NEW ORLEANS — For an entire generation, women have been concerned about replacing their hormones after menopause.
Experts in the field say, women were given wrong information 20 years ago, that there was a breast cancer connection to hormone replacement -- Now they are updating the science.
A new article in the medical journal "Menopause" is shining a spotlight on what some hormone replacement physicians have noticed for years. It claims that the 2002 Women's Health Initiative study was full of scientific mistakes, misinterpretations, and misrepresentations, causing women to stop or never start hormone replacement.
When asked if her patients still repeat that old fear in that study, which we now know was flawed, Ochsner Obstetrician, Gynecologist Dr. Robin Bone, who has expertise in hormone replacement replied, “Absolutely. They are so fearful. And what we're seeing now is there is also a whole generation of doctors who haven't been offering hormones because of the fear.”
In fact, this year the FDA reported even though more than 85% of women 45 and older report menopausal symptoms, only 10.5% are currently replacing hormones after the ovaries stop making them. They say this is a direct result of unnecessary fear generated by the WHI. And they say that fear has caused women to die younger. One study found that for women in their 50s, not replacing hormones when the ovaries stop, increases the death rate from heart disease and hip fracture and could have been avoided if the women were on their hormones.
The new interpretation of the old study finds women in the WHI using estrogen alone, had a 23% reduced rate of breast cancer, and reduced the risk of breast cancer death by 40%.
In the other arm, women who used the estrogen and progesterone who had never been on any hormone therapy before had no increased risk of breast cancer, even those with a family history of breast cancer.
Overall, in women who were on the combined therapy, there was only one more case of breast cancer in 1,000, which is statistically non-significant and there was no increased risk of death.
“The data actually shows that women who are on hormones, not only have a better quality of life, but they're are at decreased risk from dying of all causes. I'm so excited that this paper has come out, because honestly it validates what I have been telling my patients for years,” explained Dr. Bone.
The WHI study used oral hormones that go through the liver and don't act the same in the body as today's more natural hormones, delivered to the bloodstream just as the ovaries did, now using patches, pellets, and injections.
Medical Watch has reported in the past other benefits of being on estrogen, progesterone and testosterone, including better insulin metabolism, less belly fat, and lowering the risk for heart attacks, Alzheimer's and dementia.