Healthshare - Australia's interactive health network

Hormone Therapy Is Not Dangerous!

It is time to undo the damage caused by fear that was engendered by the reports of American studies. Since 2002, when results from the American studies WHI and HERS caused headlines in our newspapers, many women and their doctors have avoided using or prescribing HRT. It is now becoming clear that this may be to the detriment of many women and based on wrong interpretation of the data.   At the fourth Asia Pacific Menopause Federation Scientific Meeting and 14th Australasian Menopause Society Congress in Sydney last year and the AMS  Congress in Brisbane this year the issues of possible increased incidence of breast cancer, heart attack and stroke with the use of HT were re-examined and found to be misleading. The take home message from these meetings was that HT used appropriately in women at menopause has more advantages than disadvantages.  The American study HERS which pointed the finger at HT as a cause of stroke or other cardiovascular problems was done in older women who already had risk factors for heart attack and stroke - such as smoking, hypertension and raised cholesterol These women were not suffering the acute symptoms of menopause. Wrong studies on the wrong women at the wrong age produced wrong results which do not refer to healthy younger women who take HT to control acute menopause symptoms such as hot flushes, sweats and sleep disturbance. The use of transdermal oestrogens (such as patches) rather than oral may be the safer way .  The long term consequences of deprivation of oestrogen are already becoming apparent. Dry vagina. painful intercourse and recurrent urinary tract infection are preventable with the use of oestrogens vaginally and are becoming a common problem in older women. Osteoporosis can also be prevented, in those at risk, with HT given at menopause.  So how have women been so misinformed? How can we provide assurance? I would like the newspapers to help redress the effects of wrongly interpreted information from the American studies which has made women afraid to take HT and many doctors scared to prescribe it