Hormone therapy can reduce dementia risk — sometimes

Senior women who had hormone therapy as part of breast cancer treatment had “a 7% lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias later in life,” according to a study out of the universities of South Carolina and Pittsburgh.

The effect is particularly strong in younger women— ages 65 to 69, and even more so in Black women; those aged 65 to 74 had a whopping 24% reduction in relative risk of developing dementia. (White women in that age group had an 11% reduction.)

“The benefits of HMT [hormone therapy] decreased for women aged 75 and older, particularly in those who identified as white^*. This suggests that the timing of HMT initiation is crucial and treatment plans should be tailored to a patient’s age.”

In fact, once a woman is over 80 the risk of dementia increases with hormone therapy, meaning care needs to be taken to weigh benefits and risks.

There are other nuances, including that different types of hormone therapy have different risk profiles, and the mechanism at work isn’t understood. So, as always, more research is needed.

^* I admit I’m getting old — I didn’t realize you could ‘identify as white.’ Maybe it just means they checked the box marked “White,” but it still sounds odd. Can how you identify affect how a treatment works? By the way, thanks for reading this long footnote.

Our number 2 story

How often you poop is a pretty good indicator of your overall health. There’s a Goldilocks zone between too often and not often enough, according to Institute for Systems Biology researchers.

In one sense, frequency reflects health: “Specifically, younger people, women, and those with a lower BMI tended to have less frequent bowel movements.” But too infrequent isn’t good either, as gut microbes will start to ferment proteins rather than fiber, producing toxins.

Pooping once or twice a day is that Goldilocks zone (they left that out of the fairy tale) — that’s where the good gut bacteria thrive, which both helps with and indicates good health.

Pharma tax break under fire — again

Did you know that drug companies get a tax deduction for their direct-to-consumer ads? That’s right — they’re rewarded by the government for running those interminable commercials. That’s because the law considers ad spending to be a deductible business expense just like research and development.

“In 2022, the total pharma ad spend topped $8 billion,” meaning that’s $8 billion that wasn’t taxed^* and $8 billion worth of ads we all had to watch.

Lawmakers have been trying to close that loophole, but fierce lobbying by the pharma industry has meant that there are never enough votes. Still, they’re trying yet again.

^* Math! The US corporate tax rate is 21%. So that’s almost $1.7 billion per year we could’ve had to spend on, oh, fixing roads, buying school books, cutting taxes on small business….

Short Takes

Just what we need

Healthcare pros don’t think pharma companies are using social media enough … according to a survey by a company called Medfluencers that supplies social media marketing.

CBD blocks UV-A

CBD cream reduced damage from UV-A rays according to a small study out of George Washington University. Big caveat: This didn’t compare CBD creams to other sunscreens — it just showed that CBD creams can help.

Obesity, mood, and risk taking

Santa might not be as jolly as the news reports suggest. It seems that people who are overweight or obese not only tend to have more depressed moods, they’re also more likely to engage in risky behavior.

German researchers investigated how metabolic factors, including glucose metabolism, affect both mood and risk-taking. They hypothesized that when glucose metabolism is impaired, so is mood — and then the brain doesn’t get all the signals it needs to control risk-taking.

To test this, they put 62 people with severe obesity on an intense 10-week diet and measured their mood and willingness to take risks. After the diet…

… there was a significant reduction in the body mass index and the HbA1c level as a marker for glucose metabolism, as well as a significant improvement in mood. In addition, the scientists were able to demonstrate a positive change in behavior, as the weight loss led to risk-avoiding decisions.

USP launches product finder

Choosing supplements can be tough for consumers — not just which ingredients to take, but also which brands they can trust. Because they’re not FDA-regulated, you never know how good Prol-E-Fine™ brand will be. (And if it’s something for long-term health, you might never know.)

The closest thing to regulation is USP verification, which is a pretty good indicator that the supplement contains what it says it contains. So now USP has created a product finder at quality-supplements.org/usp_verified_products that lets you look up a supplement or brand to see what’s got the seal.

Use it yourself to see what to stock or what to recommend, or point your patients to it to help them shop.

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Of course, the lack of a USP seal doesn’t mean a supplement isn’t good, just that it hasn’t been tested (and for some supplements there are no USP Verified products).