The Rise Of GLP-1 Drug Poisonings

…and other items from this week’s health science news:

From the pharmacy to poison control

Semaglutide, you will remember, became widely prescribed because it produced greater reductions in blood sugar and body weight than earlier GLP-1 drugs, with clinical trials showing an average weight loss of 12.4% at the approved dose.

But there’s a catch: part of the mechanism of action is delaying stomach emptying (thus feeling fuller for longer), and delayed stomach emptying commonly causes nausea and vomiting, which can lead to dehydration and electrolyte imbalances, while the risk of dangerously low blood sugar is also increased when GLP-1 drugs are combined with insulin or other meds such as sulfonylureas.

For this reason, reports of GLP-1 drug exposures more than doubled after semaglutide’s obesity approval, with semaglutide accounting for more than 60% of reported cases and calls increasing by nearly 10% each quarter after approval.

And of course, that’s just what got reported; the real numbers may be higher:

Read in full: Semaglutide approval drove a surge in GLP-1 poison center exposures

Related: Semaglutide’s Surprisingly Unexamined Effects

Leafy greens vs chronic lung disease

You probably know that green leaves are good for our lungs insofar as they provide the oxygen we breathe.

However! There’s another way they help, if we enjoy plenty of them as part of our diet:

Researchers (Dr. Chengfeng Li et al.) analyzed data from 179,062 people over 10 years, and found that those who consumed the most vitamin K1 from leafy green vegetables had a significantly lower risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and generally had better lung function.

For those wondering, foods highest in vitamin K1 include spinach, kale, broccoli, and other leafy green vegetables; the researchers suggested that adding about one extra serving of leafy greens daily could be a practical way to increase vitamin K1 intake:

Read in full: Green power: How spinach and kale could cut risk of chronic lung disease

Related: 4 surprising ways climate change is hurting your lungs

Too hot for humans

When the temperature and humidity rise, your body tries to keep its core temperature near 37°C by increasing your heart rate, producing sweat to cool your skin, and widening your skin’s blood vessels to release heat, but if these mechanisms can’t keep up, symptoms such as fatigue, headaches, fever, and poor sleep can be the least of your problems.

This is because dehydration occurs when your body loses more water than it replaces, reducing blood circulation and oxygen delivery to organs, potentially leading to kidney failure and other organ damage, with older adults, infants, children, and anyone who is pregnant facing particularly high risks.

As for heatstroke, that occurs when your body temperature rises above 40°C and your body can no longer cool itself effectively, while alcohol, certain medications, and strenuous exercise further increase the risk, even in otherwise healthy adults.

Notably, nights that remain above 20°C, known as tropical nights, prevent your body from cooling down and recovering from daytime heat, increasing the risk of heat-related illness, especially during consecutive hot nights. In other words, for any readers in N. Hemisphere (at time of writing) places where the temperatures are only dropping below 30°C at night, please do take extra care, especially the further from the equator you are.

This last might sound like an odd one, but it has to do with the relative lengths of day and night, which are more exaggerated towards the poles, and more equalized towards the equator, and it means that if the days are 16 hours long rather than 12, that’s a lot less time for cooling down to happen before it starts heating up again.

Read in full: How heat waves are dangerous to human health

Related: How extreme heat can affect you—and how you can protect yourself

Take care!