Word: estrogen
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...idea is controversial, but two researchers claim the 50% decline in average sperm counts over the past 50 years comes from men's increased exposure to the hormone estrogen. Sources of the estrogen, the theory goes, are milk from hormone-dosed cows and water supplies contaminated by chemical spills...
Several drugs which seem to reduce recurrences are also being tested. Hayes cites taconite, an anti-estrogen drug, which has been demonstrated to reduce the likelihood of recurrent tumors, and taxol, a drug derived from Pacific yew trees which has been approved by the FDA for treatment of ovarian cancer and which may be a treatment for breast cancer...
...hubbub about estrogen, its workings are still somewhat mysterious. "We attribute the rise in heart disease to menopause, in which the estrogen supply is diminished," says Columbia's Giardina. "Yet we really don't know how estrogen works." The hormone is known to promote higher levels of HDL, the "good cholesterol" that helps keep arteries clear. Yet estrogen increases HDL by only 10% or 15%, and Giardina suspects that is not enough to account for the dramatic difference in heart disease rates between men and premenopausal women...
Healy finds the Finnish study "very provocative." It suggests that at least part of estrogen's protection is indirect: by triggering the monthly menstrual flow, which carries away iron, it reduces levels of the metal in the bloodstream and lessens the threat of heart attack. When periods cease after menopause, the reasoning goes, iron begins to accumulate and the risk rises...
Besides taking estrogen supplements, "women themselves can do a lot to reduce their risk of heart disease," says Dr. Millicent Higgins, associate director of epidemiology and biometry at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. She recommends that women have their blood pressure checked and treated if it is found to be high, eat diets low in fat, exercise, lose excess weight and stop smoking. But most important of all, she says, is that "women need to be aware that they can have heart attacks...