Word: estrogenic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...book, The Doctors' Case Against the Pill, is widely credited with sparking the women's-health movement of the '70s. Pioneering author-activist Barbara Seaman began to research the high-estrogen birth-control pill after readers of her magazine column complained of painful symptoms. Seaman's book, which exposed side effects, including stroke, heart attack and depression, led to highly publicized Senate hearings and ultimately to mandated warning labels and patient-information inserts. She was 72 and had lung cancer...
...good news is that many of the other health risks associated with hormone therapy -heart disease and blood clotting, for example - did diminish rapidly once the hormones were stopped. Less welcome is the fact that any benefits derived from estrogen and progestin in keeping bones strong also dissipated soon after the women terminated their hormone therapy...
...While the fact that HT's risks may last longer than any woman would like, doctors stress that this risk is still very small. The overall risk of cancer, for instance, among women taking estrogen and progestin, comes to three extra cases per 1000 women per year. For breast cancer, the study found one extra case per 1000 women per year. "It's helpful to translate the findings into absolute cases," notes Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital. "So for women who are having distressing menopausal symptoms, who are not sleeping...
...Manson also notes that at the time the study was being conducted, between 1993 and 1998, the estrogen and progestin preparations were not available in the lower doses that are used today, and that most women had been taking the hormones for longer than the one to two years that current guidelines recommend. (Researchers are planning to study the long-term risk-benefit profile of lower dose formulations and shorter exposure periods...
...viable option for short-term treatment of menopausal symptoms. When used for the short-term treatment of distressing symptoms, it's likely that the benefits outweigh the risks." As confusing as they seem, taken together, every analysis from the WHI actually does paint a clearer picture of how estrogen and progestin can affect a woman's body during and after menopause, and doctors are learning more about the safest way to provide women with the advantages of these hormones in relieving menopausal symptoms. It's just that the story has many chapters yet to come...