LifeCare Chiropractic

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HRT

Changes in Breast Density Associated With Use of HRT – (01-15-01)

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Changes in Breast Density Associated With Use of HRT

It is well established that HRT will increase risk of breast cancer. It’s protection against heart disease is tenuous at best. It slows, not prevents, progression of osteoporosis. Now, changes in breast density will make a mammogram more difficult to interpret. Couple this difficulty with an increase in breast cancer rates, and it continues to stump me why Premarin continues to be the #1 prescription drug in America.

Changes in Breast Density Associated With Initiation, Discontinuation, and Continuing Use of Hormone Replacement Therapy

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HRT and Prevention of Nonvertebral Fractures – (06-25-01)

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HRT and Prevention of Nonvertebral Fractures

Remember that the effect that HRT has on bone loss is not a cure…it only slows the loss. Osteoporosis, just like any other chronic disease, has many causes and all of these need to be addressed and can be addressed using natural therapeutics–phytoestrogens (soy, flax, whole grains…), exercise, plant based diets, calcium, magnesium and many other nutrients.

Hormone Replacement Therapy and Prevention of Nonvertebral Fractures: A Meta-analysis of Randomized Trials.

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ERT and Ovarian Cancer Mortality in Women – (04-23-01)

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ERT and Ovarian Cancer Mortality in Women

Not only are we consistently beating down to perceived benefits to HRT, but the list of adverse effects continues to grow. First of all, menopause IS NOT A DISEASE!! You will not find it in any of the pathology books. Second, if you want to lower your risk of heart disease and osteoporosois there are many other ways to do this without increasing your risk for cancer.

Estrogen Replacement Therapy and Ovarian Cancer Mortality in a Large Prospective Study of US Women

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Increased Need for Thyroxine with Hypothyroidism during HRT – (06-14-01)

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Increased Need for Thyroxine with Hypothyroidism during HRT

Will the lack of understanding of basic physiology never end? It is known that estrogen blocks the conversion of T4 to T3 (the thyroid produces mainly T4-the inactive form–it needs to be converted to its active form later in the target tissues). So, it is no surprise that estrogen replacement therapy will increase the need for thyroid hormone replacement. Here’s a novel idea–instead of giving another drug to make up for the side effects of the first-how about managing menopause naturally and avoiding the need for HRT? Consider the possibility that nature specifically designed menopause to protect the female body from the accumulated effects of aging? Does HRT then sound like such a good idea?

NEJM — Abstracts: Arafah 344 (23): 1743

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HRT – Fact or Fiction?? – (12-31-01)

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HRT – Fact or Fiction??

This is an excellent editorial on the rampant use of HRT in medicine. The article uses well referenced material to basically state that there is a paucity of evidence to support the use of HRT in peri and post-menopausal women and even less on the safety. So why are meds like Premarin so incredibly prevalent? The cynic that loves a Mac over an IBM would gladly give you the answer–good marketing… Remember that managing perimenopause does NOT require medications in the vast majority of women. Blunt the estrogen peaks with progesterone cream (downregulates the estrogen receptors) and fill in the valleys with some form of phytoestrogens (soy, black cohosh, licorice…).

December 2001 SMJ

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Soy Product Consumption Seems to Protect Against Hot Flashes – (05-31-01)

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Soy Product Consumption Seems to Protect Against Hot Flashes

Those of us following natural medicine didn’t exactly drop our jaws at this study. I would like to take this opportunity to explain something that most people would find very shocking. During perimenopause, it has been shown that women’s estrogen levels are actually high. That seems to run totally contrary to what the medical dogma says, huh? Symptoms such as hot flushes actually result from a rapid change in estrogen levels. So, the goal of a woman in perimenopause is NOT to fall into the knee jerk HRT therapy, but rather to work on lowering the highs and raising the lows so that these rapid shifts of estrogen levels do not occur. Phytoestrogens such as those found in soy can help raise the lows as well as lower the lows. Progesterone cream can help to lower the highs as well. Hopefully you can start to see a nice program that can reduce or eliminate hot flushes safely and quickly.

Am J Epidemiol 2001;153:790-793 A dietary survey of Japanese women indicates that intake of soy products correlates inversely with menopausal hot flashes. Dr. Chisato Nagata and colleagues, from Gifu University School of Medicine, in Japan, report the results of a prospective study analyzing the association between soy intake and the onset of hot flashes in 1106 women between the ages of 35 and 54 years who were premenopausal at baseline. During the study period, 101 women experienced new moderate or severe hot flashes according to the Kupperman test of menopausal distress. After controlling for age, total energy intake, and menopausal status, hot flashes were significantly inversely associated with soy product consumption and isoflavone intake. Hazard ratios for hot flashes were 0.47 and 0.42 for high versus low tertiles of soy product and isoflavone intake, respectively, the team reports. “Although traditional hormone replacement therapy is effective in controlling hot flashes, compliance with this therapy is not great, and there is a desire for a more natural approach to the management of menopausal symptoms,” Dr. Nagata and colleagues say. “Our findings suggest that consumption of soy products is a practical strategy for preventing hot flashes.

Medroxyprogesterone in Food Chain Raises Consternation in Europe – (07-25-02)

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Medroxyprogesterone in Food Chain Raises Consternation in Europe

Medroxyprogesterone is used as HRT here in the US. However, in Europe it is showing up in the feed supply in certain areas of the Netherlands and Europe is extremely concerned. What I can’t figure out is why, if this is supposedly safe for use as a hormone replacement, has Europe banned it use in life-stock and why are they so scared now that it’s shown up in the food supply for animals? Vaguely reminiscent of “flouridation” in the US, huh???…

Jul 17 – France said on Wednesday it had imported hundreds of animals, up to 200 tonnes of feed and five tonnes of meat potentially tainted with a banned growth hormone which is at the centre of a food scare spreading across Europe. Contaminated feed and animals have turned up in most of the European Union’s 15 nations since the hormone medroxyprogesterone-acetate (MPA) was discovered last month in foodstuffs at three farms in the Netherlands. The French farm ministry said 200 pigs from a suspect Dutch farm were imported to the Ain region of eastern France in July and 3.7 tonnes of ham made from them were then shipped to Italy. An additional five tonnes of suspect ham had been imported from Belgium to two companies in the Ain region and the western Ille-et-Vilaine region in Brittany, the ministry said, although it added there was no evidence the meat was tainted. “We have no proof that there has been a contamination in France, these are just products that are potentially tainted because they come from suspect farms,” a spokesman said. MPA is banned in the European Union and in other countries as a growth hormone in livestock feed. It is, however, a component in some pharmaceuticals, such as hormone replacement therapies and contraceptives. The source of the contamination has been traced to waste water from an Irish pharmaceutical factory owned by U.S. drugmaker Wyeth, Irish officials said last week. The waste was shipped to a now-bankrupt Belgian reprocessing plant, Bioland, which in turn provided glucose syrup as raw materials to Belgian soft drink makers and Dutch feed producers. The Netherlands, Germany and Belgium have been hardest hit so far by the scare over MPA. In the Netherlands, the world’s third biggest pork exporting nation, officials have found that 73 feed makers who had received tainted raw materials have delivered feed to around half of all pig producers, or around 7,000 farms. In Brussels, EU veterinary experts met on Tuesday to review the MPA contamination, a day after officials said 11 EU countries had been touched by the problem, and they stressed the need for joint action to protect public health.

Breast cancer and breastfeeding – (07-25-02)

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Breast cancer and breastfeeding

While this is one of those articles that does not yield a very surprising result, I do need to comment on something interesting. I had heard on the radio in the background a story on breastfeeding lowering risk of breast cancer but did not pay much heed until I got home that evening and read this article in the Lancet. It’s funny how quickly some information now makes it into the news and yet how some other research (like recent articles on lack of efficacy for HRT and study cancelled due to increased risks) may take years or even decades. I can’t quite figure it out…some articles I read seem like incredible wonders to read and never make it to the mainstream medicine.

The Journal : Current Issue

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