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Ozempic for opioid addiction and Apple Watches for sleep apnea

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Ozempic for opioid addiction and Apple Watches for sleep apnea

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Good morning! One year ago today, STAT published stories about the suicide risk among nurses, dairy farmers’ struggle to ban the terms “oat milk” and “soy milk,” and the final decision on the location of ARPA-H. Read on for what we report today.

More evidence on GLP-1 drugs and opioid addiction

People who take Ozempic for diabetes may have a lower risk of drug overdose, according to a new study led by Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Prescribing semaglutide was associated with lower overdose rates in patients with both type 2 diabetes and opioid use disorder. The reduced risk was maintained even compared to patients taking other drugs that also target GLP-1 receptors, according to six years of patient data from more than 33,000 anonymized electronic health records.

When it comes to developing anti-addiction drugs, “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 field of addiction. 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 guidelines for the design of clinical trials

For the first time, the WHO releases data accompaniment on the design, conduct and monitoring of clinical trials. The recommendations aim to create fairer research, as studies have historically taken place in high-income countries and excluded vulnerable populations such as pregnant people and children from participating. One important point in the new guidelines: If the research focuses on a condition where the benefits of treatment far outweigh the risks, aim for inclusion.

WHO also recommends making patient and community involvement a starting point of clinical trials. It is the latest indication of the shift in academic research to ensure that the subjects of the studies play a central role in shaping it.

Everything you need to know about Apple Watch’s sleep apnea feature

Earlier this month, Apple launched a feature for its watch that alerts users if they may have sleep apnea. STAT’s Mario Aguilar spoke with five sleep technology experts about the technology. Here’s a snippet of what they said:

How does it work? The feature uses the watch’s motion sensor to detect ‘breathing disorders’. Many other sleep apnea technologies 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 disorders. The feature was then tested in a study of 1,500 people and compared to a home test for sleep apnea.

Read more in STAT+ about how effective the feature could be and whether the healthcare system is ready for patients coming in with concerns prompted by their watch.

Can MRIs help prevent overdiagnosis of prostate cancer?

Most prostate cancers are “indolent,” meaning they will never spread during the patient’s lifetime and treatment can do more harm than good. At the same time, they are the second highest cause of cancer death in men. So how often should people be screened? That’s a big disagreement in the field, but a study published yesterday in NEJM could help doctors and patients strike a balance. The article showed that the use of MRIs could reduce unnecessary diagnoses and treatments by more than half.

The idea is that only men who have a suspicious lesion on an MRI scan will then receive a full biopsy. Then doctors took a sample only from the lesion, instead of the usual practice of taking all around the prostate.

It sounds good, but it won’t be easy. “We know that MRI should be done before the biopsy. It’s already in the guidelines. That doesn’t happen because there are not enough MRI scanners,” says Tyler Seibert, a radiation oncologist who did not participate in 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 named emergency medicine physicians in chief in the classes of 2017 and 2018. A study, published Tuesday in JAMA network openedanalyzed data from more than 3,400 emergency department residents, 738 of whom served as chiefs. White women were the most likely to be selected as chefs – 20% more likely than white men. Underrepresented women were half as likely to be selected as white men. Overall, black physicians were half as likely to be elected chief as white ones.

New drug relieves chronic hives, but may change your hair color

If you’ve ever suffered from hives, you know how unpleasant they can be. The condition is considered chronic if it lasts for weeks or months without responding to standard allergy medications. Now there may be relief on the horizon: A new drug from Celldex Therapeutics reduced hives in patients and disappeared completely in some.

But there is 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 large number of patients in the study decided to stop treatment. Read more in STAT+.

What we read

  • With chronic pain, this teen could “barely do anything.” The insurer does not cover an operation, KFF Health News

  • Congress should reauthorize the Older Americans Act to protect seniors from heat, STAT
  • Steward’s CEO could face jail time after a rare Senate vote to punish him for ignoring a subpoena. Boston sphere
  • ARCH Venture Partners raises $3 billion for new biotech fund, STAT

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