Does ADT Raise Your Risk of Alzheimer’s?

Part Four of Four

It’s challenging enough that you need to be on androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) in the first place.   Now, in addition to prostate cancer, you have to worry about the risk of dementia?

Some studies have shown an increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease, and cognitive impairment and depression are known problems that can go along with ADT. We’ll come back to those in a moment.

There is some reassuring news: a new study, the largest of its kind, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, suggests that your risk for Alzheimer’s disease does not go up with ADT.   The study was led by Clement Joseph McDonald, M.D., of the National Institutes of Health. It involves a massive database: the medical records of men with advanced prostate cancer – more than 1.2 million of them, age 67 and older, enrolled in Medicare.

Between 2001 and 2014, 35 percent of these men were treated with ADT (either through drugs such as Lupron or with surgical castration). Of these men, about 9 percent developed Alzheimer’s disease, nearly 19 percent developed dementia, and about a third died without developing either condition.

Now, here’s where it gets a little complicated: the unadjusted rates for dementia in men who were on ADT were slightly higher than for the men not on ADT – nearly 39 percent compared to nearly 33 percent. But when McDonald and colleagues accounted for factors such as other cancer treatment, other health conditions, and age, they found that the risk of Alzheimer’s was not significantly higher in the men on ADT. In fact, it was even slightly lower, but this “possibly was attributable to the high death rate.” In fact, the average time of follow-up was about five and a half years.

If you’re reading this and you think, “Oh, no, they didn’t live very long, and that’s why they didn’t get dementia,” well, you may be right. But treatment for advanced cancer is getting better all the time, and it’s not clear from this study whether these men went on to have second-line treatment, such as abiraterone, enzalutamide, taxotere, or any of the immunotherapy drugs currently being tested in clinical trials across the country.

So take heart: New and better treatments are here, and what happened to these men does not define what’s going to happen to you.

But here’s where the grain of salt comes in: Some of these men did develop dementia. So even if it wasn’t technically Alzheimer’s, the name of the problem doesn’t really matter if you’re the one who’s got it. What do we make of this?

As we’ve discussed before, ADT can cause metabolic syndrome: it can raise your blood pressure, your blood sugar level, your cholesterol and triglycerides, and it’s very easy to gain weight – particularly right in the belly, which raises your risk for diabetes, heart attack, and stroke. You need to burn more calories than you’ve ever had to in your life just to lose a pound. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done – it can. You just have to work harder. But you can do this, and it helps if you don’t eat a lot of carbs.

If you are on ADT, you also need to do your best to help out your cardiovascular system with exercise. It doesn’t have to be anything more strenuous than walking; just keep that blood flowing and the heart pumping, and what’s good for the heart is good for the brain. Which means, you can help prevent cognitive damage by staying active. Many men with ADT also have temporary depression. This also is improved by exercise – but if you need it, medication can help these symptoms, too.

In addition to the book, I have written about this story and much more about prostate cancer on the Prostate Cancer Foundation’s website, pcf.org. The stories I’ve written are under the categories, “Understanding Prostate Cancer,” and “For Patients.”  As Patrick Walsh and I have said for years in our books, Knowledge is power: Saving your life may start with you going to the doctor, and knowing the right questions to ask. I hope all men will put prostate cancer on their radar. Get a baseline PSA blood test in your early 40s, and if you are of African descent, or if cancer and/or prostate cancer runs in your family, you need to be screened regularly for the disease. Many doctors don’t do this, so it’s up to you to ask for it.

 ©Janet Farrar Worthington