The Dangers of Hormone-Replacement Therapy

Once a popular choice for alleviating troubling menopausal symptoms, hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) has come under scrutiny in recent years for its negative health effects. HRT may lead to breast cancer, heart disease and other sicknesses; however, safer, more natural treatments may benefit those suffering from troublesome symptoms as well.

Identification

• Hormone-replacement therapy, a common treatment for women suffering from menopausal symptoms, contains synthetic hormones, which its producers claim eases hot flashes, increases bone density, protects against heart disease and stroke and delays the onset of dementia. HRT comes as a progesterone plus progestin combination or as estrogen alone.

Dangers

• In 2002, a Women's Heath Initiative study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health found that the risks of HRT outweighed its benefits. The study found that HRT caused an increase in breast cancer, strokes, blood clots, Alzheimer's disease and total cardiovascular disease.

  However, Patricia Kelly, Ph.D., a medical geneticist in San Francisco, in 2005 challenged the WHI's findings and states that its findings aren't statistically relevant. Among 10,000 users, only seven additional cases of heart disease and eight additional cases of stroke were noted.

  The Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute in a 2009 report found that HRT increased users' risks of dying from lung cancer by 61 percent.

Breast-Cancer Risks

• Along with its other risks, HRT may increase the rate of breast cancer. As a matter of fact, About lawsuits, a site with news and information about personal-injury lawsuits, claims that pharmaceutical giant Wyeth currently faces more than 5,000 lawsuits by women who claim they weren't adequately warned of the link of HRT to breast cancer.

  A 1997 University of Oxford study showed that hormone-replacement therapy increased the risk of breast cancer while patients were on the therapy and a few years after therapy. However, the risk went away many years after patients stopped HRT.

  On the other hand, Kelly also challenges the current findings of breast cancer dangers as well. In the 2002 WHI study, there was only an annual increase of eight breast cancers per 10,000 HRT users.

Alternatives

• Natural hormone therapy may help relieve menopausal symptoms. Herbal supplements-especially those containing black cohosh--and vitamins may work for a time; however, they're not FDA approved and will not provide long-term relief.
  For continued relief, the right diet, exercise and lifestyle choices are crucial elements of natural menopausal symptom relief.

Considerations

• Dr. Erika Schwartz, author of "The Hormone Solution: Naturally Alleviate Symptoms of Hormone Imbalance from Adolescence Through Menopause," warns against stopping hormone-replacement therapy without discussing it with your health care provider first. Stopping therapy cold turkey without another plan may lead to hot flashes and sexual dysfunction. For post-menopausal women, supplementing hormones, rather than replacing them, proves to be important, as hormones diminish as women age.
  In addition, stopping HRT abruptly may lead to a return of troublesome symptoms. Sherry Sherman, Ph.D., of the Geriatrics and Clinical Gerontology Program at the National Institute on Aging, says that women who stop HRT may experience the same symptoms, even if they had been on HRT for more than five years.