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News Article about HDT and long term side effects

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Posted 12/13/2015 4:29 PM (GMT -5)
My husband saw this and a similar article in the Wall Street Journal and started a rather slow freak out. He's been on HDT since no long after his surgery... Thought others might be interested.


From NBCNews.com...
Common Prostate Cancer Treatment May Double Risk for Alzheimer's
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/mens-health/common-prostate-cancer-treatment-may-double-risk-alzheimers-n475871
Posted 12/13/2015 8:54 PM (GMT -5)
i logged in specifically to see if there were any postings on this subject. My husband was on ADT for only 4 months , along with brachytherapy and external radiation. He is a G 9. I definitely saw some changes in cognition and then read the article.....hope to see others weigh in.
Posted 12/13/2015 10:49 PM (GMT -5)
I'm curious as to the age of the men in the study. It gave a 2X chance of getting Alzheimer's within the next 2.5 years, so it implies it's an older group they looked at. Plus if they were following people like me in their 50s to see if they get Alzheimer's would be a pretty long-term study.

I guess I'd say this is interesting and I definitely am curious to hear more about this. At the same time, once you hit middle age there are so many medical studies proclaiming different things that can affect you that I'd go blind if I tried to worry about them all so I think I'll just go have a glass of red wine...that's still good for you, isn't it?
Posted 12/14/2015 7:22 AM (GMT -5)
You know, with a G9 we pull out all the stops. So ADT may increase risk of Alzheimer's. What is the absolute risk? If it's 1% and "IT IS DOUBLED BY ADT" (alarmist articles), it goes to 2%? Big deal. If it's 50% and goes to 100%, then that really is a Big Deal. This isn't a simple analysis, and sure not worth another "freak out". As if a G9 case doesn't already cause a big enough freak out.

So by age, what is the risk of developing Alzheimer's and how are those points shifted by having ADT?

It really doesn't matter for some of us. It's not like ADT or not was really a choice anyway. The stats on radiation + ADT are quite convincing vs. radiation alone. I chose to take on the side effect burden (oh and it is quite the burden indeed).
Posted 12/14/2015 7:45 AM (GMT -5)

Redwing57 said...
....So by age, what is the risk of developing Alzheimer's and how are those points shifted by having ADT?

It really doesn't matter for some of us. It's not like ADT or not was really a choice anyway. The stats on radiation + ADT are quite convincing vs. radiation alone. I chose to take on the side effect burden (oh and it is quite the burden indeed).

There you go.

I read that same article in the WSJ and my immediate reactions were:

a) I don't trust one 'newsworthy' research proclamation
b) Even if there is an increased risk of Alzheimer's, I'll deal with any side effects as they come up
c) There is no way I would stop a proven treatment protocol based on one study

Now if multiple researchers and data analysts can make a good case for establishing Alzheimer's as a known side effect, then the ADT decision process (to have or not) will need to factor that risk in.
Posted 12/14/2015 12:12 PM (GMT -5)

Redwing57 said...
... What is the absolute risk? If it's 1% and "IT IS DOUBLED BY ADT" (alarmist articles), it goes to 2%? Big deal. If it's 50% and goes to 100%, then that really is a Big Deal...

This.

The article is an alarmist piece without specific numbers. Doubling the percentage means very little without knowing the percentage.

Further, I bet that different subsets in a large database with have different percentages and risk categories depending on diet, lifestyle and other issues.

There may be something to this article or there may not. I will note that the source is not where I would go for medical reference material.

Further, when they leave the most important part out (the absolute risk %) it makes me suspicious of an article's truthfulness and makes me quite doubt it's veracity.
Posted 12/14/2015 2:04 PM (GMT -5)
Personally, I think this is a case of a slow news day and the web team at NBC needing to increase traffic to the website to sell more advertising at a higher price.

Perhaps I am being cynical here, but I wouldn't give this much weight.

Andrew
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