Category: NEJM Highlights

A new approach to schizophrenia Antipsychotic agents treat schizophrenia by manipulating the dopaminergic system. While they are effective at treating psychosis, they can have major side effects and they lack the ability to address so called negative symptoms e.g. apathy, lack of social connection, poverty of thought.  Enter the muscarinic cholinergic system which is tricky to manipulate in the CNS without untoward systemic effects as Lilly found out with their M1/4 agonist xanomeline.  Karuna Therapeutics has now licensed the molecule and cleverly combined with it with trospium, an antagonist with

A cheap, low tech intervention for a common Achilles’ heel When I am out and about, for instance at the grocery store, I am always surprised at the number of people I see with swollen legs. About half a million times a year in the US, these folks end-up in a hospital bed with cellulitis (a skin and subcutaneous infection) of the leg. In a single center randomized trial with 84 patients who had an episode of cellulitis, an Australian group tested whether compressive stockings would make a difference in