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Hormone skin patches and Gels safer than pills
For women who have fight with the symptoms of menopause but are afraid of taking risky hormone pills, there is at last a bit of hope.Hormone skin patches and gels, it looks, are far fewer likely than pills to cause dangerous blood clots. At least that was the finding from a currently published French study.
Patches and gels are previously known to be useful for reducing the hot flashes and sleep-interrupting night sweats that plague a lot of women. No one knows whether they will establish safer than pills in terms of breast cancer, heart attack or stroke risk. A large study recently under way may answer the question.
But if they do, it may lessen some of the backlash against hormones since a landmark study in 2002 scare many women away from their use. Critics of that study have long contended that it is the type of estrogen or progestin, the dosage, and the technique of taking the hormones that may influence the health risks.
The French study, while not the last, word is the strongest proof yet that this may be true, said Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She has no financial ties to hormone drug makers and just published a book giving women suggestion on hormone use.
Proof is mounting that the method of taking a drug and probably the dose are important things, she wrote in an editorial accompanying the study in the journal Circulation.
Millions of women dumped hormone pills following the Women’s Health Initiative study reported in 2002 higher rates of stroke among those taking estrogen, and of stroke and breast cancer with estrogen-progestin use.
The study tested Wyeth’s Prempro and Premarin, which have synthetic estrogens made from the urine of pregnant horses. Lot of people trust that estrogens from plant sources are nearer to what the human body naturally produces and may be safer. The plant forms are in many competitors’ pills and also in patches, creams and gels.
But if they do, it may lessen some of the backlash against hormones since a landmark study in 2002 scare many women away from their use. Critics of that study have long contended that it is the type of estrogen or progestin, the dosage, and the technique of taking the hormones that may influence the health risks.
The French study, while not the last, word is the strongest proof yet that this may be true, said Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. She has no financial ties to hormone drug makers and just published a book giving women suggestion on hormone use.
Proof is mounting that the method of taking a drug and probably the dose are important things, she wrote in an editorial accompanying the study in the journal Circulation.
Millions of women dumped hormone pills following the Women’s Health Initiative study reported in 2002 higher rates of stroke among those taking estrogen, and of stroke and breast cancer with estrogen-progestin use.
The study tested Wyeth’s Prempro and Premarin, which have synthetic estrogens made from the urine of pregnant horses. Lot of people trust that estrogens from plant sources are nearer to what the human body naturally produces and may be safer. The plant forms are in many competitors’ pills and also in patches, creams and gels.
Labels: Menopauses
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