LAT: Doctors change course again on estrogen therapy

[DeepModem Mom]

Doctors change course again on estrogen therapy
Those who take the hormones shortly after menopause may benefit, researchers say, clarifying earlier findings that scared many away from the treatment.
By Thomas H. Maugh II, Times Staff Writer
June 21, 2007

Nearly five years after government scientists told women that estrogen replacement therapy increased their risks of heart attack and stroke, researchers have largely reversed their position, concluding that the drugs are beneficial for many after all.

Continuing analysis of the original data indicates that the researchers raised a false alarm for most women and that, if women begin taking the hormones shortly after menopause, the drugs do not raise the risk of heart disease and might even lower it.

The latest findings, published in today's New England Journal of Medicine, show that taking estrogen for seven years or more after menopause reduces calcification of the arteries — a key indicator of atherosclerosis — by as much as 60%. High levels of calcification are generally considered a predictor of increased heart attack risk.

The only group of women at significant risk from the drugs are those who delay taking them for at least 10 years after menopause, experts said.

The findings "provide some additional reassurance for women who have been denying themselves relief" from hot flashes and other symptoms of menopause, said Dr. JoAnn Manson of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, who led both the original and the latest research.

The research is based on the Women's Health Initiative, a vast federal study launched in the 1990s....

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-estrogen21jun21,1,3389832,full.story?coll=la-news-science&ctrack=1&cset=true

[YvonneCa]

1. They don't know...

...what the * they are doing. :grr: Kind of like Rummy.

[murielm99]

2. Why take chances?

I took those pills for 6 months after menopause. I renewed the prescription once, and used one more bottle. Then I found out about the risks.

It is not worth it. I could put up with discomfort. It is better than a stroke, heart attack or breast cancer.

[YvonneCa]

8. I agree. n/t

[ima_sinnic]

11. I did about the same thing

--and must agree with a poster downthread who reminds us that Nature Knows Best anyway.
Growing old gracefully now seems more important than trying to fight the fact that I am, indeed, "growing old."

[Mz Pip]

3. When this first study came out

linking hormone therapy to heart attacks, my OB-GYN told me that it would be another 10 years before it would all be sorted out. These subsequent studies will clarify and narrow the original research.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[SoCalDem]

4. Unfortunately, every new "study" comes up with a different result.

Perhaps Mother nature knows best.. It sucks to get old and lose all the benefits that estrogen gave us all those early years, but maybe we are not meant to have that "youthful glow" into our "golden years"..

The drug industry makes tons of money trying to convince us "old ladies" that we can remain young..if only we buy they pills, creams & lotions..but the clock always ticks and at some point it might be easier to just accept the fact that the gene-pool lottoo we won or lost may be the most important thing, and no matter how much we spend, we are all still gonna get old and eventually croak :)

[Firespirit]

14. Nature..

In nature, most women would die shortly after reaching menopause. The life expectancy for women was under 50 until basically the 20th century. "Nature" didn't intend for there to be a large population of aging, infertile people.

Basically, though, with all the research linking uterine cancer with modern rates of low childbirth, I'm going to start with the hormone supplements early, in the form of the new "pill."

I agree that genes are far and away the biggest determinant of our life expectancy and health. I'm in my 20s and already have high blood pressure, despite being underweight and almost a vegetarian. Heart disease is in my family, it killed three uncles and my maternal grandfather in their 60s or early 70s, it caused my mother (who also eats perfectly) to have obscenely high cholesterol, and it'll probably get me and her both someday. Sometimes our DNA just sucks.

[woodsprite]

5. Drug companies must be taking too much of a hit.

I'm getting my estrogen thru the phytoestrogens in Flaxseed since I can't take any script HRT. With my flaxseed, my chillow and my supplements, I'm getting thru surgical menopause pretty well!

[YvonneCa]

7. That's probably...

...true. And I have no intention of changing that. :)

[dkofos]

6. But what about the risk of breast cancer?

About a month ago I read a story that said that there was a possible link to hormone
therapy and breast cancer. It stated that breast cancer cases started to decline over the
last 5 years and may be related to fewer woman on hormone therapy.

[YvonneCa]

9. EXCELLENT question...

...that we don't yet know the answer to.

[emilyg]

13. I had breast cancer

My doc flat out refused to put me on hormone therapy. Good thing.

[kestrel91316]

10. In studying my family genealogy I see that most of my female

ancestors over the centuries, if they didn't die fairly young in childbirth or complications, lived into their 70s and 80s without benefit of modern medicine. And we don't have a family history of heart disease.

I think I'll pass.

[valerief]

12. It's a Big Pharma World, after all. It's a Big Pharma World, after all.

It's a Big Pharma World, after all. It's a Big Pharma World.

[Robbien]

15. With all the boomers aging, it would be a shame to pass up all that profit

Come on boomers, ignore what we said before. We are safe. Buy our drugs.

Okay bigPharma, where's my pay to post paycheck?