Word: progestins
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...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...
...push couldn't come at a more critical juncture. Many women were stunned last year when the famous Women's Health Initiative discovered that pills providing a combination of estrogen and progestin do not protect the hearts of postmenopausal women. (Tests on estrogen alone are still under way.) Suddenly, what had seemed to be the simplest, most elegant solution to the aging female heart--replacing the hormones a woman makes before menopause--had vanished...
...totally invisible yet impossible to forget: no pills, no shots, no condoms. This year's newest entry, OrthoEvra, is not perfect, but it's close. It's a patch about the size of a matchbook, but as thin as a piece of tape, that delivers the same estrogen and progestin found in a standard birth-control pill. The hormones pass from the patch through the skin and into the bloodstream. It's waterproof and won't fall off; just find a discreet place to stick it on your body, and change it once a week. If only it were invisible...
...market for BIRTH CONTROL DEVICES is positively fertile, with several new products jostling for shelf space. They work like the Pill, secreting the same hormones--estrogen and the synthetic progestin--that are bad news as long-term therapy for postmenopausal women but are still considered relatively safe as contraceptives...
...design, most doctors view the WHI as the definitive word on women's health. Final results were due out--and eagerly awaited--in 2005. But one part of the study, involving more than 16,000 women, was halted last week. These women were taking a combination of estrogen and progestin called hormone-replacement therapy (HRT). Researchers concluded that the risks of HRT clearly outweighed the benefits (see table). Though HRT may still be appropriate as a short-term therapy for menopausal distress, women cannot expect it to protect them in the long term against aging-related diseases. Other parts...