7 Fitness Trends to Try in 2016

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With 2016 on the horizon, that means another 365 days to get your sweat on (minus a few rest and recovery days, of course). Curious what trends are tap? Here are the top five (and then some) according to the American College of Sports Medicine’s (ACSM) annual survey, which was completed by more than 2,800 health and fitness professionals worldwide.

1. Wearable tech

The need to quantify every step, every mile, and every single workout isn’t going anywhere. In fact, wearable tech—be it a regular old fitness tracker or a souped-up smartwatch—is number-one on this year’s list. Growing numbers of people struggling with obesity, diabetes, and other weight-related chronic conditions have contributed to the popularity of these devices, says Woody Scal, Chief Business Officer of Fitbit. “Fitbit believes that tracking activity level, sleep, and nutrition can have a positive impact on health and well-being, which may also benefit those living with chronic diseases.” Adds Amy Nouri, media relations for Garmin International: “Studies have shown the health risks of a sedentary lifestyle; wearable tech provides users with 24/7 accountability, tracking numerous aspects of your day, including steps taken, heart rate, stairs climbed, miles run or cycled in workouts, sleep patterns, and more which can be used to motivate users to live more active, healthier lifestyles.”

Could temporary tattoo trackers be next? The company Chaotic Moon thinks so; they are in the process of developing and testing “Tech Tats” that would use an electroconductive paint with the ability to store and transmit info. Cool right?

RELATED: 9 Best Fitness Trackers

2. Body-weight training

Body-weight training it is super convenient—you don’t have to worry whether or not you have all the equipment you need because you are your equipment. More importantly: “Your body is meant to move in all directions, in multiple planes and as a connected unit,” explains Lisa dser, VP of Fitness Programming for Daily Burn. “Working without added external resistance allows you to master movement fundamentals adaptable to your body and progress when applicable.” Some of our faves: squats, pushups, and pull-ups. Now drop down and gives us 20…of each.

3. HIIT 

High intensity interval training (or HIIT) may be new to you, but athletes have been training this way for years, says Jason Bell, trainer at YG Studios, San Diego. “Basketball players have always run suicide drills. Football players have always run stairs. Cyclists, swimmers, and runners have always done intervals work. Bodybuilders and power-lifters have always done supersets. These are all examples of HIIT. Someone just came along a few years ago and gave it a clever name,” he explains.  The reason it’s so popular: It’s versatile, effective, and efficient, taxing both aerobic and anaerobic fitness, increasing endurance, and building muscle and increasing strength, all at the same time. Plus it creates an “afterburn effect.” “This afterburn is referred to as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC) and is the reason why intense exercise intervals will help burn more fat and calories than regular aerobic and steady-state workouts, and translates into a metabolic boost for up to 48 hours after a complete HIIT routine,” explains Kari Saitowitz, founder of The fhitting Room, a high intensity training fitness boutique studio in New York City. Saitowitz notes that HIIT can be applied to countless forms of exercise from running, to biking, to functional movements. What’s more, research from a 2012 Journal of Obesity study revealed that 27 minutes of HIIT three times per week offers the same aerobic and anaerobic improvement as five weekly 60-minute steady-state cardio sessions.

RELATED: This No-Gym HIIT Workout Gets the Job Done in 10 Minutes

4. Strength training

Three words: Strong is in! “Women are not only understanding the benefits of strength training, but they are embracing the strong body,” says Wheeler. “Whether performing progressive body-weight training, power lifting, or traditional strength training, the benefits are enormous. Building strong bones, reducing the risk of diabetes and heart disease, and fighting obesity by adding lean muscle are just a few. And let’s not forget about the confidence it builds when you are strutting around.” In other words, don’t be wary of the weight room.

5. Personal training

Scroll through your Instagram or Twitter feeds and you’ll find selfies of ripped trainers who are dispensing fitness tips as fast as you can drop into a burpee. Though this type of advice is easy to come by, nothing beats the expertise of a trained fitness professional, and ACSM predicts personal training will be a big trend in 2016. “Seek out experts who are not only certified by accredited organizations, but that are open to learning new techniques and expanding their knowledge about the human body,” says Wheeler. “A good understanding of functional anatomy, as well scientifically proven methods are also essential.”

Celebrity trainer Anna Kaiser, founder of AKT and co-host of the ABC TV series My Diet Is Better Than Yours, airing in January, adds: “Anyone can put a workout together and post it on the Internet. Is it personalized? No! It’s important to create a workout that is customized for your body and goals. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, so your workout should be tailored to a specific body’s needs.”

Other trends

Foam rolling
The ACSM ranked foam rollers all the way down at 16 on their list, but with the increase of high intensity exercisers along with the growing popularity of strength training, it seems only natural that flexibility and mobility rollers would gain popularity, explains Jeff Na, VP of Fitness of Gold’s Gym. “When training with high intensities and heavy loads, the importance of preparing your soft tissues for exercise is critical for your performance and recovery,” Na says. “The key is to maximize range of motion in an unloaded stated so your body is prepared to take on resistance.” Brad Cox, movement specialist and CEO/cofounder of ACU-Mobility is also a foam-rolling fan. “Self rolling and release techniques are a great way to be proactive about self care and can help to enhance performance and reduce pain,” he says. “Restrictions and trigger points in the muscles and fascia can create imbalances in natural movement and put inappropriate stress on the joints. These imbalances accumulate over the years and create the conditions for increased injury risk and declining performance.”

RELATED: 8 Best Foam Rollers to Ease Your Aches

Yoga
Yoga may not be as buzzy as it once—it ranks 10th on the ACSM’s list for 2016—but you’re still going to be hearing about it in 2016 and beyond, according to our experts. “It’s one of the best workouts for lengthening, weight loss, and toning,” says Danielle Cuccio, an LA-based registered yoga teacher who has taught celebs like Ariana Grande. Cuccio notes that yoga can be practiced by anyone regardless of their fitness level, ability, shape, or size. And let’s not forget the mental benefits. “Yoga helps us declutter our minds and distress,” Cuccio adds. “From things going on at home to issues at the office, it helps us focus and shift our perspective.” Keep that in mind as you close out the stressful holiday season!

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New Type of Antidepressant Shows Promise in Early Trial

TUESDAY, Dec. 8, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Millions of Americans battle depression, and many search for a medication that can help ease the condition. Now, researchers report in a small, early trial that an experimental antidepressant may be a safe and effective new option.

“We need more treatments for depression,” said Dr. Jeffrey Borenstein, president of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation in New York City. “Current treatments for depression are effective for many people, but they don’t work for everyone.”

“This study looks at a new, potential medication with a different mechanism of action than currently available antidepressants,” said Borenstein, who was not involved in the study.

The drug, known only as NSI-189, is meant to stimulate production of new brain cells — a process called neurogenesis.

This phase 1 study included 24 adults with major depression who were randomly assigned to take either the drug or a placebo for 28 days. They were then followed for another 56 days.

Patients who took the drug showed improvements in depression symptoms. And, the effects appeared to last for several months after they stopped taking the drug, according to the study published online Dec. 8 in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

The study was funded by Neuralstem, the company that is developing the drug.

“Our study finds that this novel compound promotes neurogenesis in a specific part of the brain, is well tolerated and may have robust antidepressant effects,” study author Dr. Maurizio Fava, executive director of the Clinical Trials Network & Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said in a hospital news release.

“If its efficacy is confirmed in larger trials, this drug could be an important new option for patients not helped by currently available medications,” Fava said.

Rates of side effects were similar between those taking the new drug and those on a placebo, the study authors said.

A larger trial of the drug is already underway.

Borenstein said that, “Although this is a small preliminary study, the results are promising and indicate that more work should be done.”

Dr. Alan Manevitz is a clinical psychiatrist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. He said “the novelty of this new potential medicine is that it targets creating new brain cells in a specific area of the brain named the hippocampus — an area of the brain associated with learning and memory. Hippocampal loss of nerve cells has been shown to be associated with depression.”

“This study is important because most of the 20-plus antidepressants available work on treating specific chemicals that work on the communication of emotions encoded in the brain,” Manevitz added. However, “each one of these drugs only helps about a third of patients with major depressive disorder,” he said.

If future clinical trials pan out, the new drug could be “an enhanced strategy and option for many patients not currently helped,” Manevitz said.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about antidepressants.

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Fewer Americans Struggling With Medical Bills

TUESDAY, Dec. 8, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Fewer American families are struggling to pay medical bills, a new U.S. government report says.

During the first six months of 2015, about 44.5 million people under 65 (16.5 percent) had problems paying their medical bills. That number was down from 56.5 million (21 percent) in 2011, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

The report also found that fewer children were in families that had trouble paying their medical bills. In 2011, 23 percent of children under 17 lived in families that had difficulty paying for medical care. During the first six months of 2015, that percentage had dropped to 18 percent, the report revealed.

In the first six months of 2015, nearly 30 percent of Americans younger than 65 without insurance were in families that had trouble paying medical bills in the past 12 months. About 22 percent of those with public insurance, and 13 percent of those with private insurance who were under 65 were in families that had difficulty paying medical bills in the past year, the report said.

Unsurprisingly, poor or near-poor families were more likely to struggle to pay medical bills. In the first six months of 2015, about one-quarter of those who were poor or near-poor and under 65 were in families that had trouble paying for health care in the past year. Of those who weren’t poor, just 12 percent were in families that had problems with their health care bills in the previous year, the report said.

NCHS researchers Robin Cohen and Jeannine Schiller used information from the National Health Interview Survey from January 2011 through June 2015 for the new report, which was released Tuesday.

More information

Healthcare.gov has information about getting health insurance.

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Ovarian Cyst Condition in Mom May Raise Odds for Autism in Child

TUESDAY, Dec. 8, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Children of mothers with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) may have an increased risk for autism, new research from Sweden suggests.

This study is the first to find such a link, the researchers said. And, they added, the findings support the theory that exposure to sex hormones early in life may play an important role in a child’s risk of autism.

PCOS is a disorder in which a hormonal imbalance can cause changes in the menstrual cycle, ovarian cysts, trouble getting pregnant and other health problems. It affects 5 percent to 15 percent of women of childbearing age, the study authors said.

“We found that a maternal diagnosis of PCOS increased the risk of autism spectrum disorder in the offspring by 59 percent,” lead researcher Kyriaki Kosidou, of the department of public health sciences at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said in an institute news release.

However, the study only shows an association between PCOS and autism in offspring. It wasn’t designed to prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

The investigators identified about 24,000 children with an autism spectrum disorder born in Sweden between 1984 and 2007. The researchers then compared them to 200,000 children without the developmental disorder.

“The risk [of autism] was further increased among mothers with both PCOS and obesity, a condition common to PCOS that is related to more severely increased androgens,” Kosidou explained.

Androgens are sex hormones responsible for the development of male characteristics. These hormones also play a role in the development of the brain and central nervous system, the researchers said. Women with PCOS have higher levels of androgens, even during pregnancy, according to background information in the news release.

The study was published online Dec. 8 in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

“It is too early to make specific recommendations to clinicians in terms of care for pregnant women with PCOS, though increased awareness of this relationship might facilitate earlier detection of [autism] in children whose mothers have been diagnosed with PCOS,” study senior author Renee Gardner, of the department of public health sciences at the Karolinska Institute, said in the news release.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has more about autism.

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Most Teens’ Physical Activity Occurs at School

By Tara Haelle
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Dec. 8, 2015 (HealthDay News) — About half of young teens’ daily physical activity occurs at school, but it accounts for just a fraction of their time there, according to a new study.

“We knew that schools were a major source of physical activity for kids. But, we were surprised that kids spent only 4.8 percent of their time at school physically active, the lowest of all locations,” said study lead author Jordan Carlson, director of community-engaged health research at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.

Besides helping to prevent obesity and chronic diseases, physical activity has benefits for bone health, brain development, academic achievement, on-task behavior and mental health, Carlson added.

“Kids have a natural instinct to move around, and schools can support this by providing more opportunities for students to be active, such as by incorporating physical activity into the classroom,” he added.

The study also found that walking to school added an extra 15 to 20 minutes of overall physical activity to children’s days. Yet the proportion of kids who walk to school has dropped from 40 percent a few decades ago to 15 percent today, Carlson said.

Building schools closer to students’ homes, improving pedestrian safety, and utilizing drop-off zones when the distance to school is too far “could have meaningful impacts on their overall physical activity and health,” Carlson said.

The findings were published online Dec. 8 in the journal Pediatrics.

The researchers measured how much moderate to vigorous physical activity nearly 550 teens received daily by outfitting them with a GPS tracker and an accelerometer for an average of seven days.

The group of teens ranged in age from 12 to 16 and was diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity, family income and neighborhood type (easily walkable or not). They lived in either the Seattle or Baltimore-Washington, D.C. metropolitan areas.

The teens spent about 42 percent of their waking time at school and a little more than a quarter of their time at home. They also spent about 13 percent of their time in their neighborhoods and 14 percent of their time elsewhere.

Overall, the study found they spent an average of 39 minutes a day engaged in moderate to vigorous physical activity — significantly less than the 60 minutes recommended for healthy development and obesity prevention.

On school days, just over half of this activity time occurred at school, the study found.

When averaged across a full week including weekends, teens got about 42 percent of their total physical activity while at school. They got about 10 percent of their total physical activity each week in their neighborhood or around their school, the study found.

Despite declining budgets, it’s important that schools not neglect the value of physical education, said Dr. Jennifer Beck, associate director of sports medicine at the Orthopaedic Institute for Children in Los Angeles.

This is especially true at a time when obesity in children has swelled along with increases in diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and malnutrition in U.S. children, she added.

“The most important implication coming out of this study is that we as a society — including parents, educators, health care providers and government officials — need to do more to promote a healthy, active lifestyle among our at-risk adolescents,” Beck said. However, she cautioned that this is a complex topic and said readers “should take care in drawing specific, concrete conclusions from the data.”

Still, studies have shown that kids learn better when they have time for physical activity, “even at the expense of decreased study time for academic subjects,” Beck said.

The current findings also reveal how much teens’ lives have changed since decades past, before computers and multimedia sources were fixtures in the home, said Dr. Danelle Fisher. Fisher is vice chair of pediatrics at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif.

“Kids rode bikes and walked to school or friends’ houses,” Fisher said. “Parents and kids have more structured activities today, which include lots of programmed extracurricular activities, and teens spend less free time around home.”

For kids to get enough physical activity, changes need to occur at home and at school, Carlson said. Schools need well-trained physical education teachers, recess for younger kids, classroom physical activity and play before and after school, he said. Parents can also limit their children’s screen time and advocate locally for more pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, he added.

More information

For more about physical activity recommendations for teens, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Kids With Asthma, Allergies May Face Higher Heart Risk Factors: Study

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Dec. 8, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A new study suggests that kids with asthma or allergies like hay fever may face as much as a doubling of their risk of high blood pressure and high cholesterol — even if they aren’t overweight.

However, the risk to any one child remains low, experts stressed, and it’s not clear whether allergic diseases directly cause these problems. It’s possible that another factor — such as a lack of exercise — could play a role.

Still, study author Dr. Jonathan Silverberg, said, “You have common health problems that turn out to have a lot more serious consequences in some kids.”

According to Silverberg, an associate professor of dermatology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, prior research has shown that adults with allergic disorders are more likely to have risk factors for heart disease. His own research has hinted at links between the skin condition known as eczema, unhealthy life choices such as less physical activity and smoking, and heart disease risk factors. The new study aims to understand whether similar connections might exist in children.

To find out, Silverberg’s team examined the results of a 2012 U.S. survey of households and focused on findings regarding more than 13,000 children up to the age of 17. The survey found that about 14 percent of kids in that age range had asthma, 12 percent had eczema and 16 percent had hay fever.

The new study finds that kids with asthma and hay fever were more likely than other kids to be obese or overweight, and they also had about double the risk of high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

Extra risk remained even after the researchers adjusted their statistics to account for obesity as a factor, Silverberg’s group said. The kids did not have a higher risk of diabetes, however.

And the actual increase in risk for high blood pressure and high cholesterol wasn’t large. For the kids with asthma and hay fever, the overall level of risk only grew only by about 1 percentage point, the researchers noted.

So, “clearly, not every kid with allergic disease has increased cardiovascular disease,” Silverberg said. “Based on other studies, we suspect that it is mostly kids with more severe disease, though we were not able to examine that in this particular study.”

Kids with another autoimmune illness, the skin condition eczema, didn’t appear to face a higher risk of high cholesterol and high blood pressure. They did tend to pack on more extra pounds, however.

So what might possibly link allergies, asthma and heart issues?

It’s possible that inflammation related to allergies could boost cholesterol and blood pressure level, said Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at University of California, Los Angeles. Indeed, researchers have linked diseases like psoriasis that cause inflammation to an increased risk of heart disease, he noted.

Silverberg said it’s also possible that the diseases could cause problems through other means, such as poor sleep.

For his part, Fonarow speculated that differences in physical activity, diet and caloric intake between kids with and without the conditions could make a difference.

What to do?

Fonarow said parents shouldn’t be especially concerned about the findings. But Silverberg said parents should understand that allergy-related diseases, especially when severe, can lead to other health problems.

“It is important to recognize these harmful effects in order to prevent them or treat them early,” he said. “Parents should talk to their pediatrician and specialists if their child has allergic disease that is not well-controlled or if they notice that their children are gaining weight or not able to do things other kids their age can do as a result of allergic disease.”

And physicians could screen kids with severe allergic disease for high blood pressure and cholesterol, he said.

The study appears Dec. 8 in the Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology.

More information

For more about allergies in kids, try the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

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Wiped After Traveling? Here’s How to Keep Your Energy Up

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I’m always wiped out after traveling. How do I keep my energy up?

Even when jet lag isn’t a factor, traveling can disrupt your regular diet, sleep and exercise routines, which can affect your energy level. Try to stick to your usual healthy food choices rather than falling prey to road-trip junk food. Also be sure to stay active and hydrated, and get plenty of sleep the nights before and after you travel (that means no staying up past midnight to pack!) so you’ll bounce back more easily the next day.

When you’re starting to feel burned-out during the trip, rev up your energy with a quick snack that has some protein and natural sugar; try a handful of trail mix with nuts and dried fruit. And when you reach your destination, stretch for a bit and exercise, even for 20 minutes—it’ll go a long way toward helping you feel rejuvenated.

Health‘s medical editor, Roshini Rajapaksa, MD, is associate professor of medicine at the NYU School of Medicine and co-founder of Tula Skincare.

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More Former Inmates Getting Medicaid Under Obamacare, Study Finds

MONDAY, Dec. 7, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A growing number of former inmates are getting Medicaid coverage, which benefits both them and society, a new report suggests.

The expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) means that low-income men can now get health coverage.

This study found that in one year, a small number of programs designed to ease Medicaid enrollment helped more than 112,000 people newly released from prison or jail — mostly men — get coverage previously not available to them.

“Typically, men who have serious health conditions ranging from schizophrenia to heart disease to diabetes who received medication while in prison or jail are released with as little as a week or two supply of medication and no access to a doctor,” said study leader Colleen Barry. She is a professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

“Now, depending on where they live, many are qualifying for health insurance through Medicaid as they leave jail or prison. We found that a handful of innovative programs have been created to enroll people in Medicaid and connect them with medical care upon release,” she said in a Hopkins news release.

If such programs are expanded to more parts of the United States, even more former inmates will have access to health care. Not only would that improve their well-being, but research suggests it may reduce their risk of re-offending, the Hopkins researchers said.

Currently, only 30 states and the District of Columbia have expanded Medicaid eligibility. And most jurisdictions in those locations do not have other programs to help newly released inmates get coverage, according to the authors of the study published Dec. 7 in the journal Health Affairs.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has more about Medicaid eligibility.

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Many U.S. Primary Care Docs Feel Unprepared for Complex Cases: Survey

By Karen Pallarito
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Dec. 7, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Compared to their international peers, doctors on the front lines of U.S. medicine feel they aren’t prepared to treat the sickest patients, a new survey finds.

Nearly one in four U.S. primary care doctors said their practices aren’t well-prepared to care for patients with complex medical needs. In both Germany and the Netherlands, just 12 percent of primary care doctors reported that their practices weren’t well-prepared.

The United States has the highest incidence of chronic disease in the 10-nation survey. Yet, on many measures of care management, the United States ranks in the middle or bottom of the pack.

“We need a strong primary care infrastructure and we don’t have it, and we haven’t had it for a long time, and it’s actually getting worse,” said Dr. David Blumenthal, president of The Commonwealth Fund.

The survey was published in the December issue of Health Affairs.

In many countries with strong primary care systems, doctors act as gatekeepers, and nurses and care managers help manage complex patients, explained study lead author Robin Osborn, a vice president at The Commonwealth Fund.

Study co-author Eric Schneider, senior vice president of The Commonwealth Fund, said better primary care requires better teamwork.

The new survey culled data from more than 11,000 primary care physicians in Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

In the United States, primary care doctors include general and family physicians, internists and pediatricians.

The report exposed gaps in care coordination, communication, access to care and use of information technology across the 10 industrialized nations.

Only one in three U.S. doctors says he or she is always notified when a patient is discharged from the hospital or seen in the emergency department. The Netherlands leads all nations on those measures, with two in three doctors saying they hear from the hospital or emergency department.

In the Netherlands and Great Britain, more than 80 percent of doctors frequently make home care visits; in the United States, only 6 percent do so.

In nine of the 10 surveyed countries, doctors said they feel least prepared to manage severe mental health and substance abuse problems. Confidence levels are lowest in the United States and Sweden, with fewer than one in six saying they are well-prepared.

“We really operate in different silos,” said Dr. Nitin Damle, a private practice physician in Wakefield, R.I., and president of the American College of Physicians. “We have the behavioral health system and we have the medical system and, really, the two don’t communicate that well,” he said.

The survey points out other shortfalls and barriers to better patient care:

• Fewer than half of U.S. doctors feel prepared to manage patients with dementia (47 percent), those needing palliative care (41 percent) and people needing home care (46 percent).
• Only 39 percent of U.S. primary care doctors said their practices arrange for patients to see a doctor or nurse after hours without having to visit the emergency department, and that was the lowest percentage among the 10 countries surveyed.
• More than half of U.S. doctors said time spent on insurance issues is a major problem, a feeling shared by their colleagues in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland — all countries that have multi-payer private insurance systems.
• Primary care doctors in the United States are least likely to feel the health care system works well, needing only minor changes. Only 16 percent agreed with that statement.

There were a few bright spots in the survey. Having made major strides in the adoption of electronic medical records in recent years, 57 percent of U.S. primary care doctors said patients can communicate with them by e-mail. Sixty percent — substantially more than in any other country — said patients can access their medical records electronically.

The study authors called for continued experimentation with new care delivery and payment models.

Damle, who is also a clinical assistant professor of medicine at Brown University’s Alpert School of Medicine in Providence, said assembling teams of providers to manage chronic-care patients requires a lot of money.

“That’s a major stumbling block to any of this really happening,” he said. “We need to be adequately reimbursed to provide these services.”

More information

The Commonwealth Fund report shows how primary care in the U.S. stacks up against other nations .

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Hormone Therapy for Prostate Cancer Tied to Possible Alzheimer’s Risk

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Dec. 7, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Hormone therapy for prostate cancer might dramatically increase a man’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, a large-scale analysis of health data suggests.

Men who underwent androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) for their prostate cancer had nearly twice the risk of Alzheimer’s, when compared to prostate cancer patients who didn’t receive hormone therapy, researchers found.

The risk increased even more if men received hormone therapy for longer than a year, said study lead author Dr. Kevin Nead, a radiation oncology resident at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia.

“We found that the people who got androgen deprivation therapy had a higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease, and the people who were on ADT the longest had the greatest risk of Alzheimer’s,” Nead said. “In our study, there was a suggestion that this is a dose-dependent effect.”

However, the researchers added that the study didn’t prove a link between hormone therapy for prostate cancer and a risk of Alzheimer’s disease, and more investigation into a possible connection is needed.

Male sex hormones called androgens have been proven to fuel the growth of prostate cancer cells, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

To slow the growth of prostate tumors, doctors sometimes use drugs to reduce androgen levels in the body or block the action of androgens.

This tactic has been a mainstay of prostate cancer treatment since the 1940s, and currently about a half-million U.S. men receive ADT as a treatment for prostate cancer, the study authors said in background information.

But doctors have started to suspect that androgen therapy may also have an effect on a patient’s brain activity, said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical and scientific officer for the American Cancer Society.

“There have been suspicions in the community,” Brawley said. “What we hear from patients is, ‘I can’t concentrate as well, I can’t think as well,’ but you see that with a number of other drugs.”

These thought-and-memory symptoms appear to overlap with the ones seen with Alzheimer’s, Nead said. So, the researchers decided to investigate a possible association between androgen deprivation therapy and the degenerative neurological disease.

The researchers scanned the records of about 5.5 million patients from two hospitals — Stanford Health Care in Palo Alto, Calif., and Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. From this pool, they identified almost 17,000 patients with prostate cancer that hadn’t spread elsewhere in their bodies, including almost 2,400 men who had been treated with androgen deprivation therapy.

The researchers then reviewed the records to see which of these patients had a subsequent diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.

Patients who had been treated with ADT had an 88 percent increased risk of an Alzheimer’s diagnosis within an average three-year follow-up period, compared to those who didn’t receive the hormone therapy, the researchers found.

Even worse, men treated with ADT for longer than 12 months had an Alzheimer’s risk more than double that of prostate cancer patients not treated with the hormone therapy, the study authors said.

Experts said there are several ways that male hormones might influence Alzheimer’s risk.

For one thing, androgens appear to keep circulating levels of a protein called beta amyloid low in a person’s bloodstream, said Keith Fargo, director of scientific programs and outreach for the Alzheimer’s Association.

Beta amyloid tends to clump together in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, forming amyloid plaques that are one of the hallmarks of the disease, Fargo said. However, no one is yet sure what role amyloid plaques play in the development of Alzheimer’s.

Androgen deprivation therapy might also affect the health of a person’s blood vessels or other important systems, which in turn could affect their brain function, Nead said.

Although the results from this report are dramatic, the experts unanimously said it’s much too soon to give any medical advice based on the findings.

Researchers can’t prove a direct cause-and-effect link between ADT and Alzheimer’s in an observational study like this, Nead said. Some other unknown variable might be influencing the results.

“Given that it’s a first-time association in a retrospective analysis, this study helps inform future research but it’s not appropriate at this point to make treatment decisions off of it,” Nead said.

Fargo agreed. “I don’t think any doctors are going to make different decisions based on this single study,” he said. “If your doctor has put you on this medication for your prostate cancer treatment, you should continue it. Consult with your physician, but don’t stop taking your medication based on a study like this.”

“Does this definitively prove a link? No,” Brawley said. “Does this give us some reason to be concerned? Yes. This study tells me that we as a medical community need to be very strict and rigorous in terms of who we treat with hormonal therapy.”

The study was published Dec. 7 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

More information

Visit the U.S. National Cancer Institute for more on androgen deprivation therapy.

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