Aug
01
2003

HRT; Findings From The British Million Women Study

By | Cancer, Hormones, Women’s Diseases

 

In the latest issue of the Lancet (Lancet 2003;362:414-415,419-427) a study from Great Britain was published regarding the risk of breast cancer. Over 1 million women were followed from 1996 to 2001. They were in the age group of 50 to 64. Of these 80% were postmenopausal, and these formed the basis of the study. Dr. Valerie Beral (from the Cancer Research group UK in Oxford) was the lead investigator. About half of the women were on various forms of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), the others were not and served as a control. Risks were always expressed in comparison to the controls without any hormone replacements. Here is a tabular summary of the various hormone replacement therapies and their risks of leading to breast cancer.

The relative risk of developing breast cancer did not significantly change whether HRT was taken orally, transdermally or through implanted formulations. Tibolone is a synthetic steroid used for postmenopausal symptoms and treatment of endometriosis.

Dr. Beral’s group has estimated that in Great Britain in the past 10 years about 20,000 additional cases of breast cancer were caused by HRT for menopause among women aged 50 to 64. Out of these about 75% were due to the use of the combination of estrogen/progestin.

HRT; Findings From The British Million Women Study

HRT; Findings From The British Million Women Study

An accompanying editorial by Dr. Chris van Weel stated that “general practitioners should discourage HRT for their patients” and, if used, should last “no longer than 3-6 months”. The investigators of this study suggested that “discontinuing HRT should be suggested in as supportive a way as possible, because no one will benefit from panic or over-reaction”.

Findings from the British Million Women Study on HRT
Detail of hormone replacement: Breast cancer risk compared to control:
overall risk of HRT for all groups of HRT 1.66-fold
women who stopped HRT the previous year 1.14-fold
estrogen only use currently 1.30-fold
estrogen-progestagen combination
 1.88-fold
tibolone users
 1.45-fold
combination HRT user less than 5 years 1.7-fold
combination HRT user more than 5 years 2.21-fold
equine estrogen combined with medroxyprogesterone acetate and taken at least 5 years 2.42-fold
death rates from breast cancer associated with current use of HRT 1.22-fold

Discussion: Please keep in mind that the British authors of this study were using the drug manufactured synthetic hormone-like substances and NOT bio-identical hormones. The outcome with bio-identical hormones would have shown the opposite, namely that women would not have developed heart attacks, strokes or cancer and they would not have died prematurely. Read more about bio-identical hormone replacement in the links below.

Here is a link to a chapter on menopause from Dr. Schilling’s Net Health Book.

This link deals with bioidentical hormone replacement (see lower half of that page).

Last edited October 26, 2014

Jun
01
2003

Hormones After Menopause (HRT) Not For Everybody

By | Hormones, Prevention, Women’s Diseases

Lately there have been several review articles published in the medical literature about hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after menopause for women. A number of longterm follow-up studies have shown that HRT with a combination of estrogen and progesterone hormones is associated with a higher risk of stroke, heart attacks, blood clots and pulmonary embolism. The WAVE trial has recently shown that estrogen replacement does not lead to protection from heart disease or strokes, however exercise and weight loss (from calorie restriction) does.

Two more recent studies add to the story: the one is a study showing that urinary incontinence (=bladder leakage) is much worse on estrogen replacement (HRT) than without it. The other study showed that estrogen replacement leads to dementia of the Alzheimers type.

Here are the details: Dr. Jodi Steinauer (University of California at San Francisco) reported about the findings during the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology meeting at New Orleans. The study was designed to see whether estrogen/progestin hormone replacement would improve bladder function with aging. Episodes of urine loss when coughing, sneezing or running (urinary incontinence) were observed by the 1208 women from the HERS trial (Heart and Estrogen/Progestin Replacement Study) who were followed along for 4 years. The women were either given a hormone tablet (estrogen/progestin) or a “fake” pill with no hormones (placebo pill). To the surprise of the investigators the opposite of what was expected happened: The HRT group did much worse than the placebo group.

Hormones After Menopause (HRT) Not For Everybody

Hormones After Menopause (HRT) Not For Everybody

After one year urinary incontinence was up 2 to 3-fold in the HRT group and after 4 years this number was up 3 to 5-fold. Of the women who did not have stress incontinence in the beginning, only 38% of the placebo group developed it over 4 years, whereas in the HRT group 54% developed it. The authors concluded that HRT replacement therapy in menopause should be avoided (reported in The Medical Post, page 1 and 86, May 13, 2003).

Recently a new study (JAMA 2203;289:2651-62) showed that dementia was double the rate in older postmenopausal women on HRT than in the placebo group. 4532 postmenopausal women aged 65 years or older from the Women’s Health Initiative’s memory study (“WHIMS”) were followed by researchers for 4 years. The HRT therapy consisted of Prempro (Premarin and Provera). None of the women had dementia in the beginning of the study. After 4 years 21 of the placebo group had developed it (age related), the Prempro group developed 40 dementia cases. It is unclear why the HRT group had developed dementia, but the authors of the study theorize that perhaps a series of mini-strokes would be responsible for this.

In summary, it appears now with more evidence from the literature that HRT should only be given to postmenopausal women in a few selected patients under close medical supervision, but that the majority of women likely should not take it. Osteoporosis can be prevented by regular brisk walks, dietary changes with fat reduction and avoidance of refined sugar etc. as another powerful tool to achieve longevity. Keep in mind that these “hormone” replacement trials were regarding Premarine and Provera, both products of the drug industry. The body reads these hormone-like susbstances as estrogen-like substances and gets an overdose with the regular dosaging. Only bio-identical hormones in the right mix will be heart and brain protective and will work against osteoporosis. In short, the study described above was done with the wrong “hormones” and should have been done with bio-identical hormones. In menopause there are all kinds of reasons why a woman should use bioidentical hormones to return to her previous hormone balance, but it needs to be supervised by a knowledgeable physician with experience in this.

Read the truth about bio-identical hormone replacement under the “menopause” link below.

Here is a link to “menopause”: http://www.nethealthbook.com/articles/menopause.php

Last edited December 9, 2012

Apr
01
2003

Menopause And Perimenopause In Women

By | Hormones, Women’s Diseases

In the February 19, 2003, issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association there was an extensive review of the topic of menopause and the time before and after menopause, called “perimenopause”.

The authors, Dr. Lori A. Bastian, from Duke University, and colleagues critically reviewed 1,246 articles on this topic and identified 16 studies that were accepted as being reliable regarding the review of this topic.

They were interested in finding menopause symptoms, signs and blood tests that would be reliable in terms of assessing whether a woman would be approaching menopause or would be in menopause. The result was that no single test or symptom was reliable, but that a number of tests and symptoms in combination were very helpful.

Menopause And Perimenopause In Women

Menopause And Perimenopause In Women

They measured reliability by “likelihood ratios (LRs)”. What this means is that any value above 1.0 is significant, but the higher the number, the more reliable and important is this fact or sign. I summarized the findings in table form below.

Results of a Review Study on Menopause in Women
(modifed according to Feb.19, 2003, issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association)
Findings:
 Likelihood ratio (LR): Comments (by Dr. Ray Schilling):
self assessment of going through the transition 1.83 this is based on the effects of the changing hormones on the woman and how she feels it
is affecting her
symptoms of hot flashes 3.10 lack of estrogen from ovaries leads to a lability of the skin blood vessels with increased skin perfusion as well as stimulation of the sweat glands
night sweats 1.90
 sleep pattern is changed and there is a loss of the day / night rhythm of skin perfusion
vaginal dryness 2.64 due to lack of estrogen
high follicle-stimulating
hormone levels		 3.06 feedback from estrogen missing, which stimulates the hypothalamus of the brain to produce more
FSH hormone
low inhibin levels 2.05 this is a newer test, which is more specific than the FSH test and also has some importance in fertility work-ups
Self-assessment of perimenopausal status 0.25 this is not a reliable test as it is below 1.0. It was included to show how good the other tests are in comparison

The authors concluded that there is no need for blood tests for menopause diagnosis in a woman, if several points of the first 4 findings are positive (top part of the table).

Here is a link regarding menopause.

Last edited December 9, 2012