(This is an excerpt of the Health Rounds newsletter, where we present latest medical studies on Tuesdays and Thursdays.)<\/p>\n
By Nancy Lapid<\/p>\n
May 29 (Reuters) – We also report on two studies with findings that could bring eventual relief for patients still struggling with long COVID symptoms.<\/p>\n
EARLY USE OF \u200cLILLY GLP-1 MOUNJARO SHOWS ADVANTAGES IN TYPE 2 DIABETES<\/p>\n
Recently diagnosed type 2 diabetes patients who did not respond well to a usual first-line treatment \u200cfared better after adding Eli Lilly’s GLP-1 tirzepatide than with the addition of other drugs in the class, a study funded by the company found.<\/p>\n
Tirzepatide is sold under the brand name Mounjaro for diabetes \u200bin the U.S. and for both diabetes and obesity in other countries.<\/p>\n
In the SURPASS-EARLY trial, nearly 800 adults diagnosed with type 2 diabetes within the past four years whose disease was not adequately controlled with metformin, diet and exercise were assigned to add either tirzepatide or other medications.<\/p>\n
Most patients in the control group received other GLP-1 drugs such as semaglutide, which Novo Nordisk sells for diabetes as Ozempic or Rybelsus, or Lilly’s Trulicity (dulaglutide).<\/p>\n
Two years later, patients receiving the weekly tirzepatide injections had greater improvements in blood sugar control \u200cas reflected by hemoglobin A1c level, and in weight and \u2060waist circumference, compared to patients in the control group.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, roughly 60% of participants receiving tirzepatide had achieved normal blood sugar levels after two years, compared to 24% of patients in the control group, according to a report of the study published in Annals \u2060of Internal Medicine.<\/p>\n
The findings suggest that starting tirzepatide earlier if standard care is inadequate may provide stronger and more sustained metabolic benefits than other standard approaches, the researchers said in a statement.<\/p>\n
IMMUNE SYSTEM MAY CAUSE LONG COVID NEUROLOGICAL SYMPTOMS<\/p>\n
The debilitating neurological symptoms of long COVID are often due to the body’s mistaken attack on itself, according to discoveries from two studies \u200bthat \u200bcould lead to effective treatments for the condition and changes in blood donation policies.<\/p>\n
In both \u200bstudies, researchers collected so-called autoantibodies in blood from volunteers with long \u200cCOVID. Normally, the immune system’s antibodies defend the body from attack, but autoantibodies \u2013 commonly seen after acute viral infections and persisting during long COVID – attack the body by mistake.<\/p>\n
When the human autoantibodies were infused into healthy mice, the mice developed neurological features mimicking those of the patients, including fatigue, loss of balance, pain sensitivity, and nerve fiber damage.<\/p>\n
In one experiment, the effect was reproduced even when the autoantibodies were collected from patients two years after the initial infection, according to a paper in Cell Reports Medicine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis new awareness of the physiology of long COVID will enable us to identify a number of effective treatments for autoimmunity that could significantly improve the symptoms \u200cof millions of people with this chronic condition,\u201d Dr. David Putrino from the Icahn School \u200bof Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, and a coauthor of a separate study published in \u200bCell, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore we had no way of predicting who would \u200bbenefit from (existing) therapies,\u201d he said. \u201cOur study now shows that if you are in a subgroup of long COVID patients who have \u200cautoantibodies circulating in your body… you may be a good candidate \u200bfor these drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n
A commentary in Cell said the \u200btwo studies \u201cprovide compelling evidence that autoantibodies directly contribute to symptom generation in a subset of people with long COVID,” but neither study provides definitive proof of a single, central mechanism behind the condition.<\/p>\n
In addition to their clinical significance, Putrino believes the findings carry an urgent public health warning regarding blood \u200bdonation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the UK, having long COVID is an exclusion for \u200cdonating blood, while in the United States these individuals are still allowed to donate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the dangers that (autoantibodies in) plasma from people \u200bwith long COVID can pose for others, this country should be considering fundamental changes to its donation policies.\u201d<\/p>\n
(To receive the full newsletter in \u200byour inbox for free sign up here)<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(This is an excerpt of the Health Rounds newsletter, where we present latest medical studies on Tuesdays and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[207712,207711,5573,102,2402,6591,15037,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-610393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-autoantibodies","tag-blood-donation","tag-diabetes","tag-health","tag-long-covid","tag-medication","tag-type-2-diabetes","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}