recent reporting week, which ended Sept. 5, but five were older cases that had just been reported, the CDC said Sept. 9.
With the ending of the measles outbreak in New York, announced Sept. 3, the largest of the three remaining active outbreaks in the country is in Rockland County, N.Y., just north of the city, which has reported 312 cases since it began in 2018.
The two other outbreaks are located in El Paso, Tex., where six cases have been reported so far, and Wyoming County in western New York State, where five cases have occurred.
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A total of 24 measles cases were confirmed in August, and the total for the year is now 1,241 cases in 31 states. Only seven of those cases were added during the most recent reporting week, which ended Sept. 5, but five were older cases that had just been reported, the CDC said Sept. 9.
With the ending of the measles outbreak in New York, announced Sept. 3, the largest of the three remaining active outbreaks in the country is in Rockland County, N.Y., just north of the city, which has reported 312 cases since it began in 2018.
The two other outbreaks are located in El Paso, Tex., where six cases have been reported so far, and Wyoming County in western New York State, where five cases have occurred.
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A total of 24 measles cases were confirmed in August, and the total for the year is now 1,241 cases in 31 states. Only seven of those cases were added during the most recent reporting week, which ended Sept. 5, but five were older cases that had just been reported, the CDC said Sept. 9.
With the ending of the measles outbreak in New York, announced Sept. 3, the largest of the three remaining active outbreaks in the country is in Rockland County, N.Y., just north of the city, which has reported 312 cases since it began in 2018.
The two other outbreaks are located in El Paso, Tex., where six cases have been reported so far, and Wyoming County in western New York State, where five cases have occurred.
Werewolf babies, blinding fries, and the gut library
Someone needs carrots, stat
Eat your veggies or you’ll … go blind? A U.K. teen took picky eating to a whole new level, literally losing his vision after a steady decade-long diet of strictly fries, Pringles, white bread, and ham.
Looks like Pringles needs to change their tagline a little bit: “Once you pop, the fun don’t stop – until you start losing hearing and vision!” We think it’s really catchy.
The teen first visited a doctor several years ago complaining of tiredness and was given B12 injections and sent on his merry way. Unfortunately, he quickly developed hearing and vision loss, and by age 17 years was diagnosed with nutritional optic neuropathy.
Somehow through all of this, he maintained a normal weight, proving once and for all the metabolism of teenage boys can withstand just about anything.
The chip-loving teen now joins the (very small) Nutritional Optic Neuropathy Hall of Fame of Developed Countries, previously only occupied by a man who pretty much drank vodka every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Cheers!
Teen wolf? Try baby wolf
Every parent just wants their child to be happy, healthy, and covered in a thick layer of hair, right?
No?
Well, that’s too bad for dozens of parents in Spain, whose children developed hypertrichosis, aka “werewolf syndrome,” and suddenly sprouted full-body hair growth that Tom Selleck would be jealous of. After a brief investigation, they discovered the fast-paced hair growth was caused by an unfortunate medicine mix-up at the lab. Instead of receiving omeprazole for their gastric reflux, the children had been given minoxidil, a drug that treats alopecia.
Luckily for the children who don’t want to impersonate Michael J. Fox anymore, the hair will go away when they stop taking the drug.
No official statement yet on the mysterious sightings of wolf children roaming the Spanish countryside terrorizing locals and howling at the full moon.
Mouthwash in my veins
Let’s say you’re a person with hypertension. After years of your doctor badgering you to do more cardio exercise, you’ve finally committed to the morning jog. It’s a pain getting up that early in the morning, but the benefits will be worth it, right? You head back to your physician, eager to show off the new you. The doctor weighs you (down a few pounds, not bad), then takes a blood pressure reading, and ... it’s exactly the same.
What happened? Was all that work wasted?
Well, according to a study published in Free Radical Biology and Medicine, you may have an excuse: mouthwash usage.
It all has to do with nitric acid. Normally during cardio exercise, bacteria in the mouth convert nitrates into nitrites, and when these nitrites are swallowed, they are converted into nitric acid after being absorbed by the circulatory system. That widens the blood vessels and reduces blood pressure. Mouthwash changes all that. It inhibits those oral bacteria, and the whole process is stopped before it can begin.
The investigators found that, after 1 hour of exercise on a treadmill, study participants who received mouthwash beforehand saw their systolic blood pressure reduced by 2 mm Hg. And those who received the placebo (mint-flavored water)? They saw a 5.2-mm Hg reduction.
Bottom line to those with hypertension: You may have to start flossing. We know it’s annoying, but it’ll make your doctor happy, and it’ll make your dentist especially happy.
No books at this library
The human microbiome is a pretty hot scientific topic right now, but we here at LOTME are not scientists, or doctors, or experts of any kind, so we have a simple question: What’s in a gut?
Happily (yes, this is the sort of thing that makes us happy), researchers at MIT and the Broad Institute, both in Cambridge, Mass., have taken a very detailed look at the guts of about 90 people, with a dozen or so providing samples for up to 2 years, and can now tell us what’s in a gut: bacteria. Lots of bacteria … 7,758 different strains of bacteria.
According to a statement from MIT, the samples were obtained “through the OpenBiome organization, which collects stool samples for research and therapeutic purposes.” It also sounds like a fun place to work.
Those samples presented “a unique opportunity, and we thought that would be a great set of individuals to really try to dig down and characterize the microbial populations more thoroughly,” said Eric Alm, PhD, one of the investigators.
All of their data, along with samples of the bacteria strains they isolated, are available online at the Broad Institute–OpenBiome Microbiome Library. Which, if you think about it (and that is what we do here), makes it kind of like an Amazon for bacteria.
Hmmm … Alexa, order Turicibacter sanguinis. Uncle Leo’s birthday is coming up.
Someone needs carrots, stat
Eat your veggies or you’ll … go blind? A U.K. teen took picky eating to a whole new level, literally losing his vision after a steady decade-long diet of strictly fries, Pringles, white bread, and ham.
Looks like Pringles needs to change their tagline a little bit: “Once you pop, the fun don’t stop – until you start losing hearing and vision!” We think it’s really catchy.
The teen first visited a doctor several years ago complaining of tiredness and was given B12 injections and sent on his merry way. Unfortunately, he quickly developed hearing and vision loss, and by age 17 years was diagnosed with nutritional optic neuropathy.
Somehow through all of this, he maintained a normal weight, proving once and for all the metabolism of teenage boys can withstand just about anything.
The chip-loving teen now joins the (very small) Nutritional Optic Neuropathy Hall of Fame of Developed Countries, previously only occupied by a man who pretty much drank vodka every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Cheers!
Teen wolf? Try baby wolf
Every parent just wants their child to be happy, healthy, and covered in a thick layer of hair, right?
No?
Well, that’s too bad for dozens of parents in Spain, whose children developed hypertrichosis, aka “werewolf syndrome,” and suddenly sprouted full-body hair growth that Tom Selleck would be jealous of. After a brief investigation, they discovered the fast-paced hair growth was caused by an unfortunate medicine mix-up at the lab. Instead of receiving omeprazole for their gastric reflux, the children had been given minoxidil, a drug that treats alopecia.
Luckily for the children who don’t want to impersonate Michael J. Fox anymore, the hair will go away when they stop taking the drug.
No official statement yet on the mysterious sightings of wolf children roaming the Spanish countryside terrorizing locals and howling at the full moon.
Mouthwash in my veins
Let’s say you’re a person with hypertension. After years of your doctor badgering you to do more cardio exercise, you’ve finally committed to the morning jog. It’s a pain getting up that early in the morning, but the benefits will be worth it, right? You head back to your physician, eager to show off the new you. The doctor weighs you (down a few pounds, not bad), then takes a blood pressure reading, and ... it’s exactly the same.
What happened? Was all that work wasted?
Well, according to a study published in Free Radical Biology and Medicine, you may have an excuse: mouthwash usage.
It all has to do with nitric acid. Normally during cardio exercise, bacteria in the mouth convert nitrates into nitrites, and when these nitrites are swallowed, they are converted into nitric acid after being absorbed by the circulatory system. That widens the blood vessels and reduces blood pressure. Mouthwash changes all that. It inhibits those oral bacteria, and the whole process is stopped before it can begin.
The investigators found that, after 1 hour of exercise on a treadmill, study participants who received mouthwash beforehand saw their systolic blood pressure reduced by 2 mm Hg. And those who received the placebo (mint-flavored water)? They saw a 5.2-mm Hg reduction.
Bottom line to those with hypertension: You may have to start flossing. We know it’s annoying, but it’ll make your doctor happy, and it’ll make your dentist especially happy.
No books at this library
The human microbiome is a pretty hot scientific topic right now, but we here at LOTME are not scientists, or doctors, or experts of any kind, so we have a simple question: What’s in a gut?
Happily (yes, this is the sort of thing that makes us happy), researchers at MIT and the Broad Institute, both in Cambridge, Mass., have taken a very detailed look at the guts of about 90 people, with a dozen or so providing samples for up to 2 years, and can now tell us what’s in a gut: bacteria. Lots of bacteria … 7,758 different strains of bacteria.
According to a statement from MIT, the samples were obtained “through the OpenBiome organization, which collects stool samples for research and therapeutic purposes.” It also sounds like a fun place to work.
Those samples presented “a unique opportunity, and we thought that would be a great set of individuals to really try to dig down and characterize the microbial populations more thoroughly,” said Eric Alm, PhD, one of the investigators.
All of their data, along with samples of the bacteria strains they isolated, are available online at the Broad Institute–OpenBiome Microbiome Library. Which, if you think about it (and that is what we do here), makes it kind of like an Amazon for bacteria.
Hmmm … Alexa, order Turicibacter sanguinis. Uncle Leo’s birthday is coming up.
Someone needs carrots, stat
Eat your veggies or you’ll … go blind? A U.K. teen took picky eating to a whole new level, literally losing his vision after a steady decade-long diet of strictly fries, Pringles, white bread, and ham.
Looks like Pringles needs to change their tagline a little bit: “Once you pop, the fun don’t stop – until you start losing hearing and vision!” We think it’s really catchy.
The teen first visited a doctor several years ago complaining of tiredness and was given B12 injections and sent on his merry way. Unfortunately, he quickly developed hearing and vision loss, and by age 17 years was diagnosed with nutritional optic neuropathy.
Somehow through all of this, he maintained a normal weight, proving once and for all the metabolism of teenage boys can withstand just about anything.
The chip-loving teen now joins the (very small) Nutritional Optic Neuropathy Hall of Fame of Developed Countries, previously only occupied by a man who pretty much drank vodka every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Cheers!
Teen wolf? Try baby wolf
Every parent just wants their child to be happy, healthy, and covered in a thick layer of hair, right?
No?
Well, that’s too bad for dozens of parents in Spain, whose children developed hypertrichosis, aka “werewolf syndrome,” and suddenly sprouted full-body hair growth that Tom Selleck would be jealous of. After a brief investigation, they discovered the fast-paced hair growth was caused by an unfortunate medicine mix-up at the lab. Instead of receiving omeprazole for their gastric reflux, the children had been given minoxidil, a drug that treats alopecia.
Luckily for the children who don’t want to impersonate Michael J. Fox anymore, the hair will go away when they stop taking the drug.
No official statement yet on the mysterious sightings of wolf children roaming the Spanish countryside terrorizing locals and howling at the full moon.
Mouthwash in my veins
Let’s say you’re a person with hypertension. After years of your doctor badgering you to do more cardio exercise, you’ve finally committed to the morning jog. It’s a pain getting up that early in the morning, but the benefits will be worth it, right? You head back to your physician, eager to show off the new you. The doctor weighs you (down a few pounds, not bad), then takes a blood pressure reading, and ... it’s exactly the same.
What happened? Was all that work wasted?
Well, according to a study published in Free Radical Biology and Medicine, you may have an excuse: mouthwash usage.
It all has to do with nitric acid. Normally during cardio exercise, bacteria in the mouth convert nitrates into nitrites, and when these nitrites are swallowed, they are converted into nitric acid after being absorbed by the circulatory system. That widens the blood vessels and reduces blood pressure. Mouthwash changes all that. It inhibits those oral bacteria, and the whole process is stopped before it can begin.
The investigators found that, after 1 hour of exercise on a treadmill, study participants who received mouthwash beforehand saw their systolic blood pressure reduced by 2 mm Hg. And those who received the placebo (mint-flavored water)? They saw a 5.2-mm Hg reduction.
Bottom line to those with hypertension: You may have to start flossing. We know it’s annoying, but it’ll make your doctor happy, and it’ll make your dentist especially happy.
No books at this library
The human microbiome is a pretty hot scientific topic right now, but we here at LOTME are not scientists, or doctors, or experts of any kind, so we have a simple question: What’s in a gut?
Happily (yes, this is the sort of thing that makes us happy), researchers at MIT and the Broad Institute, both in Cambridge, Mass., have taken a very detailed look at the guts of about 90 people, with a dozen or so providing samples for up to 2 years, and can now tell us what’s in a gut: bacteria. Lots of bacteria … 7,758 different strains of bacteria.
According to a statement from MIT, the samples were obtained “through the OpenBiome organization, which collects stool samples for research and therapeutic purposes.” It also sounds like a fun place to work.
Those samples presented “a unique opportunity, and we thought that would be a great set of individuals to really try to dig down and characterize the microbial populations more thoroughly,” said Eric Alm, PhD, one of the investigators.
All of their data, along with samples of the bacteria strains they isolated, are available online at the Broad Institute–OpenBiome Microbiome Library. Which, if you think about it (and that is what we do here), makes it kind of like an Amazon for bacteria.
Hmmm … Alexa, order Turicibacter sanguinis. Uncle Leo’s birthday is coming up.
Measles outbreak in New York City has ended
The measles outbreak in New York City, the largest in the nation this year, has officially ended, Mayor Bill de Blasio and city health officials announced Sept. 3.
“Ending the measles outbreak required extensive collaboration with community organizations and Jewish leaders. They helped encourage vaccinations and achieve record immunization levels in parts of Brooklyn,” Mayor de Blasio said in a written statement. “As we head back to school this week, we just remain vigilant. To keep our children and communities safe, I urge all New Yorkers to get vaccinated. It’s the best defense we have.”
A measles outbreak is considered to be over when 42 days, or two incubation periods, have elapsed since the last affected persons in the area were no longer infectious. “That time period has now passed for the people most recently infected with measles and reported,” the city health department said in the statement.
Since the outbreak began in October of last year, 654 individuals were diagnosed with measles in the five boroughs of New York, although 72% occurred in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. according to the health department. The majority of affected people were under 18 years of age (80%), and most were either unvaccinated (73%) or incompletely vaccinated (7%).
The end of the measles outbreak also brings an end to the public health emergency that was declared on April 9 for parts of Brooklyn, the statement noted.
“Vaccination coverage has increased significantly since the emergency order, which has been supported by community-led efforts. We are grateful to the New Yorkers who shared the truth about vaccines and protected the health of their friends and neighbors through this outbreak,” city health commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot said in the statement.
The measles outbreak in New York City, the largest in the nation this year, has officially ended, Mayor Bill de Blasio and city health officials announced Sept. 3.
“Ending the measles outbreak required extensive collaboration with community organizations and Jewish leaders. They helped encourage vaccinations and achieve record immunization levels in parts of Brooklyn,” Mayor de Blasio said in a written statement. “As we head back to school this week, we just remain vigilant. To keep our children and communities safe, I urge all New Yorkers to get vaccinated. It’s the best defense we have.”
A measles outbreak is considered to be over when 42 days, or two incubation periods, have elapsed since the last affected persons in the area were no longer infectious. “That time period has now passed for the people most recently infected with measles and reported,” the city health department said in the statement.
Since the outbreak began in October of last year, 654 individuals were diagnosed with measles in the five boroughs of New York, although 72% occurred in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. according to the health department. The majority of affected people were under 18 years of age (80%), and most were either unvaccinated (73%) or incompletely vaccinated (7%).
The end of the measles outbreak also brings an end to the public health emergency that was declared on April 9 for parts of Brooklyn, the statement noted.
“Vaccination coverage has increased significantly since the emergency order, which has been supported by community-led efforts. We are grateful to the New Yorkers who shared the truth about vaccines and protected the health of their friends and neighbors through this outbreak,” city health commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot said in the statement.
The measles outbreak in New York City, the largest in the nation this year, has officially ended, Mayor Bill de Blasio and city health officials announced Sept. 3.
“Ending the measles outbreak required extensive collaboration with community organizations and Jewish leaders. They helped encourage vaccinations and achieve record immunization levels in parts of Brooklyn,” Mayor de Blasio said in a written statement. “As we head back to school this week, we just remain vigilant. To keep our children and communities safe, I urge all New Yorkers to get vaccinated. It’s the best defense we have.”
A measles outbreak is considered to be over when 42 days, or two incubation periods, have elapsed since the last affected persons in the area were no longer infectious. “That time period has now passed for the people most recently infected with measles and reported,” the city health department said in the statement.
Since the outbreak began in October of last year, 654 individuals were diagnosed with measles in the five boroughs of New York, although 72% occurred in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. according to the health department. The majority of affected people were under 18 years of age (80%), and most were either unvaccinated (73%) or incompletely vaccinated (7%).
The end of the measles outbreak also brings an end to the public health emergency that was declared on April 9 for parts of Brooklyn, the statement noted.
“Vaccination coverage has increased significantly since the emergency order, which has been supported by community-led efforts. We are grateful to the New Yorkers who shared the truth about vaccines and protected the health of their friends and neighbors through this outbreak,” city health commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot said in the statement.
Cannabidiol may interact with rheumatologic drugs
A number of medications commonly prescribed by rheumatologists may interact with cannabidiol oil, investigators at the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, reported.
“Patients are increasingly requesting information concerning the safety of CBD oil,” Taryn Youngstein, MD, and associates said in letter to the editor in Rheumatology, but current guidelines on the use of medical cannabis do “not address the potential interactions between CBD oil and medicines frequently used in the rheumatology clinic.”
The most important potential CBD interaction, they suggested, may be with corticosteroids. Hydrocortisone and prednisolone both inhibit the cytochrome P450 enzyme CYP3A, but CBD is a potent inhibitor of CYP3A, so “concomitant use may decrease glucocorticoid clearance and increase risk of systemic [corticosteroid] side effects,” the investigators wrote.
CBD also is known to inhibit the cytochrome P450 isozymes CYP2C9, CYP2D6, CYP2C19, CYP3A4, and CYP1A2, which, alone or in combination, are involved in the metabolization of naproxen, tramadol, amitriptyline, and tofacitinib (Xeljanz), according to a literature search done via the college’s medicine information department that also used the British National Formulary and the Natural Medicines online interaction checker.
The Janus kinase inhibitor tofacitinib is included among the possible interactions, but the other Food and Drug Administration–approved JAK inhibitor, baricitinib (Olumiant), is primarily metabolized by the kidneys and should not have significant interaction with CBD, Dr. Youngstein and associates said. Most of the conventional synthetic and biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, including methotrexate, hydroxychloroquine, adalimumab (Humira), and abatacept (Orencia), also are expected to be relatively free from CBD interactions.
This first published report on interactions between CBD oil and common rheumatology medications “highlights the importance of taking comprehensive drug histories, by asking directly about drugs considered alternative medicines and food supplements,” they said.
The investigators declared no conflicts of interest, and there was no specific funding for the study.
SOURCE: Wilson-Morkeh H et al. Rheumatology. 2019 July 29. doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/kez304.
A number of medications commonly prescribed by rheumatologists may interact with cannabidiol oil, investigators at the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, reported.
“Patients are increasingly requesting information concerning the safety of CBD oil,” Taryn Youngstein, MD, and associates said in letter to the editor in Rheumatology, but current guidelines on the use of medical cannabis do “not address the potential interactions between CBD oil and medicines frequently used in the rheumatology clinic.”
The most important potential CBD interaction, they suggested, may be with corticosteroids. Hydrocortisone and prednisolone both inhibit the cytochrome P450 enzyme CYP3A, but CBD is a potent inhibitor of CYP3A, so “concomitant use may decrease glucocorticoid clearance and increase risk of systemic [corticosteroid] side effects,” the investigators wrote.
CBD also is known to inhibit the cytochrome P450 isozymes CYP2C9, CYP2D6, CYP2C19, CYP3A4, and CYP1A2, which, alone or in combination, are involved in the metabolization of naproxen, tramadol, amitriptyline, and tofacitinib (Xeljanz), according to a literature search done via the college’s medicine information department that also used the British National Formulary and the Natural Medicines online interaction checker.
The Janus kinase inhibitor tofacitinib is included among the possible interactions, but the other Food and Drug Administration–approved JAK inhibitor, baricitinib (Olumiant), is primarily metabolized by the kidneys and should not have significant interaction with CBD, Dr. Youngstein and associates said. Most of the conventional synthetic and biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, including methotrexate, hydroxychloroquine, adalimumab (Humira), and abatacept (Orencia), also are expected to be relatively free from CBD interactions.
This first published report on interactions between CBD oil and common rheumatology medications “highlights the importance of taking comprehensive drug histories, by asking directly about drugs considered alternative medicines and food supplements,” they said.
The investigators declared no conflicts of interest, and there was no specific funding for the study.
SOURCE: Wilson-Morkeh H et al. Rheumatology. 2019 July 29. doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/kez304.
A number of medications commonly prescribed by rheumatologists may interact with cannabidiol oil, investigators at the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, reported.
“Patients are increasingly requesting information concerning the safety of CBD oil,” Taryn Youngstein, MD, and associates said in letter to the editor in Rheumatology, but current guidelines on the use of medical cannabis do “not address the potential interactions between CBD oil and medicines frequently used in the rheumatology clinic.”
The most important potential CBD interaction, they suggested, may be with corticosteroids. Hydrocortisone and prednisolone both inhibit the cytochrome P450 enzyme CYP3A, but CBD is a potent inhibitor of CYP3A, so “concomitant use may decrease glucocorticoid clearance and increase risk of systemic [corticosteroid] side effects,” the investigators wrote.
CBD also is known to inhibit the cytochrome P450 isozymes CYP2C9, CYP2D6, CYP2C19, CYP3A4, and CYP1A2, which, alone or in combination, are involved in the metabolization of naproxen, tramadol, amitriptyline, and tofacitinib (Xeljanz), according to a literature search done via the college’s medicine information department that also used the British National Formulary and the Natural Medicines online interaction checker.
The Janus kinase inhibitor tofacitinib is included among the possible interactions, but the other Food and Drug Administration–approved JAK inhibitor, baricitinib (Olumiant), is primarily metabolized by the kidneys and should not have significant interaction with CBD, Dr. Youngstein and associates said. Most of the conventional synthetic and biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, including methotrexate, hydroxychloroquine, adalimumab (Humira), and abatacept (Orencia), also are expected to be relatively free from CBD interactions.
This first published report on interactions between CBD oil and common rheumatology medications “highlights the importance of taking comprehensive drug histories, by asking directly about drugs considered alternative medicines and food supplements,” they said.
The investigators declared no conflicts of interest, and there was no specific funding for the study.
SOURCE: Wilson-Morkeh H et al. Rheumatology. 2019 July 29. doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/kez304.
FROM RHEUMATOLOGY
Body sculpting, microneedling show strong growth
, according to a survey by the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery.
The society’s members performed an estimated 3.5 million laser/light/energy-based procedures and 2.1 million injectable neuromodulator procedures last year as the total volume of cosmetic treatments rose by more than 7% over 2017, the society reported. The total number of procedures in 2017 was 8.3 million, which represented an increase of 19% over 2016.
The largest percent increase in 2018 by type of procedure came in the body-sculpting sector, which jumped 43% from 2017 to 2018. In terms of the total number, however, body sculpting was well behind the other major categories of cosmetic treatments at 624,000 procedures performed. The most popular form of body sculpting last year was cryolipolysis (287,000 procedures), followed by radiofrequency (163,000), and deoxycholic acid (66,000), the ASDS reported.
“The coupling of scientific research and technology [is] driving innovative options for consumers seeking noninvasive cosmetic treatments,” said ASDS President Murad Alam, MD.
Among those newer options is microneedling, which was up by 45% over its 2017 total with almost 263,000 procedures in 2018. Another innovative treatment, thread lifts, in which temporary sutures visibly lift the skin around the face, appears to be gaining awareness as nearly 33,000 procedures were performed last year, according to the ASDS.
Year-over-year increases were smaller among the more established procedures: laser/light/energy-based procedures were up by 6.6%, injectable neuromodulators rose just 0.9%, injectable soft-tissue fillers were down 0.8%, and chemical peels increased by 2.4%, the society’s data show.
The survey was conducted among ASDS members from Jan. 15 to May 21, 2019, and the 596 responses were generalized to the entire ASDS membership of over 6,400 physicians.
, according to a survey by the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery.
The society’s members performed an estimated 3.5 million laser/light/energy-based procedures and 2.1 million injectable neuromodulator procedures last year as the total volume of cosmetic treatments rose by more than 7% over 2017, the society reported. The total number of procedures in 2017 was 8.3 million, which represented an increase of 19% over 2016.
The largest percent increase in 2018 by type of procedure came in the body-sculpting sector, which jumped 43% from 2017 to 2018. In terms of the total number, however, body sculpting was well behind the other major categories of cosmetic treatments at 624,000 procedures performed. The most popular form of body sculpting last year was cryolipolysis (287,000 procedures), followed by radiofrequency (163,000), and deoxycholic acid (66,000), the ASDS reported.
“The coupling of scientific research and technology [is] driving innovative options for consumers seeking noninvasive cosmetic treatments,” said ASDS President Murad Alam, MD.
Among those newer options is microneedling, which was up by 45% over its 2017 total with almost 263,000 procedures in 2018. Another innovative treatment, thread lifts, in which temporary sutures visibly lift the skin around the face, appears to be gaining awareness as nearly 33,000 procedures were performed last year, according to the ASDS.
Year-over-year increases were smaller among the more established procedures: laser/light/energy-based procedures were up by 6.6%, injectable neuromodulators rose just 0.9%, injectable soft-tissue fillers were down 0.8%, and chemical peels increased by 2.4%, the society’s data show.
The survey was conducted among ASDS members from Jan. 15 to May 21, 2019, and the 596 responses were generalized to the entire ASDS membership of over 6,400 physicians.
, according to a survey by the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery.
The society’s members performed an estimated 3.5 million laser/light/energy-based procedures and 2.1 million injectable neuromodulator procedures last year as the total volume of cosmetic treatments rose by more than 7% over 2017, the society reported. The total number of procedures in 2017 was 8.3 million, which represented an increase of 19% over 2016.
The largest percent increase in 2018 by type of procedure came in the body-sculpting sector, which jumped 43% from 2017 to 2018. In terms of the total number, however, body sculpting was well behind the other major categories of cosmetic treatments at 624,000 procedures performed. The most popular form of body sculpting last year was cryolipolysis (287,000 procedures), followed by radiofrequency (163,000), and deoxycholic acid (66,000), the ASDS reported.
“The coupling of scientific research and technology [is] driving innovative options for consumers seeking noninvasive cosmetic treatments,” said ASDS President Murad Alam, MD.
Among those newer options is microneedling, which was up by 45% over its 2017 total with almost 263,000 procedures in 2018. Another innovative treatment, thread lifts, in which temporary sutures visibly lift the skin around the face, appears to be gaining awareness as nearly 33,000 procedures were performed last year, according to the ASDS.
Year-over-year increases were smaller among the more established procedures: laser/light/energy-based procedures were up by 6.6%, injectable neuromodulators rose just 0.9%, injectable soft-tissue fillers were down 0.8%, and chemical peels increased by 2.4%, the society’s data show.
The survey was conducted among ASDS members from Jan. 15 to May 21, 2019, and the 596 responses were generalized to the entire ASDS membership of over 6,400 physicians.
Health spending nears $23,000 per family
That average cost represents the employer’s contribution to the insurance premium ($15,159), along with the employee’s premium ($4,706) and the family’s out-of-pocket spending ($3,020), according to a KFF analysis of IBM MarketScan data and the 2018 KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey.
“Buying a new car every year would be a very impractical expense. It would also be cheaper than a year’s worth of health care for a family,” KFF President and CEO Drew Altman, PhD, wrote in his Axios column.
A little searching on the Kelley Blue Book Car Finder shows that the average family could have purchased a pretty nice new vehicle for the $22,885 that was spent on their health care in 2018:
- Mazda6 sedan: $22,845.
- Mini 2-door hatchback: $22,450.
- Jeep Renegade SUV: $21,040.
- Nissan Frontier king cab pickup: $20,035.
“The cost-shifting and complexity of health insurance can hide its high cost, which crowds out families’ other needs and depresses workers’ wages,” Dr. Altman said.
That average cost represents the employer’s contribution to the insurance premium ($15,159), along with the employee’s premium ($4,706) and the family’s out-of-pocket spending ($3,020), according to a KFF analysis of IBM MarketScan data and the 2018 KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey.
“Buying a new car every year would be a very impractical expense. It would also be cheaper than a year’s worth of health care for a family,” KFF President and CEO Drew Altman, PhD, wrote in his Axios column.
A little searching on the Kelley Blue Book Car Finder shows that the average family could have purchased a pretty nice new vehicle for the $22,885 that was spent on their health care in 2018:
- Mazda6 sedan: $22,845.
- Mini 2-door hatchback: $22,450.
- Jeep Renegade SUV: $21,040.
- Nissan Frontier king cab pickup: $20,035.
“The cost-shifting and complexity of health insurance can hide its high cost, which crowds out families’ other needs and depresses workers’ wages,” Dr. Altman said.
That average cost represents the employer’s contribution to the insurance premium ($15,159), along with the employee’s premium ($4,706) and the family’s out-of-pocket spending ($3,020), according to a KFF analysis of IBM MarketScan data and the 2018 KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey.
“Buying a new car every year would be a very impractical expense. It would also be cheaper than a year’s worth of health care for a family,” KFF President and CEO Drew Altman, PhD, wrote in his Axios column.
A little searching on the Kelley Blue Book Car Finder shows that the average family could have purchased a pretty nice new vehicle for the $22,885 that was spent on their health care in 2018:
- Mazda6 sedan: $22,845.
- Mini 2-door hatchback: $22,450.
- Jeep Renegade SUV: $21,040.
- Nissan Frontier king cab pickup: $20,035.
“The cost-shifting and complexity of health insurance can hide its high cost, which crowds out families’ other needs and depresses workers’ wages,” Dr. Altman said.
Cat ladies, heroic music, and Canadian cannabis
Cat ladies: They’re just like you and me
Crazy cat ladies are … not so crazy after all. Bad news for stereotypes, but good news for women who love kitties.
A research team from UCLA observed over 500 pet owners to analyze how people reacted to distress calls from their pets. The investigators also looked at possible links between pet ownership and any mental health or social difficulties.
– meaning cat owners are scientifically proven to be normal.
The study authors specifically stated, “We found no evidence to support the ‘cat lady’ stereotype: cat-owners did not differ from others on self-reported symptoms of depression, anxiety or their experiences in close relationships.” Who would’ve thought?
Music is my hero
If you’re feeling down and need a little more motivation in life, try putting in your headphones and listening to some Hans Zimmer scores. A recently published study found that “heroic” music stimulates motivating and empowering thoughts in listeners.
Researchers had participants listen to heroic and sad music samples and fill out questionnaires after listening. They found that listening to heroic music while the mind starts wandering promotes positive, constructive, and motivating thoughts.
No word yet, though, on whether any of the participants attempted to fly or save some kittens from a tree.
The arms race continues
Intrauterine devices, pacemakers, insulin pumps, gastric bands, coronary stents, car keys: What do all of these things have in common? Right now, you’re probably thinking, “Well, I know what those first five have in common, but … car keys? There’s no way.” Yes way.
Aime Dansby, a software engineer from Dallas, had the key to her Tesla 3 – not the entire key, just the RFID chip from the credit-card-sized valet key – implanted into her arm by a body modification artist named “Pineapple,” according to Car & Driver. Seems she couldn’t get a physician to perform the procedure.
To make the chip “safe” for implantation, Ms. Dansby dissolved the rest of the card with acetone and then had the chip itself encased “in a biopolymer that is safe to use in the body and under the skin,” Popular Mechanics reported.
Ms. Dansby discusses some of her reasoning in a video on YouTube: “They say you can’t, like, start your car with that. It’s not secure. It won’t work. It makes me want to do it more.” We here at LOTME understand and support that kind of thinking, but we also hope that no one ever tells her she can’t start her car by sticking her finger in an electrical socket.
O (THC)anada
It can be difficult to get a precise estimate on the level of drug use within a city or country. Perhaps not surprisingly, many people aren’t entirely forthcoming about their drug habits, legal or not. But their poop … the poop never lies.
That’s why Stats Canada, in an effort to find new ways to collect data relating to the legalization of cannabis, conducted a survey of wastewater from five Canadian cities: Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, and Vancouver. In other words, they looked through the poop of about 8.4 million people to find out what drugs they preferred, gathering information on cannabis, cocaine, opioids, and methamphetamine.
Despite its legal status, cannabis usage was not uniform across the country, as Halifax and Montreal wastewater had THC levels more than twice as high as the other three cities. Stats Canada noted that Nova Scotia has higher-than-average cannabis usage, but Quebec as a whole has lower-than-average usage. Apparently the people of Montreal just really like their weed.
In fact, only cocaine showed no geographic bent. Opioids were significantly less popular in Toronto and Montreal, and methamphetamine was much more common in Edmonton and Vancouver.
In the end, Stats Canada concluded that wastewater analysis was an effective way to test drug usage, though we suspect they may have come to a different conclusion had they made anyone other than a bunch of polite Canadians sample the sewage of over 8 million people.
Cat ladies: They’re just like you and me
Crazy cat ladies are … not so crazy after all. Bad news for stereotypes, but good news for women who love kitties.
A research team from UCLA observed over 500 pet owners to analyze how people reacted to distress calls from their pets. The investigators also looked at possible links between pet ownership and any mental health or social difficulties.
– meaning cat owners are scientifically proven to be normal.
The study authors specifically stated, “We found no evidence to support the ‘cat lady’ stereotype: cat-owners did not differ from others on self-reported symptoms of depression, anxiety or their experiences in close relationships.” Who would’ve thought?
Music is my hero
If you’re feeling down and need a little more motivation in life, try putting in your headphones and listening to some Hans Zimmer scores. A recently published study found that “heroic” music stimulates motivating and empowering thoughts in listeners.
Researchers had participants listen to heroic and sad music samples and fill out questionnaires after listening. They found that listening to heroic music while the mind starts wandering promotes positive, constructive, and motivating thoughts.
No word yet, though, on whether any of the participants attempted to fly or save some kittens from a tree.
The arms race continues
Intrauterine devices, pacemakers, insulin pumps, gastric bands, coronary stents, car keys: What do all of these things have in common? Right now, you’re probably thinking, “Well, I know what those first five have in common, but … car keys? There’s no way.” Yes way.
Aime Dansby, a software engineer from Dallas, had the key to her Tesla 3 – not the entire key, just the RFID chip from the credit-card-sized valet key – implanted into her arm by a body modification artist named “Pineapple,” according to Car & Driver. Seems she couldn’t get a physician to perform the procedure.
To make the chip “safe” for implantation, Ms. Dansby dissolved the rest of the card with acetone and then had the chip itself encased “in a biopolymer that is safe to use in the body and under the skin,” Popular Mechanics reported.
Ms. Dansby discusses some of her reasoning in a video on YouTube: “They say you can’t, like, start your car with that. It’s not secure. It won’t work. It makes me want to do it more.” We here at LOTME understand and support that kind of thinking, but we also hope that no one ever tells her she can’t start her car by sticking her finger in an electrical socket.
O (THC)anada
It can be difficult to get a precise estimate on the level of drug use within a city or country. Perhaps not surprisingly, many people aren’t entirely forthcoming about their drug habits, legal or not. But their poop … the poop never lies.
That’s why Stats Canada, in an effort to find new ways to collect data relating to the legalization of cannabis, conducted a survey of wastewater from five Canadian cities: Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, and Vancouver. In other words, they looked through the poop of about 8.4 million people to find out what drugs they preferred, gathering information on cannabis, cocaine, opioids, and methamphetamine.
Despite its legal status, cannabis usage was not uniform across the country, as Halifax and Montreal wastewater had THC levels more than twice as high as the other three cities. Stats Canada noted that Nova Scotia has higher-than-average cannabis usage, but Quebec as a whole has lower-than-average usage. Apparently the people of Montreal just really like their weed.
In fact, only cocaine showed no geographic bent. Opioids were significantly less popular in Toronto and Montreal, and methamphetamine was much more common in Edmonton and Vancouver.
In the end, Stats Canada concluded that wastewater analysis was an effective way to test drug usage, though we suspect they may have come to a different conclusion had they made anyone other than a bunch of polite Canadians sample the sewage of over 8 million people.
Cat ladies: They’re just like you and me
Crazy cat ladies are … not so crazy after all. Bad news for stereotypes, but good news for women who love kitties.
A research team from UCLA observed over 500 pet owners to analyze how people reacted to distress calls from their pets. The investigators also looked at possible links between pet ownership and any mental health or social difficulties.
– meaning cat owners are scientifically proven to be normal.
The study authors specifically stated, “We found no evidence to support the ‘cat lady’ stereotype: cat-owners did not differ from others on self-reported symptoms of depression, anxiety or their experiences in close relationships.” Who would’ve thought?
Music is my hero
If you’re feeling down and need a little more motivation in life, try putting in your headphones and listening to some Hans Zimmer scores. A recently published study found that “heroic” music stimulates motivating and empowering thoughts in listeners.
Researchers had participants listen to heroic and sad music samples and fill out questionnaires after listening. They found that listening to heroic music while the mind starts wandering promotes positive, constructive, and motivating thoughts.
No word yet, though, on whether any of the participants attempted to fly or save some kittens from a tree.
The arms race continues
Intrauterine devices, pacemakers, insulin pumps, gastric bands, coronary stents, car keys: What do all of these things have in common? Right now, you’re probably thinking, “Well, I know what those first five have in common, but … car keys? There’s no way.” Yes way.
Aime Dansby, a software engineer from Dallas, had the key to her Tesla 3 – not the entire key, just the RFID chip from the credit-card-sized valet key – implanted into her arm by a body modification artist named “Pineapple,” according to Car & Driver. Seems she couldn’t get a physician to perform the procedure.
To make the chip “safe” for implantation, Ms. Dansby dissolved the rest of the card with acetone and then had the chip itself encased “in a biopolymer that is safe to use in the body and under the skin,” Popular Mechanics reported.
Ms. Dansby discusses some of her reasoning in a video on YouTube: “They say you can’t, like, start your car with that. It’s not secure. It won’t work. It makes me want to do it more.” We here at LOTME understand and support that kind of thinking, but we also hope that no one ever tells her she can’t start her car by sticking her finger in an electrical socket.
O (THC)anada
It can be difficult to get a precise estimate on the level of drug use within a city or country. Perhaps not surprisingly, many people aren’t entirely forthcoming about their drug habits, legal or not. But their poop … the poop never lies.
That’s why Stats Canada, in an effort to find new ways to collect data relating to the legalization of cannabis, conducted a survey of wastewater from five Canadian cities: Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, and Vancouver. In other words, they looked through the poop of about 8.4 million people to find out what drugs they preferred, gathering information on cannabis, cocaine, opioids, and methamphetamine.
Despite its legal status, cannabis usage was not uniform across the country, as Halifax and Montreal wastewater had THC levels more than twice as high as the other three cities. Stats Canada noted that Nova Scotia has higher-than-average cannabis usage, but Quebec as a whole has lower-than-average usage. Apparently the people of Montreal just really like their weed.
In fact, only cocaine showed no geographic bent. Opioids were significantly less popular in Toronto and Montreal, and methamphetamine was much more common in Edmonton and Vancouver.
In the end, Stats Canada concluded that wastewater analysis was an effective way to test drug usage, though we suspect they may have come to a different conclusion had they made anyone other than a bunch of polite Canadians sample the sewage of over 8 million people.