Seriously Stressed? Hair Analysis Tells All, Study Finds

WEDNESDAY, April 17 (HealthDay News) -- Hair analysis can reveal if seniors have elevated stress hormone levels that may put them at increased risk for heart disease and stroke, a new study suggests.

Unlike a blood test that provides information about stress hormone levels at a single point in time, analysis of a strand of hair can reveal trends in levels of the stress hormone cortisol over several months, according to the researchers.

The study, published April 17 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, found that seniors with higher long-term levels of cortisol were more likely to have heart disease.

"Like high blood pressure or abdominal fat, the findings suggest elevated cortisol levels are an important signal that an individual is at risk of cardiovascular disease," study co-lead author Dr. Laura Manenschijn, of Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands, said in a news release from the Endocrine Society.

"Because scalp hair can capture information about how cortisol levels have changed over time, hair analysis gives us a better tool for evaluating that risk," she explained.

The researchers analyzed 1.2-inch samples of hair from the heads of 283 people, aged 65 to 85, and determined the participants' cortisol levels over the previous three months.

The team found that people with high cortisol levels were more likely to have a history of coronary heart disease, stroke, peripheral artery disease and diabetes.

"The data showed a clear link between chronically elevated cortisol levels and cardiovascular disease," the other lead author, Dr. Elisabeth van Rossum, of Erasmus Medical Center, said in the news release. "Additional studies are needed to explore the role of long-term cortisol measurement as a cardiovascular disease predictor and how it can be used to inform new treatment or prevention strategies," she said.

The research suggested a link between stress hormone levels and heart risks. It didn't prove cause-and-effect.

-- Robert Preidt
Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCE: The Endocrine Society, news release, April 17, 2013

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New Analysis Says Evidence Lacking for HRT-Breast Cancer Link

Researchers took fresh look at three large studies, concluded data wasn't convincing

By Kathleen Doheny

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, March 14 ( HealthDay News) -- Although several large studies in recent years have linked the use of hormone therapy after menopause with an increased risk of breast cancer, the authors of a new analysis claim the evidence is too limited to confirm the connection.

Dr. Samuel Shapiro, of the University of Cape Town Medical School in South Africa, and his colleagues took another look at three large studies that investigated hormone therapy and its possible health risks -- the Collaborative Reanalysis, the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) and the Million Women Study.

Together, the results of these studies found overall an increased risk of breast cancer among women who used the combination form of hormone therapy with both estrogen and progesterone. Women who have had a hysterectomy and use estrogen-only therapy also have an increased risk, two of the studies found. The WHI, however, found that estrogen-only therapy may not increase breast cancer risk and may actually decrease it, although that has not been confirmed in other research.

After the WHI study was published in July 2002, women dropped hormone therapy in droves. Many experts pointed to that decline in hormone therapy use as the reason breast cancer rates were declining.

Not so, Shapiro said: "The decline in breast cancer incidence started three years before the fall in HRT use commenced, lasted for only one year after the HRT drop commenced, and then stopped."

For instance, he said, between 2002 and 2003, when large numbers of women were still using hormone therapy, the number of new breast cancer cases fell by nearly 7 percent.

In taking a look at the three studies again, Shapiro and his team reviewed whether the evidence satisfied criteria important to researchers, such as the strength of an association, taking into account other factors that could influence risk. Their conclusion: The evidence is not strong enough to say definitively that hormone therapy causes breast cancer.

The study is published in the current issue of the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care.

The new conclusion drew mixed reactions from experts.

In an editorial accompanying the study, Nick Panay, a consultant gynecologist at the Queen Charlotte's & Chelsea Hospital in London, supported the conclusions of the new analysis. "If there is a risk, the risk is small, and the benefits of HRT can be life-altering," he wrote. "It is vital that we keep this in perspective when counseling our patients."

The hormone therapy in use today, Panay said, is lower in dose than those used in the previous research. "In principle, we tend to start with lower doses than we used to and increase as required until full symptom relief has been achieved," he said.

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