New Evidence: HRT Doesn’t Increase Cancer Risk Even If You Have The Genes For It

…and other items from this week’s health news:

Good news for those with the unfortunate mutation in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes

After the deeply-flawed, since-refuted, and popularly-misrepresented Women’s Health Initiative study that tanked the reputation of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), many people worry about the possibility of menopausal HRT (MHT) increasing the risk of cancer. And while some cancers in some people can be affected by estrogen levels, the latest research shows that not only does estrogen convey no additional risk to carriers of the cancer-risk-increasing mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, but also, some formulations can even reduce the risk.

Dr. Joanne Kotsopoulos and her team set up 676 matched pairs of post-menopausal BRCA carriers—one MHT user, one non-user—matched by mutation type, birth year, and age at menopause, and looked at the effect of their use of estrogen alone, progesterone alone, combined estrogen–progesterone, tibolone, or old-fashioned conjugated equine estrogen with bazedoxifene, and found that over a mean 5.6-year follow-up, MHT users had 87 breast cancer cases versus 128 in non-users (remember, these had been matched 1:1, so this isn’t a case of “there were more non-users”, because there were 676 users and 676 non-users).

Most formulations showed no increase or decrease in risk; however, the use of estrogen-only MHT was associated with a 63% lower breast cancer risk compared with non-users!

Read in full: Menopausal hormone therapy shows no added breast cancer risk for BRCA carriers

Related: The Smart Woman’s Guide to Breast Cancer – by Dr. Jenn Simmons

NAD⁺ vs Long COVID & brain fog

Researchers looked at whether raising NAD⁺ with high-dose nicotinamide riboside (NR) could ease long COVID symptoms such as fatigue, sleep problems, and brain fog.

The short answer: among all participants who took NR for at least 10 weeks, researchers observed improvements from baseline in fatigue, sleep, depressive symptoms, and performance on an executive-function task.

Also, NR reliably increased circulating NAD⁺ levels in participants who took the supplement, which is important, as taking NAD⁺ directly often doesn’t increase the levels so well.

Read in full: NAD+ supplement shows early promise for long COVID fatigue and brain fog

Related: NAD⁺ vs Long COVID!

“Disabled” is other people… Right?

A recent survey of 3,881 Americans aged 50–95 (of whom, 1,353 from Michigan) found that many older Americans avoid the disability label even though far more report significant functional limits (there’s a medical word for those, and the word is “disability”).

Some notes about numbers:

• Disability incidence: about ⅓ of people aged 65–74 and more than 44% of those over 75 had difficulties with hearing, seeing, walking, climbing stairs, dressing, bathing, concentrating, remembering, working, or leaving the home
• ADA-related conditions: when asked about conditions such as speech or breathing difficulties that would qualify for accommodations under disability law, half of adults aged 65 to 74 and about ⅔ of older respondents reported disability-level needs
• The accommodations gap: fewer than 1 in 5 older adults had ever received a healthcare accommodation and only 1 in 4 had asked for one

And yet, studies show that people who do identify as disabled have higher self-esteem, less depression and anxiety, and stronger self-efficacy, and it has been noted that the disability community often works together to solve problems that others ignore:

Read in full: Many older Americans don’t see themselves as disabled, survey finds

Related: This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism – by Ashton Applewhite

Take care!