|
 What is menopause hormone replacement therapy?
Menopause HRT is the artificial administration of synthetic hormones. The use of hormone replacement therapy is to improve the quality of life of women suffering from acute symptoms of menopause, such as hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, increased fatigue and irritability, depression, skin changes, vaginal dryness and incontinence. It is also used to help prevent osteoporosis and other female hormone-driven diseases.
Risks and side effects:
Menopause hormone replacement therapy treatment is still quite controversial. Its long-term
safety and efficiency remain matters of great concern. Scientists noted a relationship between the long-term use of menopause HRT and the risk of breast and ovarian cancer as well as heart disease, blood clots and strokes. Many women who start on menopause HRT ended up going off it a few
months or a few years later because of the side effects.
| |
|
|
| |
• Feel tense and bloated
• Anxiaty states
• terrible headaches |
• High blood pressure
• Breasts feel sore
• Weight gain |
• Fluid retention
• Depression
• Mood swings |
|
| |
|
|
Clinical trials:
In 1991 the National Institute
of Health (NIH) launched the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), the largest clinical trial ever undertaken in the United
States. The WHI was designed to provide answers concerning possible risks associated with the use of hormone replacement
therapy (HRT).
More than 16,600 U.S. women were participating in the trial. A review of preliminary data found a 26
percent increase in breast cancer and 18 percent in ovarian cancer. In addition, instead of a heart benefit there was a
29 percent increase in heart attacks and a 22 percent increase in total cardiovascular disease as well as heart disease,
blood clots and strokes among women receiving the hormones.
After the risks were identified among the HRT users, the WHI
study was discontinued in July 2002. The findings were published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.
In 1995, the results of one of the largest studies to date were published
in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. This study reported that postmenopausal women using HRT for five or more
years have a 30-40 percent greater risk of developing breast cancer than do women who do not use hormones. Additionally they
found out that this therapy is linked with an increased risk of ovarian cancer and is implicated in a variety of other health
problems, ranging from asthma to high blood pressure.
Another study 1995 published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical
Care Medicine reported that women on HRT were 50 percent more likely to develop asthma than those who did not take hormones.
Balancing hormonal levels without side effects:
Pharmaceutical companies make you believe that for the treatment of low hormonal production, drugs are the only solution,
but that isn’t the case. Before you make the choice of taking synthetic hormones within a menopause hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and deal with the side effects, you might want to
consider less riskier approaches.
There is a type of alternative medicine that doesn't artificially put hormones in your body,
but stimulates your body itself to produce only the necessary hormones.
Click here to take a look at treatments
and learn about approaches to cope with hormonal imbalance. |
|
Natural Hormones:
Estrogen
· Progesterone
· Testosterone
· Bioidentical
Treatments
· HRT |
