Hormone Heresy :: Health and Disease :: Bones, Joints, and Muscles

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Hormone Heresy
by author Lorna Vanderhaeghe, BSc

The "miracle" hormone estrogen hit the marketplace in the 1960s, becoming one of the top 10 selling drugs in North America for the treatment of menopause symptoms in women. In 1968, with financial backing from Ayerst laboratories, Dr. Robert A. Wilson wrote Feminine Forever. The basic attitude underpinning the promotion of estrogen is summed up in the following words: "The unpalatable truth must be faced that all postmenopausal women are castrates" From a point of view, a man remains a man until the very end." A multi-billion dollar business was built on the concept that menopause castrates women.

Wilson’s book and its effect on Premarin sales were the beginning of a multi-billion dollar, dangerous love affair between estrogen and menopause. By the 1970s, women taking estrogen were found to have a 14-fold increase in endometrial cancer (cancer in the endometrial lining of the uterus) and a 30 percent increase in breast cancer. With this news, estrogen lost its appeal for a short time. Then drug companies purported to have "solved" the cancer problems by introducing synthetic progestin. Now women who still had their uterus would be "safe" from endometrial cancer, and women who had their uterus removed during hysterectomy could keep taking unopposed estrogen–but no one discussed breast cancer risk in those women taking estrogen alone, and it is still hotly debated today. Women were told they could safely take estrogen with synthetic progestin (commonly called HRT) because progestin stopped the overstimulation of the uterine lining caused by estrogen. Despite the use of synthetic progestin, the looming risk of cancer continued to haunt HRT.

HRT: The Panacea Drug

Hormone replacement therapy is about to hit its demographic sweet spot. With the largest number of baby boomers just turning 43 this year, it’s expected that future sales will be in the multi-billions. HRT was originally developed to halt the symptoms of menopause, but doctors have also prescribed HRT to prevent cardiovascular disease and bone loss, halt teenage girls from growing too tall, relieve depression; reduce urinary incontinence, stop colon cancer and Alzheimer’s, and keep us young forever. It has become the panacea drug for all sorts of women’s conditions and is touted as the "fountain of youth," even though the safety of HRT is still being heavily debated. No randomized, controlled clinical trials have ever been conducted to suggest HRT should be used for all these conditions, and its safety in healthy women has never been proven. That is until now.

Last July, the Women’s Health Initiative study, a clinical trial designed to determine if HRT was beneficial to healthy women, was halted five years and two months into the study due to serious safety concerns. This study, which was supposed to last eight years, involved 16,608 healthy, postmenopausal women (meaning they had stopped their periods for 12 months), who were at low risk for heart disease. The women received 0.625 mg of equine (horse) estrogen (Premarin) along with 2.5 mg of synthetic progestins for 5.2 years. Premarin (made by Wyeth-Ayerst) contains estradiol plus at least two or more horse estrogens, such as equilin and equilenin. The study concluded that the combination of estrogen and progestins posed a significant health risk to women and that any benefits from HRT were not worth the side-effects. The study found a 41 percent increase in the risk of stroke, a 29 percent increase in the risk of heart attack, a doubled risk of blood clots, a 22 percent increase in cardiovascular disease, and a 26 per cent increase in the risk of invasive breast cancer. Just say neigh to Premarin!

Medicalization of Menopause

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Lorna Vanderhaeghe, BSc, is the author of several books including The Immune System Cure, published in six countries and four languages, and the best-seller Healthy Immunity, Scientifically Proven Natural Treatments for Conditions from A-Z. Her latest book is No More HRT: Menopause Treat the Cause. She is also senior editor of aliveâ€™s Encyclopedia of Natural Healing and associate editor of alive.

Source: alive #244, February 2003

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