“A daily pill may be as effective in lowering blood sugar and aiding weight loss in people with Type 2 diabetes as the popular injectable drugs Mounjaro and Ozempic, according to results of a clinical trial announced by Eli Lilly on Thursday morning.

The drug, orforglipron, is a GLP-1, a class of drugs that have become blockbusters because of their weight-loss effects. But the GLP-1s on the market now are expensive, must be kept refrigerated and must be injected. A pill that produces similar results has the potential to become far more widely used, though it is also expected to be expensive…

The clinical trial involved 559 people with Type 2 diabetes who took the new pill or a placebo for 40 weeks. In patients who took orforglipron, A1C, a measure of blood sugar levels over time, fell by 1.3 to 1.6 percent. That is about the same amount as A1C fell in that time period experienced by patients taking Ozempic and Mounjaro in unrelated trials. For 65 percent of people taking the new pill, blood sugar levels dropped into the normal range.

Patients on the new pill also lost weight — an average of 16 pounds for those taking the highest dose. Their weight loss was similar to that achieved in 40 weeks with Ozempic but slightly less than with Mounjaro in unrelated trials.

Side effects were the same as those with the injectable obesity drugs — diarrhea, indigestion, constipation, nausea and vomiting.”

From New York Times.

“Japan is brimming with signs of an approaching medical revolution. Shiny white robots are tending dishes of cells, rows of incubators hum in new facilities, and a deluxe, plush-carpeted hospital is getting ready to welcome its first patients.

Building on the Nobel-prizewinning work of stem-cell scientist Shinya Yamanaka, researchers across the country are crafting cells into strips of retina, sheets of cardiac muscle or blobs of neurons, in the hope of treating blindness, mending hearts and reversing neurodegeneration. Results from early-stage clinical trials — some announced just in the past few weeks — suggest that the cells might actually be working to treat conditions as varied as Parkinson’s disease and spinal-cord injury.

Now, after nearly two decades of hard work and setbacks, many say that Japan is on the cusp of bringing these therapies to market.”

From Nature.

“A groundbreaking recent study shows that mosquitoes can be poisoned by the blood of people taking a specific medication. The drug, nitisinone, is already approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for treating certain rare genetic disorders, and researchers have now found that it is also highly effective at killing malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

The concept of poisoning mosquitoes through their blood meals isn’t entirely new. In the past, scientists have investigated ivermectin, a widely used antiparasitic drug, as a potential mosquito-killing agent. The idea is simple: When a mosquito bites a person or animal treated with ivermectin, the drug enters the mosquito’s system and ultimately kills it. However, ivermectin has limitations—it works relatively slowly, taking up to four days to kill mosquitoes, and its effects wear off quickly in the bloodstream.

Nitisinone presents a more promising alternative. Unlike traditional insecticides, which typically target the mosquito’s nervous system, nitisinone disrupts a crucial enzyme (HPPD) that mosquitoes need to digest their blood meal. Without this enzyme, mosquitoes experience a metabolic shutdown, leading to death within 24 hours—far faster than with ivermectin.

Perhaps most excitingly, nitisinone appears to be effective at much lower doses than previously expected. Even blood from people taking small amounts of the drug proved lethal to mosquitoes. This means that individuals in malaria-endemic regions could potentially take a safe low dose of nitisinone, turning their blood into a mosquito-killing agent without significant side effects.”

From Quillette.

“Two out of three cattle in South America are currently located in foot-and-mouth disease (FMD)-free zones where vaccination is not practiced. Across the entire Americas, more than 80% of cattle are in this condition, bringing the region closer to the eradication of the disease…

FMD free zone or country where vaccination is not practiced means that countries have managed to eradicate the disease without relying on systematic vaccination of cattle, which reduces associated costs and improves competitiveness in international markets.

FMD has represented a long-standing threat to food security and the economies of countries in the Americas. Vaccinating cattle has been the primary strategy to control outbreaks and prevent new cases, enabling several countries to achieve eradication. Once the absence of virus transmission is confirmed and internal risks in a territory are eliminated, countries can suspend vaccination and maintain eradication without the need for ongoing vaccination.”

From Pan American Health Organization.