Dr. Oz peddles medical misinformation. But his rise may have a silver lining for sound science

In his run for U.S. Senate, Dr. Oz reminds audiences that, yes, he is a “Doctor.” Even as he promotes his medical bonafides, the surgeon-turned-TV star has spent much of his career embracing untruths, touting astrology and questionable supplements. Oz’s strategy seems to be working: He’s poised to win Pennsylvania’s Republican primary on May 17. In a country plagued by medical misinformation, many health experts see the prospect of Senator Oz as just the latest assault on basic scientific fact. Others argue the celebrity doctor is more complex: He’s endorsed vaccines and masks and spoken accurately about the science of abortion. His campaign declined an interview request from STAT, but his candidacy could test whether scientific evidence will speak for itself. “When you mix politics and science,” Oz has said, “you get politics.” Read more from STAT's Lev Facher.

U.S. records highest toll in overdose deaths in 2021

More than 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses last year, the CDC said yesterday, translating into roughly one death every 5 minutes and marking a 15% increase over the record set the year before. In 2021, overdoses involving fentanyl and other synthetic opioids surpassed 71,000, up 23%. The increase in U.S. overdose deaths began in the 1990s with overdoses involving opioid painkillers, followed by waves of deaths led by other opioids like heroin and, in recent years, illicit fentanyl. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, called the latest numbers “truly staggering” in a statement. “The net effect is that we have many more people, including those who use drugs occasionally and even adolescents, exposed to these potent substances that can cause someone to overdose even with a relatively small exposure.”

After a pandemic hall pass from FDA, digital therapeutics companies prep for final rule

In April 2020, as the pandemic began to surge, the FDA gave companies wide berth to release apps to address a mental health crisis that experts feared would only get worse under lockdown. The policy was a boon to emerging companies developing novel, software-based treatments — sometimes called digital therapeutics — for depression, ADHD, substance use, and other conditions. In the years since, they’ve been able to test-drive their products in the real world without seeking FDA marketing authorization, which can require years of expensive clinical trials. Now, companies that took advantage of the freedom to advance their products are watching anxiously as FDA prepares to roll back the allowances. STAT’s Mario Aguilar checks in with companies awaiting a final rule, which may come as soon as this summer or fall. Read more in STAT+.

Closer look: Transfusion of brain fluid from young mice is a memory elixir for old animals

A colorized microscopic image of a mouse brain (LUIS DE LA TORRE-UBIETA/GESCHWIND LABORATORY/UCLA/WELLCOME)

For a human, one sign someone is getting old is the inability to remember little things; misplaced keys, an oft-taken route. For a lab mouse, it’s forgetting that when bright lights and a high-pitched buzz flood your cage, an electric zap to the foot quickly follows. But researchers reported yesterday in Nature that if you transfuse cerebrospinal fluid, or CSF, from a young mouse into an old one, it will recover its former powers of recall and freeze in anticipation. They also identified a protein in that CSF that penetrates into the hippocampus, where it drives improvements in memory. It’s a tantalizing suggestion that youthful factors circulating in the CSF, or drugs that target the same pathways, might slow cognitive decline. Or CSF might be a vehicle to get therapeutics for neurological diseases into the human brain. STAT’s Megan Molteni explains why.

Study says you might want to hold off on anti-inflammatory meds for pain

For two decades, Luda Diatchenko has investigated the biology of pain, wondering what she would find if she could look at how every gene inside a cell behaves as pain evolves. When such technology became cheaply available in 2018 — thanks to advances in RNA sequencing — the images defied much of what she and other pain researchers believed about how acute pain can become chronic. Previous research suggests that chronic inflammation is a key driver of chronic pain, so pain specialists have focused on hosing down inflammation from the earliest sign of injury. Diatchenko’s results, published yesterday in Science Translational Medicine, suggest that initial inflammation is necessary for the body to recover, which, if confirmed, could overturn protocols for treating pain with IV steroids in the hospital or aspirin and ibuprofen at home. STAT’s Jason Mast has more.

Recovering from severe Covid-19 could take more than two years, study in China suggests

While people who survived Covid-19 after hospital admission continued to recover two years after infection, new research reports more than half still lived with at least one lingering symptom, usually fatigue. In what the authors believe is the longest study to regularly check in with people — at six months, one year, and two years after they fell ill in the first half of 2020— the study in Lancet Respiratory Medicine showed that 650 of 1,190 patients (55%) from one hospital in Wuhan, China, felt long Covid symptoms that included fatigue, sleep difficulties, poorer quality of life, less ability to exercise, and more mental health issues. While these patients may have cleared their initial infections, the researchers conclude, more than two years may be needed to recover fully from Covid-19.

Another study out yesterday, in JAMA Psychiatry, paints a different picture for neuropsychiatric illnesses during the pandemic. Among more than 8 million adults in England, the risks of new diagnoses of anxiety disorder, dementia, psychotic disorder, and bipolar disorder were significantly higher in adults who survived hospitalization for Covid or for other, non-Covid severe acute respiratory infections, compared with the general population. The researchers say that suggests disease severity, not the pathogen causing the disease, is what matters after respiratory infections.

What to read around the web today

Police reports detailing Seagen CEO’s arrest raise questions about biotech’s response. STAT+
Covid shutdowns in China are delaying medical scans in the U.S. Washington Post
Paxlovid, personally. Science
The promising treatment for long Covid we’re not even trying. The Atlantic
Seven health insurance CEOs raked in a record $283 million last year. STAT