Living Well With SoHum Health: Good News for a Change

SoHum Health aims to minimize harm and maximize vitality by providing an informative column to the community.

Hope for Sufferers of Extreme PMS:  Severe premenstrual syndrome, known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) brings a monthly curse of symptoms including depression, rage, anxiety, emotional distress, and even suicidal thoughts to women of reproductive age throughout the world.

Once thought to be an imbalance in hormone levels, evidence is now showing that whether women experience the garden variety PMS or the overwhelming symptoms of PMDD is linked to a faulty reaction of one of the brain’s self-soothing mechanisms. Progesterone’s effect on the brain’s GABA-A receptors turns the normally calm-inducing mechanism upside down, creating the extreme stress reaction of PMDD. Neuro-imaging has shown that women who suffer from PMDD have heightened activity in the amygdala, a part of the brain responsible for processing fear, and lowered activity in the parts of the brain helpful in controlling emotional responses.

Several drugs are currently being studied to modify or block these abnormal effects on the brain. A recent randomized, controlled trial showed promising results from the drug ulipristal acetate administered to those with PMDD, as it prevented progesterone’s ability to trigger the brain malfunction.

Up to 8% of reproductive age women experience the debilitating effects of PMDD, causing severe detriment to quality of life.

Potential Cure for Chronic Hepatitis B: This disease, the leading cause of liver cancer, affects over 240 million people worldwide. A report in the New England Journal of Medicine states that trials of a new drug called Bepirovirsen enabled 20% of Chronic Hep B patients to achieve a functional cure, defined as medication-free control of the virus for 6 months. This is a marked improvement over current rates of “functional cure” stalled at 3% after 8-10 years of therapy.

Hepatitis B is the most common of the five types of hepatitis, and is the most contagious, transmitted through body fluids. The virus can live outside the body for a week. Many carriers are not aware they have the disease, as it can progress symptom-free and often become unwitting transmitters to others.

Patients with stages of the disease well controlled by anti-viral drugs are most likely to benefit from the new therapy.

Cigarette smoking drops to all-time low: In the 1960’s, as many as 42% of Americans smoked cigarettes. As evidence mounted over the decades following, smoking came to be considered the single most dangerous risk to health in the US, being a leading cause of cancer, stroke, and heart disease.

In 2024 the rate dipped to just 10% of Americans smoking for the first time since the rate was tracked, and now that rate has dropped even lower, to just one in eleven, or just a fraction over 9 percent.

Considered a major achievement for public health awareness, the low rate has likely saved thousands of lives and as much as $7.3 billion in healthcare costs.

Pancreatic Cancer Outlook Improves: Of all the major forms of cancer, pancreatic cancer carries the most devastating statistics. Only 13% of those diagnosed will live 5 years. However, recent developments in both early detection and treatment are improving the outlook for the nearly 60,000 new pancreatic cancer patients diagnosed in the US each year.

Results from a trial using the new drug Daraxonrasib have shown much longer survival rates among metastatic cases, and improved quality of life for those survivors. Daraxonrasib will likely become the new standard of care based on these results, replacing chemotherapy, with expected approval by the FDA. The trial was carried out with 400 pancreatic cancer patients who were divided into two groups, one receiving a second line of chemotherapy, and the other Daraxonrasib. Those receiving the new drug lived 7 months longer than the chemotherapy group, and their disease did not progress for over 7 months, compared to just 3 months progression-free for the chemotherapy patients.

Additionally, as with most cancers, early detection is the key to survival with pancreatic cancer, with 44% surviving five years when the cancer has not spread. That percentage drops to 17% when there is local spread, and 3% when metastasis to distant areas of the body has occured.

A Harvard Medical School study published in 2023 described an AI-based early detection model that analyzes health records of those categorized as high risk for the disease. When applied to patient records, it is anticipated that the rate of early detection will substantially increase survival.

Beyond LASIK for Improved Vision: LASIK therapy has had mostly positive effects on vision problems such as near-sightedness, far-sightedness, and astigmatism. However, there can be side effects such as dry eye, haloing, glare, and a weakened corneal structure due to the fact that LASIK is a form of surgery that removes part of the cornea to correct the faulty shape that leads to vision problems.

A new technique, known as electromechanical reshaping (EMR) has been discovered and developed by researchers at Occidental College and the University of California. The non-surgical technique shows promise for a less-invasive treatment that does not compromise the integrity of the cornea’s structure. The cornea has functional and protective roles essential to vision, so the new technique’s ability to preserve the cornea intact while remolding it to correct vision deficiencies is less invasive and simpler than LASIK. Studies on rabbit eyeballs have so far shown positive results.