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The latest hormone replacement therapy information has shown the serious risks linked directly to the use of the estrogen/progestin combination, leaving the 40% of U.S. women that start some form of hormone replacement therapy in their menopause years uncertain of their future. The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study was designed to look at the long-term effects of estrogen and progestin that was believed for years to be a preventive measure for heart attacks and stroke. The July 9, 2002 announcement provided hormone replacement therapy information indicating this belief was completely opposite of the truth.
For decades the debate over the long-term benefits and risks of hormone replacement therapy has existed that was completely shattered when the WHI study was made public. Instead of providing women with a lasting youthful appearance and preventive health measures, hormone replacement therapy increases the risk of breast cancer by 26%, heart disease by 23%, stroke by 38%, and blood clots by 100%. This new hormone replacement therapy information shocked the researchers so much that the study was halted three years earlier than planned and the results were released prior to the Journal of the American Medical Association’s publication because of the millions of women that were under the wrong impression of what their menopausal hormone replacement was providing them.
Women everywhere were shocked with the hormone replacement therapy information and doctors were unable to answer the phones constantly ringing off the hook to respond to their questions about the news. Up until that point, medical experts had been encouraging doctors to have almost every woman begin hormone replacement therapy when beginning menopause. The new hormone replacement therapy information found by the WHI study reversed everything doctors and medical experts had believed and practiced for decades.
As time progressed, a more scientific reasoning for hormone replacement therapy was given, indicating estrogen could help prevent heart disease by filling the lost estrogen women naturally lose as they age. Researchers soon realized estrogen given by itself was not safe for women with an intact uterus because it will increase the risk of uterine cancer. By adding progestin and estrogen together researchers believed this would cure that risk. If you would like to receive more hormone replacement therapy information, contact us.
Long-term hormone replacement therapy, with both the estrogen and progestin, was believed to be so beneficial to women that doctors were shocked to discover what little scientific evidence supported this idea. There was not one single study that concretely showed this belief was truth and that hormone replacement therapy was really as necessary as doctors had come to believe it was. In the 1970s the National Institute on Aging conducted the largest study done on hormone replacement therapy. This study did not have one single woman in it.
Increasing pressure from congresswomen and lobbying female groups led to the 1991 WHI study involving 16,000 healthy women for the study on estrogen and progestin. The study was a double-bind, randomized, controlled trial that is the most rigorous type of investigation scientists know how to conduct. Half of the participating women were randomly assigned to take the hormone replacement therapy combination while the other half was given a placebo. Both the doctors and the women were unaware of what group they were in.
In 1999, the first indication that hormone replacement therapy had serious risks surfaced when the monitoring board in charge of the WHI study saw an unexpected increase in the risk of blood clots and heart attacks in the women on the estrogen/progestin combination. The results were shocking because most doctors were under the impression that hormone replacement therapy protected against cardiovascular disease. While this evidence became available, the study continued based on the reasoning that cardiovascular benefits may take longer to appear. By spring 2002, the likelihood of heart attacks and blood clots in the lungs and legs were present, but also an increased risk of breast cancer surfaced. It was after that finding that the study was finally terminated.
If you would like to receive more hormone replacement therapy information, contact us. Not certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.
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