Our weekly roundup of the latest developments in the world of health. This week we look at some good news about treating advanced ovarian cancer and some disappointing news about statin drugs' ability to prevent colon cancer and birth control pills and women's libido. We also look at the effects of medications for depression and low-fat, high-carb diets.
Stay well.
This Issue:
Treating Ovarian Cancer Statins and Colon Cancer The Pill and Libido Drugs for Depression Low Fat Diets and Weight In the News:
Treating Ovarian Cancer Women with advanced ovarian cancer can increase their chances of survival if they receive chemotherapy directly in the abdomen after surgery. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that pumping chemo drugs into the abdominal cavity can boost survival by 16 months for women with advanced disease. The study involved 415 women who'd had surgery for ovarian cancer at dozens of U.S. hospitals. Half of the women were given standard intravenous chemotherapy after surgery. The other women were given one drug -- Taxol -- intravenously, and then received abdominal infusions via catheter of high-dose Taxol and other chemo drugs. The median survival for the women who only got IV chemo was a little over four years; for women who got the abdominal infusions, it was a little over five and a half years, the researchers found. The difference is significant, because ovarian cancer -- which is rarely diagnosed early because it presents with such mild symptoms -- is one of the deadliest for women, The Associated Press reports. Based on these results, the National Cancer Institute and some medical groups are urging doctors to use abdominal chemotherapy, the AP says. However, the treatment carries significant side effects, including abdominal pain and problems with the catheter, and only 42% of the women who started on the treatment could tolerate the full six cycles of chemo, while the rest switched to standard IV chemo.
Statins and Colon Cancer
Taking statin drugs doesn't protect you from colon cancer. That's the conclusion of two new studies that looked at the popular cholesterol-lowering drugs in relation to colon cancer risk. One study, published in the
Journal of the American Medical Association, analyzed 27 trials of statins involving a total of nearly 87,000 people. The researchers found no reduction in incidence of colon cancer among people taking a statin compared to people not taking one of these drugs. The second study, published in the
Journal of the National Cancer Institute, looked at more than 132,000 people participating in the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutritional Cohort. That study also found no reduction in cancer risk for people staking statins. Previous studies had suggested that people taking statin drugs might have lower rates of colorectal cancer than people not taking the drugs, but researchers in the new studies say the methodology in the earlier work was flawed, The New York Times News Service reports.
The Pill and Libido
Oral contraceptives may affect a woman's libido, even after she has stopped taking them. A British study published in
The Journal of Sexual Medicine finds that the hormonal effects of birth control pills can persist for up to a year after women stop taking them, which could lead to longer-term loss of sexual desire. The study involved 124 premenopausal women, in their mid-30s on average, who'd been experiencing sexual problems for more than six months. The researchers divided the women into three groups -- women who had been on birth control pills for more than six months and kept taking them, women who had been on birth control pills for more than six months and stopped, and women who had never taken birth control pills. The researchers did blood tests to measure the women's production of sex hormone-binding globulin. Women still on the pill had four times higher levels of sex hormone-binding globulin compared to women who never used birth control pills. Women who stopped using birth control pills also had higher levels of sex hormone-binding globulin; 11 months after they discontinued the pill, their levels were about twice as high as women who'd never used the pill. According to the New York Times News Service, the researchers suggest that increased sex hormone-binding globulin lowers the amount of active testosterone, a male sex hormone that has a positive effect on female sexual function. The news service quotes other experts who say the findings should not be a source of concern for women on the pill.
Drugs for Depression
Antidepressant medications are effective for about a third of people with serious depression. That's an initial finding of a six-year government-funded study, published in the
American Journal of Psychiatry, which aims to determine effective depression treatment guidelines for hard-to-treat patients. In the study, one-third of patients with serious depression recovered with the first drug they were given, which in this study was the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor Celexa. Well-educated white women were more likely than other groups to benefit, as were people with fewer co-existing illnesses and less severe depression, The Associated Press reports. People in the study who did not get relief from symptoms with Celexa moved on to try a variety of other therapies, the AP says. The researchers say tailoring treatment is key to helping people with difficult-to-treat depression. To do that, the researchers developed a simple rating system to assess symptoms and monitor drug side effects, which allows doctors to adjust medication doses every few weeks until a patient either sees a benefit or it becomes apparent that a different therapy is needed. The researchers found that people whose depression symptoms improved took higher than usual doses of the antidepressant, and were closely monitored -- and got frequent dose adjustments -- in the first three months of treatment, the AP says.
Low-Fat Diets and Weight
Maintaining a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet does not appear to make people gain weight, although it does not help them lose much, either. A study published in the
Journal of the American Medical Association looked at over 48,000 women age 50 to 79 who were participating in the Women's Health Initiative study. One group of women switched to a diet with less fat and more fruits, vegetables and whole grains, while another group made no significant changes to their diet. They were followed for an average of seven years. The women eating a low-fat diet lost just under five pounds during their first year on the diet, but regained most of it. They ended up losing an average of two pounds by the end of study. The women who didn't cut back on fat stayed about the same weight during the study, the researchers say. The goal of the study was really to look at the effects of a low-fat diet on heart disease and cancer, but those results are not available yet. The researchers say their findings refute the claim that low-fat, high-carb diets are a cause of obesity.
Used with the permission of the copyright owner. All rights reserved. The above summaries are not intended to provide advice on personal medical matters, nor are they intended to be a substitute for consultation with a physician.
