Series: Estrogen Benefits and Fears: What Is the Truth?
Through this series, I will continue to post a summary of the benefits and fears of Estrogen as they are discussed. My intent is to use research to uncover the truth of using Estrogen in women when depleted at any age, and to point out the benefits of a normal estrogen level in men.
Estrogen’s benefits to date.
1. Protects women from getting respiratory viruses including Covid. May also be beneficial as a treatment of respiratory viruses especially with lung involvement because of stimulation of the Estrogen Receptor (ER). Fear of Covid Reigns over Fear of Estrogen
Estrogen’s fears to date. None yet discussed. Read below!
Women’s Health Initiative
Confusion and Fear of Using Estrogen Still Reigns. Why?
Conversations about Estrogen should always start with the study that rocked the world with the media’s announcement in 2002 that HRT caused increased breast cancer, cardiovascular disease and stroke. This press release media announcement put fear in the minds of doctors and women concerning the dangerous use of estrogen that is still felt today….
The Women’s Health Initiative
‘The Largest Women’s Health Prevention Study Ever’. *
“The dramatic nature of the announcement set the tone for the early news reporting from the study and introduced a note of confusion into the media’s perception of hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Such a tone persisted until July 2007, when the trial revised its findings on cardiovascular risk. Despite investigators’ protests to the contrary, the results were perceived by the press as a U-turn, and reinforced the media’s confused interpretation of the safety and benefits of HRT.”**
In 1991, the Women’s Health Initiative Study was launched.
The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute was set up to prove HRT as a strategy for decreasing risk of breast and colorectal cancer, stroke, heart disease, and osteoporosis. The original study consisted of 3 arms,
• HRT Premarin only (also known as the estrogen-only arm),
• HRT using Prempro = Premarin plus progestin,
• Controls.
No bio-identical hormones were studied.
There originally were 3 parts to the study collecting data from 1991 to 2005. More than 161,000 women have been enrolled at 40 clinical centers
• A clinical trial enrolling 68,000 postmenopausal women aged 50-79. Doctors from this era say it was difficult to enroll women into the study as most women at the time wanted to be on Premarin to alleviate their postmenopausal symptoms.
• An observational study tracking medical histories and health habits of 93,000 women to complement the clinical trial
• A community prevention study
WHI continues to collect long term data on women in the study and continues to contribute to women’s health and set up ancillary studies as an extension of the original study.****
Medications Used in WHI
In any study it is important to understand how the study was designed and why. It is also important to know a study’s biases.
Premarin and Prempo were the two medications used in the study. These will be discussed next week to better define what medications were used and why.
In summary, the WHI was the largest women’s health study ever done looking at 2 different medications versus controls in determining their outcome on the incidence of breast and/or colorectal cancer, stroke, and cardiovascular disease in women.
Have an awesome day! Dr D