A large trial group of women stopped taking estrogen replacement therapy after finding out the pills not only failed to improve their health, but also may have increased their risk of a stroke.
This is the second large trial of hormone replacement therapy to have been abruptly stopped in the past two years. Another study, in July 2002, involving women taking estrogen plus progestin, was also stopped due to potential heart attack, cancer and stroke risks. Millions of women in the study were told that the therapy would keep them "young" by reducing symptoms of menopause, preventing heart disease, osteoporosis and memory loss.
The study showed that taking estrogen alone appeared to increase the risk of stroke and decrease the risk of hip fractures.
Usually, estrogen alone is prescribed to younger women who have undergone hysterectomies, not to women going through menopause.
Researchers also found that the combined hormone replacement therapy slightly increased the chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to act on these latest findings by directing hormone replacement therapy makers to update their labels with clear warnings regarding these risks.
The FDA stressed that estrogen-containing products be used only for moderate-to-severe postmenopausal symptoms such as hot flashes and women should consider trying topical products first.
Yahoo! News March 2, 2004
For almost three decades, the drug companies were trying to convince doctors that estrogen was the key to keeping women eternally young and that they needed to be on it. They even had me convinced. In fact, in the mid-80s, after finishing residency training, I was a paid speaker for drug companies to talk about the benefits of estrogen for osteoporosis. After reviewing the information very carefully, I could recite it backward and forward to "prove" that estrogen worked.
I soon found out that the proper studies had not yet been done. Those studies were eventually done and the findings stated that estrogen should not be used in women. The reasons for this prompted the halting of one of the largest and best-designed federal studies of hormone replacement therapy. It was stopped because it was discovered that women taking hormones after menopause had a greater risk of:
The study that was stopped in 2002 strongly implied that the problem wasn’t estrogen, but the synthetic progesterone, Provera, that they used. Now, almost two years later, it appears that Premarin alone, without Provera, will increase the likelihood of strokes. This is great news as nearly four years ago estrogen was shown to not provide protection against heart disease.
Before I leave this topic, I do want to stress that I don’t feel estrogen is intrinsically evil and realize many women do need it, specifically women who have had their ovaries removed or those experiencing hot flashes that interfere with their sleep and are unresponsive to more conservative treatments such as vitamin E or black cohosh.
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Estrogen Linked to Gallstone Risk
Another study links HRT to breast cancer risk
Estrogen Should be Added to Cancer-Causing List Along with Other Substances
Estrogen No Help in Alzheimerís Study Finds Hormone Is Not An Effective Treatment
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Estrogen Linked to Breast Cancer Risk