Medical Bulletin 24/April/2023

Here are the top medical news for the day:

New drug may help prevent migraine for difficult cases

Atogepant is a calcitonin gene-related peptide receptor antagonist, or CGRP inhibitor. CGRP is a protein that plays a key role in starting the migraine process.

The drug atogepant may help prevent migraines for people who have had no success with other preventive drugs, according to a preliminary study released April 20, 2023, which will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 75th Annual Meeting being held in person in Boston and live online from April 22-27, 2023. The study involved people with episodic migraine, which is defined as having up to 14 headache days per month with migraine characteristics.

“These results are exciting, as migraine can be debilitating, and this treatment led to fewer days with migraine for people who had already tried up to four other types of drugs to prevent migraine and either had no improvement or had side effects that outweighed any benefits,” said study author Patricia Pozo-Rosich, MD, PhD, at Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona, Spain.

Reference:

AMERICAN ACADEMY OF NEUROLOGY,MEETING: American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting

Swapping sugary drinks for coffee, tea or water linked to fewer deaths in adults with diabetes

In 2021, over 500 million adults worldwide had type 2 diabetes, which carries an increased risk of CVD and premature death, and this number is set to rise to 783 million by 2045.

For adults with type 2 diabetes, replacing sugary drinks with coffee, tea, or plain water is linked to lower rates of early death due to cardiovascular disease (CVD) and other causes, finds research published by The BMJ.

A greater increase in coffee and tea consumption from before to after a diabetes diagnosis was also associated with lower death rates. These findings highlight the potential role of healthy beverage choices in managing risk for adults with type 2 diabetes, say the authors.

Reference:

Beverage consumption and mortality among adults with type 2 diabetes: prospective cohort study,The BMJ,doi 10.1136/bmj-2022-073406

Sleeping pill reduces levels of Alzheimer’s proteins

Alzheimer’s disease begins when plaques of the protein amyloid beta start building up in the brain. After years of amyloid accumulation, a second brain protein, tau, begins to form tangles that are toxic to neurons. People with Alzheimer’s disease start experiencing cognitive symptoms such as memory loss around the time tau tangles become detectable.

Sleep disturbances can be an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease. Many people eventually diagnosed with Alzheimer’s start experiencing difficulty falling and staying asleep years before cognitive problems such as memory loss and confusion emerge. It’s a vicious cycle: Alzheimer’s disease involves changes to the brain that disrupt sleep, and poor sleep accelerates harmful changes to the brain.

Reference:

Suvorexant acutely decreases tau phosphorylation and Aβ in the human CNS.,Annals of Neurology,doi 10.1002/ana.26641