Category Archives: Hormone Replacement Therapy

Legions of women across America are going about their daily lives feeling out of sorts. "You feel flat and you feel tired, you haven't had a good night's sleep in two years [and you're] just going through the motions, trying to get through the day," Oprah says. "You feel like your life force is being sucked out of you."

The February issue of O, The Oprah Magazine delves into the root of this problem and possible fixes, and Oprah is taking the discussion even farther. "We're opening a national conversation about hormone replacement therapy," she says. "This is about your hormones being out of whack, and you don't even knowwe haven't had a language to talk about it yet." Hormone replacement therapy is relevant to women of all ages, Oprah says. "If you're a woman who's planning to live past the age of 35, at some point you're going to face hormone imbalance," she says. "All women need to be armed with this information."

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Is Hormone Replacement Therapy Right for You? - Oprah.com

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Hormone Replacement Therapy | Growth Hormone, Testosterone

Around the time of the menopause, declining levels of oestrogen and progesterone can bring about many symptomatic changes for women:

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can be an effective treatment for the typical menopause-related symptoms. There are also other long-term health problems associated with the menopause: the risk of osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and stroke all increase after the menopause. HRT may also have an influence on these health problems.

This article discusses HRT in detail. A separate article Menopause and its Management discusses menopausal symptoms, differential diagnosis and possible investigations (although the diagnosis is usually clinically based on the typical symptoms). It also discusses health problems associated with the menopause and gives an overview of management. See separate related articlesHRT- Topical.

Current evidence-based guidelines advise consideration of HRT for troublesome vasomotor symptoms in perimenopausal and early postmenopausal women without contra-indications and after individualised discussion of likely risks and benefits.

Starting HRT in women over the age of 60 years is generally not recommended.

For women with premature (age <40 years) or early (<45 years) menopause, current guidelines recommend HRT until the age of 51 years for the treatment of vasomotor symptoms and bone preservation.

Current indications for the use of HRT are:

For most symptomatic women, use of HRT for five years or less is safe and effective. Benefits of HRT include:

Reduction in vasomotor symptoms

Improvement in quality of life

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Hormone Replacement Therapy (Risks and Benefits). HRT ...

Is hormone therapy (HRT) making a comeback?

A few years ago, the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) looked like a medical mess. For decades, women were told that HRT -- usually a combination of estrogen and progestin -- was good for them during and after menopause. Then the 2002 results of the Women's Health Initiative study seemed to show just the opposite: hormone replacement therapy actually had life-threatening risks such as heart attacks, strokes, and cancer.

"Women felt betrayed," says Isaac Schiff, MD, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "They were calling their doctors, saying, 'How could you put me on this drug which causes heart attacks, strokes, and cancer?'"

Understanding Menopause -- Symptoms

Not all women experience symptoms prior to or following menopause, which is defined as the time when a woman has naturally ceased having menstrual periods for one year. If menopausal symptoms occur, they may include hot flashes, night sweats, pain during intercourse due to vaginal dryness, and increased anxiety or irritability.

Read the Understanding Menopause -- Symptoms article > >

Almost overnight, standard medical practice changed. Doctors stopped prescribing hormone replacement therapy and 65% of women on HRT quit, according to Schiff.

But some experts say hormone replacement therapy may be coming back. All along HRT remained an important treatment for menopause symptoms like hot flashes. And now, a number of recent studies show that hormone replacement therapy may have protective benefits for women who are early in menopause.

"I think we swung too positive on hormone therapy in the past and then we went too negative," says Schiff, who is also chair of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Task Force on Hormone Therapy. "Now we're trying to find a balance in between."

"We're definitely in a gray zone of uncertainty about hormone therapy," says Jacques Rossouw, MD, project officer for the federal Women's Health Initiative (WHI). "But when you're uncertain, you have to err on the side of safety."

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Hormone Replacement Therapy - WebMD

By Dr. Mercola

The US Preventive Services Task Force recently published its draft recommendations on hormone replacement therapyi.

While the task force has previously sparked controversy with its recommendations for breast cancer and PSA prostate cancer screening, their recommendations for hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women taking hormones to prevent chronic disease has been met with little resistance.

The group is changing its recommendations for menopausal women who use hormone therapy, either estrogen alone, or in combination with progestin to prevent heart disease, osteoporosis, and cognitive decline.

They are accepting public comments on the draft until June 26, at which point the group will decide whether to make the draft recommendations final. According to a recent report by CNNii:

"... The task force recommendations "are aimed at older women, who are generally healthy asking, 'If I take a pill a day, will I prevent a heart attack?" [Dr. Carolyn] Crandall [professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA] said.

... In the face of pretty good evidence, the balance of potential benefits and potential harms leads us not to recommend the use of these therapies," said Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, a task force member.

The proposed recommendations do not apply to women younger than 50 who have undergone surgical menopause or who are taking hormone therapy to manage menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, according to the panel.

... "The balance of benefits or harms may be different with young women, so you can't say this absolutely applies to younger women making hormone therapy decisions," Crandall said."

The task force based their new recommendation on a recent review of the results from nine clinical trials published over the past decadeiii. The main question the group sought to answer was whether or not hormone replacement therapy (HRT) should be used by otherwise healthy menopausal women "to prevent a hypothetical future health event such as heart disease or cognitive decline." Alas, according to the task force, "There is no evidence that the therapies would prevent those conditionsiv.

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Hormone Replacement Therapy Harmful - Mercola.com

Hormone replacement therapy of the male-to-female type is a type of hormone replacement therapy for transgender and transsexual people. It changes the balance of sex hormones in the body. Some intersex people also receive HRT, either starting in childhood to confirm the assigned sex, or later, if this assignment has proven to be incorrect.

Its purpose is to cause the development of the secondary sex characteristics of the desired sex. It cannot undo many of the changes produced by the first natural occurring puberty, which may necessitate surgery and/or epilation (see below).

The requirements for hormone replacement therapy vary immensely, often psychological counseling is required.

Under WPATH guidelines the Mental Health Provider requires individuals to satisfy two sets of criteria eligibility and readiness to undertake any stage of transition including hormone replacement therapy. Eligibility involves the patient meeting requirements from a major diagnostic tool, such as the ICD-10, DSM-IV-R or the DSM-V. ICD-10 requirements are for either Transsexualism or Gender identity disorder of childhood.[1]

The ICD-10 criteria for Transsexualism include the individual having a transsexual identity of over 2 years, a strong and persistent desire to live as a member of the opposite sex, usually accompanied by the desire to make their body as congruent as possible with the preferred sex through surgery and hormone treatments. These individuals cannot be diagnosed with Transsexualism if it is believed to be a result of another mental disorder, or a genetic, intersex or chromosomal abnormality.

The ICD-10 criteria for Gender identity disorder of childhood in males include the individual being pre-pubescent and having intense and persistent distress about being a boy. The distress must be present for at least six months. The child must either:

The DSM-IV-R criteria for Gender Identity Disorder includes four main criteria. The DSM-IV-R also requests that the individual's sexuality is noted.

In children this may be demonstrated by them meeting four or more of the following criteria:

Adolescents and Adults must display a persistent desire to be the other sex, frequent passing as the other sex, desire to live or be treated as the other sex, or the conviction that they have the typical feelings and reactions of the other sex.

In boys this may manifest as an assertion that their penis or testes are disgusting or will disappear, or asserting that it is better not to have a penis.

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Hormone replacement therapy (male-to-female) - Wikipedia ...