Health

London: Japanese drugmaker Takeda said on Monday its experimental drug being tested for two epileptic disorders failed to reduce frequency of seizures in patients across late-stage studies.

The drug, soticlestat, was being tested in combination with standard-of-care treatment in adults and children with Dravet syndrome (DS) and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS) – rare and severe forms of epilepsy characterized by frequent, prolonged seizures that typically manifest in infancy or early childhood.

DS affects about one in 21,000 people and LGS affects fewer than one in 1,000 people in the United States, according to Takeda.

The treatments currently available in the U.S. for both the conditions include Jazz Pharmaceuticals’ cannabis-based drug Epidiolex and Belgian biotech firm UCB SA’s Fintepla.

Takeda acquired global rights to soticlestat from Ovid Therapeutics in 2021 for an upfront payment of $196 million. Under the agreement, Ovid could also receive payments of up to $660 million upon the drug achieving certain developmental and regulatory milestones.

Shares of Ovid slumped 64.7% to $1.16 in premarket trading.

In a late-stage study that enrolled 144 patients aged 2 to 21 years with Dravet syndrome, a combination of soticlestat and an antiseizure therapy did not help reduce the frequency of convulsive seizures after 16 weeks of treatment, narrowly missing the main goal of the study.

Takeda said the drug showed “nominally significant” improvement in secondary goals like seizure intensity and duration.

A soticlestat and antiseizure therapy combination also failed to reduce a severe type of seizure called the drop attack in patients with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. This study enrolled 270 patients aged 2 to 55 years.

The drug was generally safe and well-tolerated across both the studies, Takeda said.

Takeda plans to discuss with regulatory authorities to determine the next steps for the drug. It is also assessing the financial impacts of the study results.

(Reporting by Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber and Devika Syamnath)

London: Jazz Pharmaceuticals said on Thursday its experimental drug to treat a neurological condition that causes involuntary and rhythmic shaking failed to meet the main goal in a mid-stage study.

Shares of Jazz fell about 4 per cent to $108 in premarket trading.

While improvements were observed in patients who were treated with the drug, suvecaltamide, these were not statistically significant, the company said.

Jazz said it will further evaluate data from the study.

It is testing the drug in a separate study as a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease-related tremors. (Reporting by Mariam Sunny and Bhanvi Satija in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)

Francis Silva watches the blood flow through a straw-like tube in his left arm to a dialysis machine where it’s cleaned of toxins and returned to his body through a second tube.

The 60-year-old chef endures the four-hour process every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday at St. Paul’s Hospital where a 42-bed unit is dedicated to lifesaving hemodialysis but is also the source of a significant amount of medical waste that a group of nephrologists wants to curb across the country.

“Last year when I had a heart operation, it just got worse,” Silva said of his kidney problems, for which he tried to find a bright side. “I need the rest. I’ve been standing for eight hours.”

Down the hall, carts are loaded with blue plastic bins full of dialysis supplies that include plastic tubing in plastic and paper packaging. A supply room contains plastic jugs of solution that will be mixed with purified water and piped into the dialysis machines lined up against a wall.

A nearby room is stocked with boxes of more supplies including plastic saline bags — at least two per patient for each dialysis session.

Patient care manager Laila Aparicio points to a garbage bin filled with blood-contaminated tubing, which makes up a large volume of the clinic’s biohazardous waste.

“We came here about 10 minutes ago and it was empty,” Aparicio said. “It would be awesome if we were able to decrease that as much as possible to reduce the environmental impact,” she said of the waste that patients do not see.

In another room, hoses in the wall pump hundreds of litres of purified water into a dialysis machine where it is mixed with electrolyte solutions. Toxins from blood are removed, as is excess water from a patient’s body, and the wastewater is piped into the city’s sewer system.

“Downstairs, there are huge tanks, three of them, that provide highly purified water, lots of it,” Aparicio said.

The clinic does about 800 dialysis treatments a week, with two nurses assigned to each patient.

5:31
Skully of Lully’s shares important message of kidney donation

Dr. Caroline Stigant, a nephrologist at Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria and a leading advocate for sustainable kidney care, said each hemodialysis treatment uses up to 500 litres of water and large amounts of energy.

“A single hemodialysis treatment’s carbon emissions are comparable to that of an average vehicle driven 100 kilometres,” Stigant said.

She said more than 20,000 patients in Canada undergo the therapy. There are no established recycling programs for dialysis or medical waste in Canada, she added.

Biohazardous waste, including tubing in some cases, as well as blood-soaked gauze, is sent to a facility to be autoclaved — sterilized with high temperature steam — and then shredded and landfilled, Stigant said.

The Canadian Society of Nephrology has a planning committee to find ways to reduce waste. One goal is to develop a carbon footprint calculator to collect data on the environmental impact of kidney care.

Stigant, the committee’s inaugural chair, said kidney diseases are on the rise, producing more waste that contributes to climate change. In turn, climate change can increase the risk of kidney diseases, since dehydration during extreme heat is especially risky for vulnerable populations.

“There’s a global environmental evolution in nephrology and kidney care. And it’s huge work, not just for nephrologists. It’s for administrators, it’s for funders of the system, it’s for patients to be involved in, it’s for industry as well,” she said.

“We believe that we need a redesign of the systems that we’re using in kidney care, in part because no patient wants to be on dialysis. They’re tethered to a machine.”

She said it’s crucial to promote healthy living to prevent conditions including high blood pressure and diabetes, which are most commonly associated with kidney diseases. Early diagnosis is also important because by the time symptoms develop, a patient has likely lost 80 per cent of their kidney function, added Stigant, medical lead for planetary health at BC Renal, the agency responsible for kidney care in British Columbia.

Greater access to kidney transplants is also key, before patients end up needing dialysis, Stigant said. “Their general well-being, their outcome, is also what’s best for the environment.”

Patients who have dialysis at home with supplies that are typically shipped to them once a month must put their plastic and cardboard waste at the curbside, and that could include blood-soaked material, Stigant said. She said some patients pay municipalities for extra bags or take their garbage to a relative’s home.

“When people come in for their home dialysis training, they’ll say, ‘What about all this garbage? Does this all get thrown away?”’ she said.

“They find the waste embarrassing, they find it very costly to deal with. And that’s something that the system hasn’t, to date, reimbursed.”

One of Stigant’s patients burns the waste produced by his peritoneal dialysis — another form of therapy for kidney failure in which a catheter is inserted into the abdominal cavity, or peritoneum. It can be done daily and produces smaller but still challenging amounts of waste.

“He lives in a rural area and there’s no garbage collection. He’s an elderly man and so it’s too burdensome for him to sort it into recyclable and non-recyclable.”

Home-based peritoneal dialysis generates 211,000 kilograms of recyclable polypropylene plastic, or PVC, annually in Canada, along with 55,600 kilograms of recyclable polypropylene, the thin peel-away plastic, according to a study Stigant co-authored and published last November in Kidney International Reports.

Stigant said that in Australia, recyclable plastic items are picked up each time peritoneal dialysis supplies are delivered.

“This is something we would love to implement locally.”

“We’re really in our infancy of managing the waste properly. But it has to involve reducing the burgeoning number of people with disease risk factors and even those living with impaired kidney function. The world is facing this very rapidly increasing condition.”

Nancy Verdin, a home dialysis patient in Red Deer, Alta., is a member of the nephrologists’ sustainability committee and said she struggles with the large amount of waste from hemodialysis she’s received for 26 years.

The 63-year-old, who has had three failed kidney transplants, said some of the waste can’t be recycled in her city because it accepts only numbered plastics.

“I have to separately package and then decide, am I going to pay the shipping costs to send it to Edmonton?” she said of more recycling options there.

“I don’t drive any more. So that means I have to get someone to help me take it to a delivery site. And everything costs money.”

4:44
Living Donor Week and the lives it changes

Parents whose children use a certain brand of inflatable booster car seats should immediately stop using them, as they pose a risk of injury, Health Canada warns.

On June 28, Health Canada issued a recall for the UberBoost Inflatable Booster Car Seat, sold in various colours, due to the increased risk of injury in the event of a crash.

“These products do not display Transport Canada’s National Safety Mark and therefore have not been certified to meet the safety requirements of the ‘Motor Vehicle Restraint Systems and Booster Seats Safety Regulations,’” Health Canada said in the recall.

The inflatable booster seats are sold under the following Amazon Standard Identification Numbers (ASIN): B07R6NVP770, B07RR7ZYGY and B07RB2KRCS.

Consumers who have these affected products should immediately stop using them and safely dispose of the items in such a way that they cannot be used again, Health Canada warned.

The products have been removed from sale online from the website Amazon.ca.

Health Canada has contacted the foreign selling companies and is advising consumers to immediately stop using the affected UberBoost Inflatable Booster Car Seat.

Amazon reported that 272 units of the affected product were sold in Canada.

To date, no incidents or injuries related to this product have been reported to Health Canada.

&copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

London: Zealand Pharma said on Thursday an early-stage study showed a high dose of its drug helped reduce weight by an average 8.6 per cent after 16 weekly doses.

The company said the data paves the way for testing the drug, petrelintide, in a mid-stage trial for weight loss, which it expects to start later this year.

The weight loss achieved with the high dose of the drug was much higher than the 1.7 per cent reduction with a placebo in one part of the trial that involved 48 participants. Another part of the early-stage study was testing the drug in 20 people with lower doses.

Petrelintide belongs to a class of drugs known as the long-acting amylin analog, which mimics a hormone called amylin that is co-secreted with insulin in response to ingested nutrients.

The Danish company is also working with German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim to test another drug survodutide, which belongs to the same class of GLP-1 agonists as Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound and Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy.

(Reporting by Leroy Leo in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)

When Lady Gaga dove from the rooftop and into Houston’s NRG Stadium as part of her 2017 Super Bowl half-time performance, it changed young Leonardo Flores’ life.

Flores, a 21-year-old student from San Diego, Calif., had always watched the Super Bowl while dining out with his family. This time, he lost interest in his pizza as he was won over by the spectacle of Gaga’s polished, campy performance.

He was only 14 at the time, but this would become the catalyst for a years-long, fanatic dedication to the singer.

“I’d never seen something like that before. It shocked me,” Flores recalls. “I wanted to learn more about her.”

Today, Flores self-identifies as a Little Monster, the moniker for members of Gaga’s fanbase.

He runs an Instagram account dedicated to the singer, where Flores and his 310,000 followers consistently bond over everything Gaga-related. Today, Flores’ zeal for Gaga is undeniable, but when Global News reached out to inquire whether his relationship with the singer was parasocial, Flores confessed he was unfamiliar with the term.

For the uninitiated, a parasocial relationship develops when someone feels a strong, one-sided, intimate connection with another person who doesn’t know they exist, most commonly celebrities.

Flores admits his relationship with Gaga fits the bill.

“Since I’m a big fan and I share all of these updates on social media, I tend to know a lot about her,” he explains. “But it’s true. She doesn’t know me, yet.”

In today’s interconnected world, it can feel like the biggest celebrities, sports players and even politicians are just a click away, with social media being a powerful tool to seemingly foster parasocial relationships. But if even Flores — who’s been infatuated with Gaga for the last seven years — was unaware of his parasocial relationship, it begs the question: what does it really mean to have one?

What is a parasocial relationship?

When most people think of a parasocial relationship, they often picture a young, celebrity-obsessed fangirl alone and chronically online in her dark bedroom.

But according to Raymond Mar, a psychology professor at York University in Toronto, this isn’t always the case. Some people like Flores, he says, might not even be aware of their one-sided relationship.

Much of Mar’s work focuses on researching the self in fictional scenarios, specifically how imagined experiences can affect someone’s real-world perceptions. The Atlantic once described parasocial relationships as “imaginary friends for adults.” While not far from the truth, Mar is quick to establish these relationships are not new. Instead, they’ve existed long before our celebrity-obsessed digital age.

The term “parasocial relationship” was coined to describe how people felt about their nightly TV newscasters, beginning in the 1940s, Mar says.

“This sort of continuous engagement with this person, one that spoke to you with authority on a daily basis, really led to this feeling of closeness like you knew them,” Mar describes. “You felt a reciprocal relationship, even though there’s no interactivity.”

“Although it seems like this might be a new phenomenon, people have been obsessed with celebrities ever since we had celebrities,” he says, adding even French writer Voltaire had diehard fans in his era.

More recently, media like Eminem’s 2000 single Stan brought parasocial relationships to the fore of pop culture, telling a moody tale of a crazed fan who writes the rapper obsessive letters until his untimely death. 

Having a parasocial relationship, however, doesn’t necessitate a deranged way of thinking, like that of the fictional “Stan.” According to Mar, anyone, regardless of age, gender or background, can develop these one-sided feelings.

Parasocial connections, Mar says, don’t solely involve socially phobic or lonely people, though that’s a common misconception. Instead, he suggests they are simply an extension of how someone behaves in their regular social life.

You may be drawn to a person whose qualities you admire or someone with similar lived experiences, just as you would when choosing a friend or relationship partner. For instance, maybe you admire the way Lionel Messi plays well under pressure, or how Drew Barrymore overcame addiction.

“Because parasocial relationships are not real, in some ways they’re a little more reliable,” Mar explains.

“If you think about the case of a fictional character, Harry Potter is not going to reject you.”

What does a parasocial relationship look like?

Some people, like 21-year-old Ontario resident “Julia” (first name changed for privacy reasons), rotate through parasocial relationships with celebrities.

Global News contacted Julia through a Discord server, which she manages, dedicated to singer Harry Styles. During an interview, Julia said her interest had already transitioned to other musicians, namely the rock band Greta Van Fleet.

Julia describes her parasocial relationships as a “hyper-fixation” requiring a considerable time investment. She almost always knows the city where her favourite artist is touring and watches regular social media live streams of concerts she cannot attend.

When they’re close enough, Julia will spend the money to see her favourite artist, sometimes travelling to nearby provinces or states.

She struggles to describe what her parasocial relationships feel like. Similar to Flores, Julia says one has always developed after hearing a specific song from an artist that makes her want to learn more about them.

Julia says where a casual fan is able to “just go on with their day,” a parasocial fan is “constantly in the loop,” often refreshing social media for the latest artist update or to participate in new fan discourse. 

Despite it all, one day, she envisions herself giving up her fixations entirely. Julia says she’ll eventually have to focus her energy on buying a home or having children.

“I think you have to grow up and live your life; move on,” she says. “There’s no point in being stuck on a certain artist forever.”

Who can be in a parasocial relationship?

Parasocial relationships exist beyond the archetypal heartsick fangirl.

Christine Noels, a 55-year-old artist from Ontario, isn’t what some would imagine a fan of the K-pop group BTS to look like.

Noels says she was scrolling social media in 2018 when she first discovered the South Korean boy band. Within seconds of watching one of their music videos, she was hooked. Noels recalls when member Kim Tae-hyung (known as V) opened his mouth to sing the first lyrics of DNA, she shot upright and needed to know more about him.

From there, Noels says she fell down a BTS “rabbit hole.”

Today, Noels self-describes as ARMY, the name given to BTS’ fanbase. She has parasocial relationships with all seven band members.

“I feel emotionally invested in them,” she says. “I think it’s a very healthy relationship. I don’t have any deluded expectations or believe Jungkook is my boyfriend.”

Noels struggles to put these feelings into words, but it ultimately comes down to admiration.

“I care about the boys. I root for the boys. I am worried if they’re sick,” she says.

When she first discovered the band, Noels was at a difficult point in her life, working in an office job she found unfulfilling. She was later laid off during the pandemic.

“I didn’t know what to do with myself,” Noels recalls. “I was in my 50s, and I had no job. I thought, ‘If I don’t try to make a living doing something that I love now, when am I ever going to do it?’ I didn’t want to end this life without trying to be the person I feel like I was meant to be.”

Always an artist, but never professionally, she says BTS inspired her to start drawing again, with the boys as her muse. She’s now a full-time visual artist and often shares her BTS-related work online to show the friends she’s made through the fandom.

Noels notes that within the K-pop industry specifically, parasocial relationships are seemingly encouraged because the level of fan access to most Korean superstars is different than in the West.

“I think that’s why K-pop has become such a huge thing, it feels very reciprocal,” Noels describes.

BTS, like many K-pop idols, maintain close relationships with their fanbase. The members will often host informal livestreams on social media to talk to their followers directly. At their concerts, they can spend up to 15 minutes humbly thanking fans for their continued support.

“There’s this increased loyalty on our side because we feel that,” she says. “They have encouraged me to be my best self. There’s more to BTS than just cute boys.”

Noels doesn’t see herself ever giving up BTS and says she will likely be a parasocial fan for a “very, very long time.”

Are parasocial relationships healthy?

The word “parasocial” is often conflated with obsession.

Many might think of fans with parasocial relationships as the creepy, stalker-type — or go so far as to think of violent superfan interactions like that of Mark Chapman, who fatally shot John Lennon in 1980.

In recent years, celebrities like rapper Doja Cat have made complaints about their parasocial admirers. In 2023, Doja told her fans, who call themselves “kittenz,” to “get a job.” In a since-deleted tweet, the rapper refused to say she loved her followers “because I don’t even know y’all.”

The comments hurt many in her core fanbase, who demanded an apology. Others sided with Doja and pointed to parasocial fans who invade privacy or artist safety.

But according to Mar, parasocial relationships are not innately pathological. Just like real-life relationships, they have nuance — one-sided connections can become toxic and obsessive, but they don’t always go that route.

There are, however, those who take things too far.

Julia, the Greta Van Fleet fan, says she has witnessed first-hand when the line between a healthy and an unhealthy parasocial relationship blurs.

In her Harry Styles Discord server, Julia says she had to shut down attempts by some fans to stalk Styles through London, U.K., last autumn. At the time, dozens of photographs emerged of the superstar riding a bicycle through the city. She says some of her server’s 12,000 fans were using the photos to map out Styles’ cycling route, in an attempt to find him along the way.

“That artist takes up their life and I don’t think that’s healthy at all,” Julia says of the other fans. “You have to do your own thing. You’ve got to go out, you’ve got to live your life. If you have this artist stuck in your mind 24/7, that’s not OK.”

Mar notes it’s possible for a parasocial relationship to become so obsessive that it leads to dangerous situations or difficulties in one’s personal life.

Social media, and with it, the constant access to a celebrities’ daily lives, can accelerate a fan’s feelings.

“In some cases, you might ‘hear’ from BTS more often than you hear from your own mother,” Mar describes.

The frenzied attention of obsessive fans is likely frightening for celebrities on the receiving end, like Styles, who had a fan send 8,000 letters to his home address in London, all in less than a month.

But for Luke MacNeill, a media and technology research associate from the University of New Brunswick, it’s important to distinguish this sort of frantic behaviour from a parasocial relationship. Stalking, and other invasive activities toward famous people, are often not a result of parasocial relationships directly.

Instead, it can be indicative of celebrity worship, which MacNeill defines as “a very intense psychological attachment to a celebrity.” Obsessive behaviour like stalking, he says, can be a sign of psychological or mental health issues.

MacNeill says celebrity worship is often associated with higher levels of depression and anxiety, lower life satisfaction and less positive emotions — traits not commonly indicative of parasocial relationships on their own.

“Parasocial relationships are a normal thing, and pretty much everybody has them,” MacNeill explains.

“It’s a matter of degree. Parasocial relationships are not necessarily good or bad.”

He pointed to research that found these one-sided attachments can provide people with a feeling of belonging, or even comfort after social rejection or the loss of a loved one.

But the results aren’t always so wholesome, especially when a parasocial relationship evolves into celebrity worship.

“At higher levels of celebrity worship, you can start thinking of the celebrity as a soulmate or having intrusive or uncontrollable thoughts about the celebrity,” MacNeill warns.

Those who worship a celebrity may also experience identity confusion as they attempt to emulate the characteristics of their favourite famous person. This can be especially dangerous for adolescents who are constructing their identities and are typically seeking role models, MacNeill says.

Emulating a celebrity isn’t necessarily a bad thing — although not every celebrity can be considered a good role model.

If a celebrity engages in drug use or risky sexual behaviours, MacNeill says some research ascertains their most dedicated fans are likely to as well. The same can be said for celebrities with pro-social behaviours.

On the flip side, it’s also possible to have a parasocial relationship with a celebrity you hate — and the interaction is hardly different from someone’s everyday experiences. Even hating Vanderpump Rules star Tom Sandoval can be considered parasocial.

“Just like in real life, you might have an annoying coworker that you have a relationship with — it’s just not necessarily a positive one,” MacNeill says.

Parasocial connections, Mar and MacNeill agree, are just as nuanced as someone’s “real” interpersonal relationships.

Sometimes it pays to be parasocial

It’s lucrative for a celebrity to have a fanbase of parasocial followers. These fans are already intensely interested in what’s on-offer and are therefore more likely to buy merchandise and event tickets.

But even fans can turn their parasocial interests into profit.

Flores, the Lady Gaga admirer, has earned thousands through his Instagram fan page.

For a period, Flores was making money creating Instagram Reels, which are short video clips under 60 seconds. He says he made between $4,000 and $5,500 through his posts.

Now, Flores offers a subscriber tier on his Instagram account. For 99 U.S. cents a month, his followers can receive exclusive content.

More than anything else, Flores sees his fan account as a form of non-monetary “payback” for the enjoyment he receives from Gaga and her Little Monsters.

“It’s all been about sharing that certain love with other fans,” he says. “No one’s forcing you to have a parasocial relationship with someone else. It’s your decision.”

2:18
The concert boost: How top acts like Taylor Swift, Beyonce are driving economic growth

Is every superfan in a parasocial relationship?

Meghan Nolan really, really loves Taylor Swift but she doesn’t consider her relationship with the singer parasocial.

Nolan, 26, from Ottawa, Ont., says she first heard Swift’s music in 2007 while attending an all-girls summer camp. Since then, she’s seen Swift in concert six times and will be heading to Toronto to see the singer again during her upcoming Eras Tour this fall. She shelled out $336 for a ticket to see the tour in nearby Detroit and dropped $400 for the Toronto show.

Nolan says she separates her relationship from the parasocial realm because she recognizes Swift as an artist and a celebrity, as well as an individual.

She’s critical of fans with parasocial relationships because she says they often see their favourite celebrity as a character rather than a real person. According to Nolan, these fans behave as if celebrities are “just there for their entertainment.”

In the case of Swift, Nolan characterises this as fans who pry too far into the singer’s personal life, like the people who lurk outside Swift’s New York apartment or hyper-analyze the star’s dating history.

“Some people just see her as like a character and not as a person,” Nolan says.

Rather than having a parasocial relationship with Swift, Nolan says she’s developed strong, lasting bonds with other fans in the community.

Role model or idol?

Some parasocial fans develop a one-sided bond with a celebrity they consider to be a role model.

Jorge Santana, a 21-year-old student from Los Angeles, Calif., says he has a “mild parasocial relationship” with Beyoncé, fuelled specifically by the release of her ballroom-inspired album, Renaissance.

Santana likes Beyoncé because “she’s inviting anyone to join her in her confidence,” he says.

As a self-identified perfectionist, Santana says he sees the same qualities in Beyoncé.

He also admits that since she is notoriously private, his parasocial relationship makes him especially curious about her day-to-day life.

Regardless, Santana does not consider his connection with her to be unhealthy, but says for others, it can be a slippery slope. He considers a parasocial relationship unhealthy when “you stalk for information” or think “excessively” about the other person.

While acknowledging that social media likely feeds his parasocial relationship by algorithmically serving him Beyoncé-related content, Santana says he enjoys the online community.

“I like that I just have a place to share a fandom with someone,” he says. “For example, my roommates, they like Beyoncé but if they hear me yap about Beyoncé all the time, they tell me to chill out.”

Through the insight and conversation with other fans, Santana says he is not only able to discuss Beyoncé, but also develop a deeper love and understanding of her artistry.

According to Mar, it’s not uncommon for people in parasocial relationships to share Santana’s perspective and attach themselves to a celebrity they believe they resemble.

“I know that you’re probably thinking, I don’t know too many people similar to Taylor Swift, but it’s a perceived similarity,” Mar explains, adding that these similarities likely encourage the growth of a parasocial relationship.

Still, it’s important for fans to be aware of when these one-sided feelings become overly involved or toxic if they step too far.

“Too much of anything can be a problem,” Mar says. “Carrots are not bad for you, but if you eat too many carrots, you will get sick.”

The World Health Organization has published its “first-ever” clinical treatment guideline for people who want to quit tobacco use – which is on the decline in Canada and globally.

The recommendations released Tuesday are for all adults looking to give up any type of tobacco products, including cigarettes, waterpipes, smokeless tobacco products, cigars, roll-your-own tobacco and heated tobacco products (HTPs). The guidelines are designed to be used by health-care workers.

The agency recommends a series of clinical interventions from behavioural support and medication to digital strategies.

“This guideline marks a crucial milestone in our global battle against these dangerous products,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

“It empowers countries with the essential tools to effectively support individuals in quitting tobacco and alleviate the global burden of tobacco-related diseases.”

2:29
Health Matters: Smoking class action members still waiting for compensation

The WHO has previously addressed measures to help countries support tobacco cessation and treatment for tobacco dependence, but these new guidelines build on that effort and other health recommendations made by the agency over the years.

“While this is the first time that there are these formal clinical guidelines available internationally, there’s many other things that have preceded it,” Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society, said in an interview with Global News Tuesday.

“These guidelines provide recommendations that can be implemented Canada-wide in all provinces to strengthen cessation initiatives and the more we can do for tobacco cessation, the more we’re going to have an impact to reduce the devastating burden of tobacco use on health.”

The WHO estimates that more than 60 per cent of the world’s tobacco users – roughly 750 million people – want to quit.

For tobacco users who smoke and are interested in quitting, the WHO strongly recommends varenicline, nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), bupropion and cytisine as effective treatments.

Varenicline and NRT are recommended for smokeless tobacco users interested in quitting.

The agency urged countries to provide these treatments at no or reduced cost to improve accessibility, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

Behavioural support should also be combined with medication, the WHO says, such as through brief advice of 30 seconds to three minutes routinely coming from health-care providers and different counselling options offered to all tobacco users who are interested in quitting.

1:57
Illegal tobacco sales moving online

As a supplementary measure, digital interventions can also be used, through text messaging, smartphone apps, artificial intelligence and internet programs.

Cunningham said digital techniques “may be especially beneficial for younger people,” who are more tech-savvy.

He noted that the WHO did not recommend vaping products as a cessation strategy given the potential risks associated with them.

Most e-cigarettes and vaping products contain nicotine, which is a stimulant drug found in tobacco.

Health Canada has cautioned that vaping nicotine can “lead to physical dependence and addiction” and expose people to chemicals “that can be harmful to your health.”

The agency advises that young people and those who don’t use tobacco products not vape.

On top of the clinical measures, policy interventions, such as tobacco taxes and subsidizing nicotine replacement products, can make a difference toward curbing tobacco use, Cunningham said.

“What we need in Canada is a comprehensive series of measures to support tobacco cessation,” he said.

Last year, Canada became the first country in the world to require warning labels on individual cigarettes.

Health Canada has set a target of bringing tobacco use in the country to under five per cent by 2035.

An estimated eight million people die because of tobacco use each year, according to the WHO.

Overall, tobacco use is on the decline in Canada and globally.

A WHO report published in January showed that an estimated 1.25 billion people aged 15 and older — or one in five people on the planet — used tobacco in 2022. This was down from 1.36 billion people, or one in three, in 2000.

1:38
Tobacco use decreasing globally: World Health Organization

In Canada, roughly 11.4 per cent of people aged 15 years and older, or 3.7 million, used tobacco in 2022.

That was down from 2010, when 18.8 per cent of that age group used tobacco. The global health agency predicted Canada will cut its tobacco use by 44 per cent next year compared with that year.

“The immense struggle that people face when trying to quit smoking cannot be overstated,” Rüdiger Krech, director of health promotion at the WHO, said in a statement.

“We need to deeply appreciate the strength it takes and the suffering endured by individuals and their loved ones to overcome this addiction.”

In another report published in May, the WHO warned that the global tobacco industry is using “manipulative” tactics to “aggressively” target and hook youth on smoking across the globe, calling for a ban on the sale of tobacco and nicotine-related products to minors.

&copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

London: Gilead Sciences said on Thursday a late-stage study showed its injectable drug, lenacapavir, was more effective in preventing HIV infection in women compared to the company’s existing daily pill Truvada.

There were zero incident cases of HIV infection among women who received lenacapavir, Gilead said.

Shares of the drugmaker rose 3 per cent to $65.08 in premarket trading.

Lenacapavir was well-tolerated with no significant or new safety concerns in the study, the company said, adding that more detailed data would be presented at a future conference.

About 1.2 million people in the United States have HIV, according to the CDC.

Truvada, which combines the medicines tenofovir and emtricitabine, is used to treat HIV and also in a prevention regimen known as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).

PrEP can lower the risk of getting HIV from sex by about 99 per cent, according to the CDC.

Lenacapavir, branded as Sunlenca and given twice a year, gained U.S. approval in 2022 as a long-acting treatment option for heavily pre-treated patients infected with HIV and who have become resistant to multiple drugs.

In the study, which had more than 5,300 cisgender women and adolescent girls aged 16-25, participants received either lenacapavir, Descovy or Truvada.

Cisgender refers to people who identify as the sex assigned to them at birth, while transgender is an umbrella term for those who do not, and non-binary is for those who do not identify exclusively as a man or woman, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

A once-daily pill, Descovy was approved in 2019 to reduce the risk of sexually acquired HIV infection in men and transgender women who have sex with men.

Gilead said it expects results from another late-stage trial testing lenacapavir for PrEP among men who have sex with men, transgender men, transgender women and gender non-binary individuals who have sex with partners assigned male, in late 2024 or early 2025.

(Reporting by Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)