Word: progestins
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...Ponce de Leons, however, these women are watching their dream of eternal youth fade away. A large, federally funded clinical trial, part of a group of studies called the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), has definitively shown for the first time that the hormones in question--estrogen and progestin--are not the age-defying wonder drugs everyone thought they were. As if that weren't bad enough, the results, made public last week, proved that taking these hormones together for more than a few years actually increases a woman's risk of developing potentially deadly cardiovascular problems and invasive breast...
...with any major medical announcements, there are caveats and complications. The WHI wasn't designed to look at short-term use during menopause, for instance. But the principal message is this: taking estrogen and progestin for years in the hope of preventing a heart attack or stroke can no longer be considered a valid medical strategy. (For a detailed look at the pros and cons of hormone therapy for various conditions, see the chart on pages...
...realize that it wasn't safe to give estrogen alone to a woman with an intact uterus. Unopposed estrogen, as it is called, dramatically increases the chances that a woman will develop uterine cancer. (Obviously, this isn't a problem for women who have undergone hysterectomies.) The addition of progestin, another female hormone, seemed to take care of that problem...
...find the cure for hot flashes and night sweats worse than the symptoms, take heart. A study has found that low-dose hormone-replacement therapy--0.3 to 0.45 mg of estrogen, instead of the traditional 0.625 mg--is just as effective and has fewer side effects. Combined with progestin, researchers say, low-dose HRT poses no increased uterine-cancer risk and may reduce any potential increased breast-cancer risk. Although the FDA has yet to approve a packaged low-dose formula, doctors can get creative with available tablets...
TAKE TWO Just a couple of weeks ago, scientists reported that women using estrogen-replacement therapy for 10 years or more could double their risk of ovarian cancer. Now comes some reassuring news. A preliminary study suggests that combining estrogen with progestin wipes out any increased risk from the estrogen. An estimated 10.5 million American women take estrogen alone--most after they have had a hysterectomy. About 6.5 million are on the combo...