When we are young and fertile, we take hormones for birth control.  As we age and go through menopause, we take hormones to control our bodies in other ways.  It seems as women, we are never happy with the natural course our bodies take, and so we constantly manipulate them with hormones. Although for most of us this method works, there are side effects, and sometimes, they can be deadly.

If you’ve been involved in any kind of female hormone therapy, you know that the two main ingredients are estrogen and progestin.  This kind of treatment can balance older women out so they don’t have to deal with hot flashes, mood swings, and other symptoms of menopause, but it can also lead to dangerous imbalances that lead to illnesses like cancer.  An observational study by the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute found that women who initiated hormone therapy involving estrogen plus progestin has a higher incidence of breast cancer than in women who did not use such therapies.  Additionally, they found that the closer to menopause hormone therapy was used, the higher the risk.  Estrogen plus progestin also increased the mortality rate in women who developed breast cancer.

If menopause is making you miserable, obviously you need to find some form of relief.  Instead of jumping into hormone therapy though, talk to your physician about all of your options.  There are many lifestyle changes you can make to reduce your symptoms that have to do with diet, exercise, and routines.  For instance, hot flashes may be reduced by avoiding spicy foods, caffeine, and alcohol.  Sleeplessness may be remedied by regular workouts, a strict sleep schedule, and stress reduction.  Mood swings could be controlled by the same diet and exercise strategies or even therapy.  Your physician may also be able to administer less extreme medications for only your most severe symptoms instead of taking the wide-scale approach of hormone therapy.

For women who absolutely must go on a hormone therapy regimen that involves estrogen plus progestin, make sure you start out on the lowest dose possible.  Your physician can always increase it if needed, but there’s no sense getting more than you need.  Also, as soon as symptoms are under control and hormone therapy is no longer needed, get off of it.

 

– Yvonne S. Thornton, M. D., M. P. H.