It's no mystery estrogen replacement therapy for women is loaded with dangerous side effects. This is not news and something I have been mentioning ever since I first started this newsletter. However, I believe the pendulum has completely swung the other way and many women are suffering as a result.
This occurred to me when I read a study of some 16,000 women between ages 50-79 that found those who take a form of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) sharply increase their risk of developing a blood clot. Researchers found taking HRT -- containing the hormones estrogen and progestin -- doubled the risk of venous thrombosis for all women who took it for five years. And the risk was significantly higher still for older women, and those who were overweight or obese.
- Venous thrombosis occurred in 167 women, compared with 76 taking a dummy pill.
- Women from ages 60-69 were more than FOUR times more likely to develop a clot.
- Women in their 70s increased their risk by more than SEVEN times.
- The risks experienced by overweight and obese women were more than FOUR times higher than those of normal weight.
Some 65 percent of women on estrogen therapy stopped with the Women's Health Initiative was published in 2002. Many of these women should never have completely stopped. All they needed to do is change the TYPE of estrogen and progesterone they were using.
Synthetic progesterones, or progestins like Provera, are responsible for nearly all of the side effects and should never be used in post-menopausal hormone therapy. Additionally, the most popular estrogen used, Premarin, came from horses. One should not use animal estrogens for female human hormone replacement, especially since there are excellent human estrogen hormones available. For most women, all they need is Estradiol which is bioidentical to the major human female hormone.
This has recently become an interest of mine and you will see many more articles published on this topic and it is likely I will be publishing a book on this next year with one of the world's leading natural endocrinologists, Dr. Thierry Hertoghe.
Journal of the American Medical Association Vol. 292 No. 13, October 6, 2004
BBC News October 6, 2004