MONDAY, Jan. 12, 2008 (Health.com) — Not too long ago, millions of postmenopausal women were taking estrogen as part of hormone therapy to protect their hearts, prevent cancer, and keep their brains sharp.
But two new studies in the journal Neurology show that not only does hormone replacement therapy increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, blood clots, and breast cancer in women over the age of 65, but it also shrinks their brains.
“This is extra-double-triple reason not to go on estrogen after 65,” says Constantine Lyketsos, MD, of the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in East Baltimore, Md. Dr. Lyketsos, an expert on dementia treatment, was not involved in the research.
Experts say the findings should not be cause for alarm among younger women who are taking estrogen according to the current guidelines. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends that women who take hormones to treat hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms start doing so as early as possible, at the lowest effective dose, for the shortest time possible. (Women who haven’t had a hysterectomy need to take a combination of estrogen and progestin, because estrogen alone increases the risk of cancer of the lining of the uterus; women who’ve had their uterus removed can take estrogen alone.)
There is good evidence that for younger women, estrogen can actually help defog the brain, improve mental function, and possibly even protect against Alzheimer’s disease decades later, says Pauline Maki, PhD, who runs a research program on steroid hormones’ effect on cognitive function at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She was not involved with the new studies.
One of the most plausible explanations for this paradox is the “healthy cell bias of estrogen.” In other words, estrogen is good for healthy cells, and bad for unhealthy cells, she explains. In her own research, Maki has shown that women who experience an unusually high number of hot flashes during menopause have worse verbal memory.
“What I think happens is that women’s brains during hot flashes, while they’re not sleeping as well, the brain material is still fine,” Maki says. “When you introduce estrogen to these women, you’re introducing it into a healthy cell, and the results cognitively are generally beneficial.”
Older women’s brain cells are likely to be in worse shape than younger women’s, especially if their mental faculties are already fading. “The scenario that seems to arise is one where [hormone therapy] at the dose of this trial is harmful to the frailest brains, but perhaps not to the strongest ones,” Giovanni Frisoni, of the National Center for Research and Care of Alzheimer’s Disease in Brescia, Italy, says. Dr. Frisoni has studied estrogen’s effects on brain volumes, but was not involved in the new research.
Comments (11)
I think you should emphasize that this study was done with hormones obtained from pregnant horse urine and they are not human hormones. Your article is misleading and dangerous.
Bio-identical hormones DO NOT have the adverse effects that synthetic hormones have. Natural bio-identical hormones are healthier and should be your choice over drug companies’ synthetic garbage that is actually dangerous. The animal cruelty involved with Premarin is inconceivable. The horses are killed and live horrible lives until they are.
Why there is so much fad of taking drug in western society?Why pharmaceutical firms are florrishing in western countries?
There are two reason, first unhealthly life style, and fear of disease [which is systmematically spread by scientists and phrma firms]
If you keep your lifestyle healthy I donot think you require these hormons,Bcomplex or any other drug.
Aruveda Indian medical system based upon healthy lifestyle.
One of great SAGA tell four rule for healthy lifestyle.
[1] Reduce your food half.[2]Double your drinking water.[3] triple your physical and mental exercises.[4] Increase laugh[ pure Joy]fourtime.
Your comments are right on. Horse urine should never have made it into our womens bodies, nothing good has ever come of it. Yet, Bioidentical hormones return women to their youthful vitality without the risk of cancer. This my friend is a no brainer.
PMU mare farms are the equine worlds equivalent to the jewish concentration camps. PMU Mares are kept in barns with stalls so tight they cannot move, with urine collection devices permanently attached that look like torture devices.
The mares are kept pregnant in order to continually produce (horse) hormones that are extracted and put into womens hormone replacements.
The baby foals are taken from the mother and sent to slaughter houses in Mexico and Canada. The mares never have a chance at normal foal bonding and raising, never have a chance to interact normally with other horses and their bodies rapidly break down due to lack of normal movement or from infections from the urine collection devices. Once the mare breaks down she is sent to a slaughter house. A horrible existence and ending for an intelligent, sensitive animal.
There are thousands of these farms in North America. This is the hidden shame of the pharmaceutical industry. Stop supporting PMU harvesting.
Whole western civilization is based on fear, all are taking advantage of this weakness of western people.Doctors and Pharm companies are frist runners in this field.
I donot think any society is so prone to medicine.Why medical treatment is costly in U.S.?
You do your readers a grave disservice by publishing this misleading information. Hormone supplementation has broad benefits when done with bio identical hormones rather than foreign substances that should never have been used in the first. This in out of the dark ages. Shame on you!
I would like information about bio-identical hormone replacement. Which or where would I be able to find such web based information? My primary care doctor will not provide the information. All she says is you do not want to go off of Premarin. OH YES I do…. I am also looking for a new doctor. Thank you
In august 19, 2006,I had a hysterectomy done do to uteral and cervical cancer ever since then.I have had a hard time trying to find replacement hormones as well as everything needed. My hot flashes have been getting worse and,I cannot get sleep and my sexual life also has changed so can some one help me.
well i think hat if thgere is treament then go for it *because everything is a risk in life *so why not try* but if a natural thing is out there hay go for it
I started taking bio-identical hormones 10 months ago. They are so much better than the hormones pushed by the drug companies. By the way, I did take the other hormones for 9 years after a hysterectomy. I certainly don’t believe anything in this article and my Dr. would disagree too. I have learned to believe very little of anything that drug companies or other small studies would have us believe.