Night of the Queen 2020

The COVid19 numbers are sky-rocketing, the timeline indicating that the Memorial Day and Mothers Day weekends with dropped lock-down have more to do with it than the protest marches, but they will also soon show consequences. AZ hospitals at capacity, Better not get sick here now.  I am dreading my gallery duty on the 11th of June.

Photo by Shawna Caldwell: How the fire in the catalinas started

Not to forget that other, probably greater problems loom: Global Warming is pushed out of the news, The slowed-down world economy may provide a small reprieve.   But our weather patterns are ominously confusing.  We had monsoon like thunderstorms for several afternoons, nearly a month too early.

Push Ridge fire by Bill George

Result: fires. We can see them glowing at night and the smoke now. The second photo was taken by a friend who lives in a development that was carved into the mountains about 15 to 20 years ago, so I remember open desert there. 

But some eternal (?) natural rhythms are still operating: last night was the night of the Queen.  Once a year a twig-thin cactus (Peniocereus greggii) produces the most beautiful, fragrant flowers. The Mystery: within miles, they all open at once. I have not been able to relate it to moon phase, temperature, day length (the date can vary by a month) or precipitation (usually there is none before the cacti bloom) barometric pressure - nothing I can measure seems to provide the trigger, and yet, they are completely synchronized. Usually, Tohono Chul Park close to Tucson monitors and celebrates the bloom, so people are aware of the event. This year the park is closed. This morning, I found several on our dog walk. We live right in the middle of a big population. This year there were fewer flowers than usual. 

Honey Bees were all over the flowers in the morning sun. These opportunistic generalists among bees are probably not suited to pollinate the big flowers. That is probably usually done by big Manduca and other Sphinx Moths. But those have been out in numbers a couple of weeks ago. I saw them at my black lights.   At the moment they seem rather scarce.  Perhaps I just do not see them at my lights because the moon is rather full..

Peniocereus greggii, Queen of the Night

By the 12th of June the Big Horn Fire in the Catalinas had spread. The inferno came down the mountain towards foothills homes and 100s of people had to evacuate, others are on stand-by.

View towards the Catalinas from Tucson on June 11th 2020

My own, very personal response to the virus threat:

My own, very personal response to the virus threat:

ACE2 is an integral membrane protein that appears to be the host-cell receptor for SARS-CoV-2

In the beginning of this pandemic, My friend Tom McDonald (physiology professor U of A) mentioned some research data from China that referred to increased vulnerability of lung tissue after treatment with Losartan-class blockers. The rational was that hypertension treatment with angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor blockers, to which SARS-CoV-2 binds, might in the long-run increase the number of those receptors (often the case with receptor blockers). As the virus binds to those (increased in numbers) loci, lung tissue may be more vulnerable

. Recently, another theory, was that Losartan may block enough receptors to actually protect the tissue from the virus - may prevent organ failure on a wide range in C19 patients and thus.was considered among possible treatment options.

But most patients who died were hypertensive and receiving treatment.

So the thinking now goes back to the earlier idea : "Two recent studies, however, have poked holes in this hypothesis (that losartan could be used to treat C19 patients). In the first study, researchers raised the possibility that antihypertensives, including losartan, could actually induce the body to make more ACE2, increasing the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to bind to and infiltrate cells. In the second study, Italian researchers found that three-quarters of patients with COVID-19 who died had hypertension. Antihypertensive treatment may have been the reason for their increased susceptibility."

Anyway, Tom's very first mentioning of the possible connection made me look more closely into my own treatment with Losartan. It is the only drug I was taking and I did never like doing so. So in early March, I started a running regiment - twice a day 1 to 2 miles - I have lots of time on my hands after all art shows were cancelled! I monitored my BP and weight and after both began decreasing I started going off Losartan in small steps. Surprisingly, my BP was not at all correlated to the drug dose, but very much to body weight. I went from 170 pounds to 155 without fasting, and my BP is in a healthy normal range now.

The conflicting theories about Losartan show how very difficult and intertwined physiological processes and the reaction to drugs really are, and why it is often so difficult for the scientific community to make easily understood yes-or-no statements. Sadly, this opens up the discussion for loud-mouthed science deniers. As a physiologist myself, I am in a position to at least make somewhat educated decisions for my own health. Whatever the outcome of the Losartan studies concerning the virus will eventually be (I expect a difference between long-term chronic use and short, high dose treatment) I feel much healthier and fitter than in a decade. So thanks to my friend's push