Word: estrogenous
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...really as beneficial as people think? Researchers have focused on one particular group of compounds in soy: the isoflavones, which are also found in lower concentrations in other legumes. Isoflavones are phytoestrogens, or plant estrogens, that weakly imitate the body's estrogen--sometimes they have an estrogenic effect, other times anti-estrogenic. They are thought to help stave off breast cancer, lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease, among other things. Just last month a study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute suggested that isoflavones may also reduce the risk of endometrial cancer...
These words were my introduction to my summer internship at The Hill, a congressional newspaper. I had just walked into the newsroom and met the only other female intern there. I did not realize it then, but I soon learned that there is a striking absence of estrogen among the nation’s media elite...
...more than a couple of years, increases a woman's risk of developing heart disease and breast cancer. The news seemed to sound the death knell for long-term hormone-replacement therapy (HRT). Yet even at the time, scientists recognized that there was a chance for a reprieve: the estrogen-progestin mix might still delay or even prevent various kinds of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. To find out, researchers began a careful analysis of a subset of data from the same Women's Health Initiative that had stirred up such a fuss in the first place...
Although the study results directly apply only to Prempro, its conclusions probably also cover other estrogen-progestin combinations. At any rate, those drugs would need to be studied as vigorously as Prempro has been for any manufacturer to claim otherwise. (Wyeth Pharmaceuticals deserves a good corporate-citizenship award for allowing its product to be so thoroughly vetted and for even paying for some of the work.) It is also important to recognize that the absolute number of extra cases of Alzheimer's disease due to HRT is very small...
Intriguingly, the parts of the Women's Health Initiative that look at the possible long-term health benefits of taking estrogen alone--without progestin--are continuing. That suggests that estrogen alone may yet prove beneficial. (Only women who have undergone a hysterectomy can safely take estrogen alone; estrogen without progestin increases the risk of uterine cancer...