Healthspanlife - the Official Life! Blog

Breast

                        · There is a wide variation across the world in the incidence of breast cancer and its risk factors.

                        · There are multiple risk factors for breast cancer, including life-style factors especially alcohol intake, obesity and lack of exercise. These need to be included during counseling to put the magnitude of risk of HRT into perspective [B]

                        · After 5 years’ use of combined estrogen and progestogen, there is a small increase in risk of breast cancer in North American women of about eight extra cases per 10,000 women per year. However, no significant increase was seen in women without prior use of HRT in the WHI study. [A]

                        · Estrogen-only use does not cause an increase in breast cancer for up to 7 years21. [A] In observational studies, a small increase in the risk with estrogen-alone therapy appears with long-term use22. [B]

                        · Women using combined HRT before a diagnosis of breast cancer have a reduced mortality23. [B]

                        · A decline in the incidence of breast cancer in the USA started before the WHI publication and can be partially related to fluctuation in screening. There has been no decline in breast cancer registration in the UK following the Million Women Study report, nor in Norway, Canada, the Netherlands and countries with stable screening programmes25. [B]

                        · Combined estrogen and progestogen therapy may cause increased breast density in up to 50% of postmenopausal women, dependent on the regimen (dosage, type of progestogen). The effect of estrogen alone is smaller26. [A]

                        · The effect on breast density is dose-related. Ultra-low-dose regimes do not cause perceptible change in density[A]

                        · The average increase in breast density under standard-dose HRT is only about 5–10%28. [A]

                        · Increased baseline breast density is a risk factor for breast cancer29. There are no data to support a direct association between HRT-induced breast density changes and the risk of developing breast cancer.

                        · Many women who develop breast cancer have no known risk factors other than growing older. most women with known risk factors do not develop breast cancer.

                        · Individual risk analysis for breast cancer is strongly recommended in clinical practice30.

Bone

 *Overall HRT is effective in preventing all osteoporosis-related fractures even in patients at low risk of fracture[A]

*Although no head-to-head studies have compared HRT to bisphosphonates in terms of fracture reduction, there is

                           no evidence to suggest that bisphosphonates or any other antiresorptive therapy are superior to HRT.

 * It is therefore suggested that, in 50–59-year-old postmenopausal women, HRT is a cost-effective first-line

                                  treatment in the prevention of osteoporotic fractures.

* Even below standard-dose preparations maintain positive influence on bone indices such as BMD[A]

                        · HRT has a positive effect on osteoarthritis and the integrity of intervertebral disks.

Cognition

*At present, there is no evidence of substantial cognitive decline across the menopausal transition[A] However, many women experience cognitive difficulties in association with vasomotor symptoms, sleep disturbances & mood changes.

*Verbal memory performance relates with the objective number of hot flushes women experience but not to the number of hot flushes they report.

*Clinical trials find no cognitive benefit among women initiating HRT late postmenopause (i.e. after age 65).

*Observational studies show a decreased risk of Alzheimer’s disease in hormone users and typically involve women who initiated estrogen therapy early in the menopausal transition. [B]

*Limited data exist on the effect of progestogen added to estrogen in the early postmenopause period. Clinical trial data suggest no cognitive benefit with MPA early in the menopause. [A]

Reversal of Alzheimer’s disease following perispinal etanercept administration

this work of the past 5 years from Los Angeles

beggars belief, that any drug promoting neurotransmission via inhibition of cytokines- TNF alpha can produce immediate and sustained improvement in moderate to severe Alzheimer’s disease- and without significant adverse effect. A Nobel prize for someone. Up to now, no modern designer drug has done any significant good for these patients.

The current patient that Tobinick ea report certainly had severe brain atrophy. In 2006 they reported 15 patients with progressive Alzheimers who showed improvement on 32mg etanerept a week - with improvement in scores of between 10% & 25%, p<.002. This is in contrast to the usual relentless decline over 6 months, to death after an average of 7years.

Enbrel - etanercept - is available and used in RSA for Rheumatoid arthritis. in a recent MIMS the retail price is apparently about R1400 per injection, and according to Dr Tobinick’s report this is given weekly paraspinally at C6/7. It earned Amgen $2.9billion in 2006. Expensive hightech (intraspinal injection) treatment for senile dementia, but apparently strikingly mind-saving.

There are still no controlled trials of etanercept for Alzheimers, so it is speculative as to whether the improvement seen in cases could be placebo effect of the attention, injection and other supplements;

The reports below indicate improvement in psoriasis; ankylosing spondylitis; rheumatoid arthritis; but not heart failure or Sjogren’s syndrome.

It apparently shows the unthinkable, that a drug can within minutes and for at least 6 months partly reverse Alzheimers to a considerable degree even with major brainscan changes - severe diffuse neuronal loss.

However, there are already two reports of leukenephalopathy.

It is striking that there are as yet no reports from other units about such therapy of Alzheimer’s disease.

ndb

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PAPERS FOLLOW: (more…)

In the “simple” love story Away From Her (2006), Julie Christie, as an avid cross-country snow skier, portrays well the relentless progression from mild to moderate Alzheimer’s Disease, and perhaps more subtly, the perils of lost recent memory but retained old tapes - the spectre of paranoia against the caring loved ones, fertile ground for novelists, and unscrupulous financial and legal advisors.

It is a pity the film made no reference to the uselessness of modern ie commercial anti-dementia drugs, and the major preventative benefit - 50% to >80% reduction in new cases - of numerous natural supplements.

Like vascular disease and osteoporotic fractures, dementia including from injury, stroke, toxins and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is major public health concern in all countries- dementia about 1% a year after age 75yrs in Framingham (80% were from AD)- but 100% disabling for the remained of life. Wikipedia gives the stats of these “diseases strongly associated with age as : dementia 1% of those aged 60-65, 6% of those aged 75-79, and 45% of those aged 95 or older suffer from the syndrome. Osteoporosis increases the risk of hip fracture fivefold to about 50% in the elderly (>64yrs), and mortality following a hip fracture is between 20% and 35% within one year in patients aged ~82 years, of which 80% were women-“ – with up to 80% of survivors remaining disabled to some degree. Like dementia and osteoporosis, “By the time that heart problems are detected, the underlying atherosclerosis is usually quite advanced, having progressed for decades” Each year, heart disease kills more Americans than cancer.[1] Vascular diseases alone cause half of all “natural” premature deaths; up to the year 2005, it was the number one cause of death and disability in the United States and most European countries” . ..

Not unexpectedly in people who realize they are losing their minds, depression and anxiety are major components – as the film so poignantly shows, in both the patients and their loved ones.
Unlike hip fracture, stroke or heart attack which without prevention is fatal in 1/5 to 1/3 - and crippling in up to 80% - waiting till dementia starts is uniformly disabling and fatal in about 7 years- whereas healthy people have a mean life expectation of close to 90years. No prescription drugs slow AD by more than a few weeks even in mild cases. But in very mild AD fish oil slows the disease over 6 months.

Overweight and thus diabetes, vascular disease and cancer, is becoming the norm. The pandemic of saccharine diseases- (including overweight- hypertension - insulin resistance- diabetes - vascular disease) and Alzheimers are strongly linked.

PREVENTION:
Hypogonadism hormones: in the Cache County Study (Zandi ea), only those who started young ie continued menopause hormone therapy HT for decades had 95% less AD than non-users or recent users. This was mirrored in the Women’s Health Initiative and the Oulu trial, in which HT started soon after menopause for a mean of 5-10 years reduced all major disease including memory problems (and deaths) by about 1/3 or more.

Smoking , alcoholism, infections, toxins and violence aside, it is self-evident that micronutrient deficiencies including hypogonadism plays a dominant role in the intimately intertwined vascular disease, dementia (and fractures) , since compared to men, women suffer these far more and younger- they have disturbance of natural sex hormone balance increasingly younger (from juvenile obesity, synthetic hormone contraception, lower parity, sterilization, hysterectomy, cancer therapy, and then menopause and with fattening grossly un-physiological postmenopausal commercial oral sexhormone xenotherapy).
Such unnatural oral mega/xenohormone) therapy is not advocated in androgen-deficient men- who are restored systemically to physiological sexhormone blood levels - or in any other branch of endocrinology. Why women are thus maltreated is a symptom of sick society, of their inferior and subjugate status throughout history, but especially their passive exploitation by the neocapitalist $trillion Drug and Disease Industry cartel that controls the FDA, lobbyist- legislators- and and the public the past 50 years (Elaine Feuer: Innocent Casualties : The FDA’s War Against Humanity: USA 1997).
At least the gender playing field is now level, with balanced physiological HRT (testosterone and estradiol) also freely available to women as lowcost fortnightly subcutaneous self-injection of testosterone-estradiol esters;
or designer monthly subcutaneous testosterone undecanoate plus estradiol valerate, or 6monthly combined implants, or daily combined creams.
If the FDA tries to deny this to women, it is for the people to exercise their constitutional rights to equal, long (evolution) -proven and natural replacement, beyond the control of the patent drug industry.

So dementia, vascular and fracturing disease - and risky, mostly futile chronic patent prescription drugs- are not inevitable, even with the risky genes:
Regular omega3 fish oil reduces the adverse abeta and tau deposits; a fatty fish meal about 3 times a week – a mean fish omega3 intake about 200mg/day- halves dementia and sudden death. Regular plant oil (omega6) blocks benefit; but without fish oil, omega6 doubles the dementia risk. Daily fruit and veg reduced it by 30%. Enough fish oil is by far the most important human micronutrient – it roughly halves all chronic major aging diseases and premature deaths.

Metformin (C4H11N5 derived in 1922 from the [galega officinalis) plant guanide base formula C6H10N3]), is the only enduring chronic preventative patent drug ever designed: in the only long-term randomized controlled trial RCT ever, the 20 year UKPDS prospective diabetes study (1998), insulin and the designer sulphonylureas had no overall benefit on survival, but metformin reduced all-cause major disease and mortality (ie vascular, cancer, infectious) by a third; and in the Canadian Healthcare study, mortality was halved in type 2 ie older diabetics who used metformin. In the 3.5year diabetes prevention trials, in USA and China, it roughly halved the incidence of new diabetes. Both overweight, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes are strongly related to risk of memory impairment.

Ginkgo biloba has no effect on insulin resistance/sensitivity; but
ginkgo has important benefits on rheology, lipids, circulation and memory - which are critical in (pre)diabetics;;
ginkgo prolongs the half-life of metformin in vivo ie enhances the ant-idiabetic effect p<0.05, thus reduces the needed effective dose of metformin or enhances metformin’s benefit in resistant cases.

The issue is indeed that most non-starving adults are prone to both overweight diseases, diabetes, glycation and vascular memory deficits- ie metformin/galega and ginkgo are equally important natural drugs, with some relevant synergy.

Many other natural drugs - food supplements- give significant protection against insulin resistance and thus fattening, diabetes, hypertension, lipidemia, blindness, vascular disease, and memory loss, from all the vitamins , magnesium zinc and chromium, to our endogenous biologicals carnitine, carnosine, DMAE, lipoic acid, cysteine, 5HTP, GABA, MSM, proline, phosphatidylserine/choline, arginine, ribose and CoQ10; to >1000 plants like cinnamon, curcumin, huperzine A, Melissa, fenugreek, garlic, ginseng, gymnema, Salvia, stevia, lo han guo, rosemary, Yi-Gan San and BDW (Ba Wei Di Huang Wan).

In a 2005 report (Bragin ea) , such combination in mild dementia-depression cases actually improved cognition by up to 50%.

Combining fish oil, appropriate HRT, and a mix of 50 other freely available supplements offers at least 50% reduction in all major common chronic degenerative diseases and premature deaths- no modern chronic patent drug does so. Health care providers who fail to recommend such evidence-based comprehensive natural prevention should be prosecuted.

References available on request from doctor@healthspanlife.com; from whom personal consultation and supplements may also be obtained..