Hormone therapy found to be beneficial – Thu, 04 Oct 2012 PST

October 4, 2012 in Health, Nation/World Study finds process alleviates major menopausesymptoms

Melissa Healy Los Angeles Times

Today, 1 in 5 postmenopausal American women uses hormone replacement therapy, mostly to treat symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal dryness. That is about half the rate in 2002, when 40 percent tookhormones.

Healthy middle-aged women who take hormones to ease the misery of hot flashes and night sweats have fewer depressive symptoms, less anxiety and tension, and better and more sex than those who do not, according to a newstudy.

Though the long-term effects of hormone replacement therapy could not be measured by the new research, it did offer some reassuring findings. It suggested that some womens cholesterol profiles and metabolic function might improve on hormone replacement therapy and that blood pressure did not rise during or after a relatively brief stay on hormonereplacement.

Participants taking oral hormone replacement pills reported, on average, a slight improvement in their ability to recall printed materials they had read. But for women who received hormones through a transdermal patch, subjective reports of memory problems increased slightly, as did theirseverity.

As expected, women who got hormone replacement maintained more bone density than those who didnot.

The results from the Kronos Early Estrogen Prevention Study, known as KEEPS, were presented Wednesday at the North American Menopause Societys annual meeting in Orlando,Fla.

The study is likely to fuel a growing willingness among American women and their physicians to turn to replacement hormones, after a long period of decline following the release of the landmark Womens Health Initiative study about a decadeago.

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Hormone therapy found to be beneficial - Thu, 04 Oct 2012 PST