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Good morning! Exactly one year ago today, STAT published stories on suicide risk among nurses, the fight from dairy farmers to kill the terms “oat milk” and “soy milk,” and the final decision on where ARPA-H would be headquartered. Read on for what we’re reporting today.
More evidence on GLP-1 drugs and opioid addiction
People who take Ozempic for diabetes may be at lower risk of drug overdose, according to a new study led by National Institute on Drug Abuse director Nora Volkow. Prescriptions for semaglutide were associated with lower overdose rates among patients with both type 2 diabetes and opioid use disorder. The lowered risk was maintained even in comparison to patients taking other medications that also target GLP-1 receptors, according to six years of patient data from more than 33,000 de-identified electronic medical records.
When it comes to the development of medication for addiction, “The pharmaceutical industry has never spontaneously embraced us,” Volkow said at a STAT event earlier this year. But the study adds to a limited but growing body of evidence that GLP-1 drugs have potential in the addiction space. Still, Volkow and her co-authors cautioned that the link between the drugs and preventing overdose deaths is still “unclear.” Read more from STAT’s Lev Facher.
WHO announces new guidance on clinical trial design
For the first time, WHO is releasing guidance on the design, conduct, and oversight of clinical trials. The recommendations aim to create more equitable research, as studies have historically taken place in high-income countries and excluded vulnerable populations like pregnant people and children from participating. One key point in the new guidelines: If the research is focused on a condition where the benefits of treatment would vastly outweigh the risks, aim for inclusion.
The WHO also recommends making patient and community engagement a tenet of clinical studies. It’s the latest indication of the shift in academic research to ensure that the subjects of studies play a central role in shaping them.
Everything you need to know about the Apple Watch sleep apnea feature
Earlier this month, Apple launched a feature for its watch that alerts users if they might have sleep apnea. STAT’s Mario Aguilar spoke to five sleep technology experts about the technology. Here’s a bit of what they said:
How does it work? The feature uses the watch’s motion sensor to detect “breathing disturbances.” Many other technologies for sleep apnea track blood oxygen levels.
Who did they test this on? Apple first used data from 4,700 people whose breathing, heart rate, and movement were tracked during sleep to create labels for the breathing disturbances. The feature was then tested in a 1,500-person study and compared against a home test for sleep apnea.
Read more in STAT+ on how effective the feature might be and whether the health care system is ready for patients who come in with concerns spurred by their watch.
Can MRIs help avoid overdiagnosis in prostate cancer?
Most prostate cancers are “indolent,” meaning they’ll never metastasize during a patient’s lifetime and treatment could do more harm than good. At the same time, they’re the second highest cause of cancer-related death in men. So how often should people be screened? That’s a major disagreement in the field, but a study published yesterday in NEJM could help clinicians and patients find a balance. The paper showed that using MRIs could reduce unnecessary diagnosis and treatment by more than half.
The idea is that only men who have a suspicious lesion on an MRI scan would then get a full biopsy. Then doctors would only take a sample from the lesion, rather than the usual practice of taking from all around the prostate.
It sounds good, but it won’t be easy. “We know MRI should happen before biopsy. It’s already in the guidelines. It’s not happening because there aren’t enough MRI scanners,” said Tyler Seibert, a radiation oncologist who didn’t work on the study. Read more from STAT’s Angus Chen.
13
That’s the number of women from racial and ethnic groups underrepresented in medicine who were appointed emergency medicine chief resident from the classes of 2017 and 2018. A study, published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open, analyzed data from more than 3,400 emergency medicine residents, 738 of whom served as chief. White women were most likely to be selected for chief — 20% more likely than white men. Underrepresented women were half as likely as white men to be selected. Overall, Black doctors were half as likely to be selected chief as white ones.
New drug eases chronic hives but could change your hair color
If you’ve ever broken out in hives, you know how unpleasant it can be. The condition is considered chronic when it lasts for weeks or months without responding to standard allergy meds. Now there may be relief on the horizon: A new medication from Celldex Therapeutics reduced hives in patients, and completely cleared hives in some.
But there’s an interesting catch. One of the most common side effects was changes in hair color. The company described the side effects as mild and reversible, but a high rate of patients in the study decided to stop treatment. Read more in STAT+.
What we’re reading
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988 begins routing calls based on location, Axios
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In chronic pain, this teenager ‘could barely do anything.’ Insurer wouldn’t cover surgery, KFF Health News
- Congress must reauthorize the Older Americans Act to keep seniors safe from heat, STAT
- Steward CEO could face prison time after rare Senate vote to punish him for flouting subpoena, Boston Globe
- ARCH Venture Partners raises $3 billion for a new biotech fund, STAT
