Vall d'Hebron Hospital

According to a study published in the journal JAMA Health Forum, the use of the benzodiazepine lorazepam by the character Victoria Ratliff in the series The White Lotus was associated in the United States with an increase in Google searches for this medication, including queries about how to obtain it online. The series generated 1.6 million more searches than usual over a 12-week period. Although the study reflects searches for information and not actual consumption, the abuse of anti-anxiety drugs is a fact: illegal sales of benzodiazepines have increased in the United States, and Spain leads the rankings in terms of consumption.

Severe combined immunodeficiency due to ADA enzyme deficiency is a rare disease that, without treatment, usually causes death within the first two years of life. These "bubble children" are currently treated with a bone marrow transplant or with injections that aim to restore, to the extent possible, the function of this enzyme. Now, an international team presents the results of a gene therapy administered to 62 children with the disease between 2012 and 2019. The therapy was effective in 95% of cases and did not cause serious complications, according to the authors, whose work is published in the journal NEJM. 

An analysis published in the medical journal The BMJ points out that lifestyle changes recommended by doctors to people with obesity, focusing on calorie restriction and increased physical activity, have little effect on long-term weight loss, fail to significantly reduce cardiovascular risks and, yet, can lead to discrimination, stigmatisation and eating disorders. The authors also point out that weight alone is an inadequate measure of a person's health, as reflected in recent clinical guidelines, and propose a ‘health for all sizes’ approach with effective, patient-centred care.

So-called precision oncology involves the use of drugs that target specific molecular alterations in the tumour. These therapies are usually tested in clinical trials in adults and most have not been approved for use in children. An opinion article calls for these trials to be extended to children as well, given the difficulty of conducting such trials in children due to the small number of cases. According to the authors, who publish the text in the journal Trends in Cancer, given that children and adolescents tend to tolerate therapy better than older adults, ‘the time has come to consider age-agnostic approvals, i.e. approvals that include children and adults of any age’.

Prenatal exposure to triptans—alone or in combination with other migraine medications—does not increase the risk of developmental disorders in children up to age 14, according to research published in Neurology. The study is based on data from more than 26,000 pregnancies in a national registry in Norway and includes autism spectrum disorders, language disorders, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, among other diagnoses.

A review of 202 studies involving more than 56 million mother-child pairs has observed an association between maternal diabetes — including pre-pregnancy and gestational diabetes — and an increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders in children, such as autism spectrum disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or intellectual disability. The authors, who publish the results in the journal The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, call for a cautious interpretation of the association, as there is currently little evidence of a causal relationship.

The work of a global commission, published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology and endorsed by more than 75 medical organisations worldwide, presents a new approach to diagnosing obesity. This is based on other measures of excess body fat, in addition to body mass index (BMI), and on objective signs and symptoms of poor health at the individual level.

Newborns with Down syndrome, as they grow, face a higher risk of developing leukemia compared to those without the syndrome. An international team has sequenced the genes of more than 1.1 million cells from fetuses with and without Down syndrome, and it has discovered that the extra chromosome 21 they have alters the way DNA is packaged inside cells. According to the authors, whose research is published in Nature, this difference affects the regulation of certain genes and may contribute to the development of leukemia.

An international team of researchers has conducted a meta-analysis of 137 clinical trials involving nearly 90,000 people to assess the migraine efficacy of 17 available drugs. Their conclusions are that four drugs in the triptan group are more effective and cheaper than newer drugs such as gepants or lasmiditan, and that the efficacy of the latter is comparable to that of paracetamol and most anti-inflammatory drugs. The results are published in The BMJ.

The Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has recommended granting marketing authorisation in the European Union for Eurneffy (epinephrine), the first nasally administered medicine for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions. Anaphylaxis is the most severe form of allergic reaction that can occur within minutes of exposure to an allergen and can be life-threatening. Until now, treatment with epinephrine (also known as adrenaline) to reduce the anaphylactic reaction is done by intramuscular injection.