Dangers of Hormone Replacement Therapy for Women
Estrogenocide, part II
I’m sure you all know how I feel about modern synthetic
Hormone Replacement Therapy for women – I think it’s cancer
causing, dementia-inducing chemical Roulette. And last
summer, I told you (along with Time, Newsweek, CNN, and
others) about how the government stopped an ongoing HRT
trial when it was discovered that the drugs being used
increased the risk of breast and ovarian cancer, stroke, and
heart disease.
So you’d think that after such a debacle, the drug giants
would know enough to give it up on HRT, right?
Wrong.
According to a recent Reuters online article, the National
Institute of Health has now halted a SECOND major ongoing
estrogen replacement trial. The reason? The drugs (which are
made from the urine of pregnant horses, by the way) raised
the risk of stroke in the test victims, er, subjects. Oh,
and also because the hormones made no measurable improvement
in their heart health – a key goal of the new study.
For years, HRT has been sold to women on not just its
moderation of menopause, but also on its heart disease
prevention benefits. Yet millions were shocked when the
original estrogen/progestin study was halted due to
increased incidence of heart attack, among other things. For
this latest round of now-halted research, an HRT formulation
involving estrogen only was thought to provide a clear heart
disease preventive. But it didn’t. The article did not say
whether this new form of HRT drug increased the risk of
dementia, like its predecessor did (Daily Dose, 7/1/2003).
So why do drug companies continue to produce and test HRT
drugs, even though they’ve proven time and again to pose
major health risks for women? Money, of course. The
truckloads of cash drug makers could rake in simply by
providing a drug that’s even marginally effective at
moderating the downsides of menopause (which drug ads play
up to dramatic effect) would more than compensate them for
the cost of studying the effects of HRT formulas – no matter
how disastrous, or no matter how many lawsuits they lose.
THAT’S how much money there is to be made in drugs
It’s nothing but a cost/benefit analysis for them, no matter
what the bottom line is for your health.
Do yourself a favor: Steer clear of prescription HRT -
unless it’s the natural kind. Better yet, you can minimize
hot flashes with daily doses of vitamins C and E, and
bioflavonoids (like in red wine).
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A new helping hand (claw?) for the disabled
Lots of edgy medical news from the U.K. this month
Like something out of an Isaac Asimov novel (he wrote I,
Robot, remember?), it seems an ingenious professor from the
University of Staffordshire in central England has invented
a real, working robot that can aid the disabled in
completing a wide variety of domestic tasks.
According to Reuters, the caterpillar-esque automaton
(called the Flexibot) can cling to predetermined points on
walls and ceilings and extend a three-fingered, claw-like
helping hand to its owner, assisting in everything from
shaving and hygiene to cooking, cleaning and household
chores.
And it’s a good thing, too. New research from the
Netherlands, Finland, and Italy shows that elderly men who
lose their spouses have a much harder time performing even
the most basic of household tasks. This difficulty can be so
severe as to be classified as a disability. This research
showed that it took as long as 5 years for some widowed men
in their 70s to learn how to take proper care of themselves,
once losing their wives. The study’s authors attribute this
to the immense stress and depression that can accompany the
death of a spouse, which affects both the will to perform
these tasks, and the physical ability to do so.
Though a robot could never replace a loved one, perhaps this
new Flexibot is the first in a whole generation of androids
that can help slow or prevent the decline in both health and
quality of life that accompanies such a tragic loss.
Only time will tell, though. (Also, a new dog or cat may
help too.)
Flexible about the future,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
