North Sichuan Medical College

TUESDAY, Jan. 21, 2025 -- Hormone replacement therapy to ease menopause symptoms doesn’t increase a woman’s risk of brain tumors. Researchers found no link between hormone therapy and gliomas, the most common brain tumors in adults, according to results of a new study published recently in the journal Menopause . “Compared with nonusers, users of hormone therapy were not significantly associated with glioma risk,” a team led by senior researcher Dr. Hui Tang , a neurosurgeon with North Sichuan Medical College in Nanchong, China, wrote. No link was found even when researchers considered how long a woman had been taking hormone therapy, and whether she was currently using it. “Although there is a known sex difference in the incidence of gliomas, with women being six times more likely to develop the disease compared with men, there does not appear to be an association between glioma and hormone therapy use in postmenopausal women,” Dr. Stephanie Faubion , medical director for The Menopause Society, said in a news release. Hormone therapy is prescribed to treat common menopause symptoms like hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings and vaginal problems, researchers mentioned in background notes. The therapy had been widely used until 2002, when early clinical trial results showed an association between hormone therapy and increased risk of breast cancer, heart disease, stroke and blood clots. Since then, further study has shown that hormone therapy is indeed safe for treatment of menopause symptoms, but is unlikely to decrease risk for age-related health problems like heart disease or hip fractures. This new study set out to check one of the remaining concerns about hormone therapy and how it might increase risk of brain cancer in women. Some experts had speculated that women’s naturally higher risk of glioma might be linked to female hormones like estrogen. For this study, researchers analyzed data from more than 75,000 women between 50 and 78 years of age participating in a long-term cancer screening study. The women were tracked for an average 12 years. The results found that women using hormone therapy had no increased risk of gliomas, even if they’d been taking it for a while. But researchers said their findings should be verified in larger studies with more extended follow-up periods. Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.

MONDAY, Aug. 7, 2023 -- Consuming added sugars is associated with an increased risk for kidney stones, according to a study published online Aug. 4 in Frontiers in Nutrition . Shan Yin, M.D., from the Affiliated Hospital of North Sichuan Medical College in Nanchong, China, and colleagues examined the association between added sugar and kidney stones in a nationally representative study using datasets from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for 2007 to 2018. Individuals aged 20 years and older who reported a history of kidney stones and provided recall data on added sugars were included (28,303 adults). The mean energy intake from added sugars was 272.10 kilocalories overall. The researchers found a positive association for the percentage of energy intake from added sugars with kidney stones in the fully adjusted multivariable model. Individuals in the fourth versus the first quartile of added sugar energy intake percentage had a 39 percent higher prevalence of kidney stones. The prevalence of kidney stones was 88 percent higher for those with ≥25 percent calories from added sugar compared with <5 percent. "Further studies are needed to explore the association between added sugar and various diseases or pathological conditions in detail," Yin said in a statement. "For example, what types of kidney stones are most associated with added sugar intake? How much should we reduce our consumption of added sugars to lower the risk of kidney stone formation? Nevertheless, our findings already offer valuable insights for decision-makers." Abstract/Full Text Posted August 2023