From Memios
The Longevity Letter
Practical writing and video on living strong and active into your 90s. No hype, no supplements to sell. Just what the evidence supports and what it looks like on an ordinary Tuesday.
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MedicationsLovastatin
Lovastatin lowers LDL cholesterol by about a quarter at 20 to 40 mg a day, and the trial evidence that this prevents heart attacks is strong but has to be read separately for people who have and have not already had cardiovascular disease.
2026-10-03 · 37 min read
MedicationsMagnesium salts used as medicines
Well established. Magnesium does three quite separate things depending on the salt and the route.
2026-10-03 · 28 min read
MedicationsMeclizine hydrochloride
The honest summary is that the evidence is thin and mostly about the drug class rather than meclizine itself.
2026-10-03 · 24 min read
MedicationsMedroxyprogesterone acetate
The depot injection prevents pregnancy very reliably, with a 12-month failure rate of zero to 0.7 in five company studies, by stopping the hormone surge that releases an egg.
2026-10-03 · 85 min read
MedicationsMelatonin
Melatonin is a body-clock signal, not a sedative, and the measured effects on sleep are small.
2026-10-03 · 27 min read
MedicationsMemantine
Across high-certainty evidence from around 3,700 participants, memantine produces a small benefit in moderate-to-severe Alzheimer's disease - about 3.11 points on a 100-point cognitive scale over six months - and the reviewers themselves note that effect sizes in this field may be smaller than the minimum clinically important difference.
2026-10-03 · 21 min read
MedicationsMesalamine
The evidence is strongest, and of high certainty, for ulcerative colitis: oral 5-ASA beats placebo both for getting mild-to-moderate disease into remission and for keeping it there.
2026-10-03 · 23 min read
MedicationsMethotrexate
For rheumatoid arthritis the evidence is reasonably strong and reasonably well quantified: a Cochrane review of 7 placebo-controlled trials (732 people) found about 15 more people in 100 reached a major response (ACR50) on methotrexate than on placebo at 52 weeks.
2026-10-03 · 36 min read
MedicationsMethylprednisolone
The evidence is strong that methylprednisolone suppresses inflammation and immune responses, and that this helps in some specific situations and harms in others.
2026-10-03 · 31 min read
MedicationsMetoclopramide
It moves the stomach along and settles nausea, and the evidence is stronger for the nausea than for the stomach.
2026-10-03 · 50 min read
MedicationsMetronidazole
The evidence is strongest for the infections it is licensed to treat: a randomised trial in 623 women found 7 days of metronidazole cleared Trichomonas vaginalis better than a single 2 g dose.
2026-10-03 · 29 min read
MedicationsMirabegron
In three 12-week placebo-controlled trials the absolute effect is small and measurable: about 0.3 to 0.4 fewer wetting episodes and about 0.4 to 0.6 fewer trips to the toilet per 24 hours than placebo.
2026-10-03 · 41 min read
MedicationsMorphine
Morphine reliably relieves moderate to severe cancer pain: across 62 trials pooled by Cochrane, 96% of individually reported participants reached no worse than mild pain.
2026-10-03 · 25 min read
MedicationsMoxifloxacin
For community-acquired pneumonia, meta-analyses of randomised trials put moxifloxacin on a level with beta-lactam-based standard therapy for cure and for death.
2026-10-03 · 27 min read
MedicationsMupirocin
For the one thing it is approved to treat on the skin — impetigo — the evidence is good: a Cochrane review of 68 randomised trials found topical antibiotics cured impetigo about twice as often as placebo.
2026-10-03 · 22 min read
MedicationsNebivolol
It lowers blood pressure about as well as other common classes, and that is the extent of what has been shown for it.
2026-10-03 · 22 min read
MedicationsNifedipine
Well established. Nifedipine lowers blood pressure and relieves angina caused by coronary artery spasm.
2026-10-03 · 26 min read
MedicationsNirmatrelvir; Ritonavir
In the trial that led to approval, EPIC-HR, unvaccinated adults at high risk who started the drug within three days of symptoms had a 0.77% rate of COVID-19 hospitalisation or death by day 28 versus 7.01% on placebo - an absolute difference of 6.32 percentage points.
2026-10-03 · 22 min read
MedicationsNitrofurantoin
Well established. For simple bladder infection in women the evidence is good.
2026-10-03 · 41 min read
MedicationsNitroglycerin
The honest summary is that nitroglycerin is a reliable symptom reliever and a poor outcome drug.
2026-10-03 · 33 min read
MedicationsNorethindrone
For contraception the evidence is reasonably solid: a 2023 review of 54 studies found a median typical-use Pearl Index of 1.63 pregnancies per 100 woman-years for progestin-only pills.
2026-10-03 · 23 min read
MedicationsNortriptyline
Well established. Approved only for depression, nortriptyline is used far more widely than that.
2026-10-03 · 28 min read
MedicationsNystatin
Nystatin kills Candida on contact with the surfaces it touches, and its evidence is correspondingly local and uneven. A systematic review found nystatin pastilles clearly better than placebo for denture-associated candidiasis.
2026-10-03 · 27 min read
MedicationsOfloxacin
Ofloxacin clears common bacterial infections: in a 688-patient randomised trial in women with uncomplicated cystitis a 3-day course eradicated the organism in 97% and achieved clinical success in 96%.
2026-10-03 · 36 min read