what a silly study! They look at free T4, the weakest thyroid hormone and found high levels to be associated with dementia. However, they failed to assess free T3, the most biologically active, and reverse T3, inactive. This study was like they intentionally blinded themselves of the body's physiology to study dementia. This is the problem with a lot of research today: they have forgotten their foundation.
Many older adults struggle with poor free T4 to free T3 conversion and high reverse T3 conversion. So, without knowing what these clients were doing in these pathways makes their conclusion obsolete.
The point of this post is not that the author concludes that metformin an statin therapy should be used in PCOS women on birth control with elevated cardiovascular risk; but that with struggling with PCOS should have cardiovascular risk assessment prior to starting birth control. Again, back to the individualized approach paradigm.
Testosterone therapy found to not increase cancer risk in men. This chart review, looked at 722 men over an average of 8.7 years to assess risk of cancer associated with testosterone therapy. This study was presented at the AUA in 2013.
This study shows that "healthy marathon" runners may not be as healthy as once thought. Basically, current strategies to assess coronary artery calcification is inadequate. Point: damage is being done that is not being detected.
Adjuvants in vaccines are dangerous. ASIA and macrophages myofasciitis are implicated in the damage caused by adjuvants, of which aluminum is the most widely known. I love what the author says here: "safe assessments for vaccines have often not included appropriate toxicity studies because vaccines have not been viewed as inherently toxic". This is not political but scientific.
high dose vitamin E and vitamin C are found to be safe. As always, the majority of these studies did not include pre-treatment vitamin assessment to ensure a metabolic need. To much of a good thing can be a bad thing. Also, higher dosing of vitamins approach a medicinal use and an associated increase in side effects.
sex hormones play a role in the gout. It appears that testosterone therapy increases uric acid levels and estradiol decreases uric acid levels. Though, I question this based on the use of serum levels and thus inadequate assessment of aromatase activity. Aromatase activity does not occur in the serum, it occurs in the tissue, thus saliva would be the best tool.
type and length of training effects testosterone secretion. Testosterone plays an important role in muscle performance and mass. Prolonged training can result in a decrease in testosterone level. This has significance with highly trained athletes.
One pitfall of this study was the assessment of testosterone via serum.
European journal of endocrinology article compared serum to salivary cortisol and found them to be equal, but due to ease of collection, salivary cortisol to be preferable. This article was using cortisol to assess HPA axis dysfunction.
saliva testing of hormones said to be "reliable and, in some cases, even superior to other body fluids". Of course, no test is perfect, but saliva test provides that best assessment available
Study finds that transdermal testosterone effective in normal and overweight men. The dosing involved is supra physiologic, especially those with an elevated BMI. This was likely due to the high dosing to overcome the underlying problem i.e. high aromatase activity. These studies all need to assess estrogens and inflammatory cytokines to better follow these results