Consider Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) hit the news after the findings from the Women’s Health Initiative in the USA suggested the risks outweighed the benefits.

The study involving more than 16,000 post-menopausal women, began in 1997 and was scheduled to end in 2005. However researchers stopped it three years early because they felt the health risks of taking combined HRT (oestrogen plus progestin) outweighed the possible benefits.

The study suggested that long-term use (more than four years) of HRT increases a woman’s risk of heart disease and breast cancer. A further study by the National Institutes of Health suggested that oestrogen alone may increase risk of stroke.

But for women suffering serious symptoms with menopause, “HRT can offer real lifestyle benefits that must be weighed against the risks, according to Professor Susan Davis of the NHRMC Centre for Clinical Research Excellence for the Study of Women’s Health at Monash University.

"Doctors are taking a better approach to prescribing HRT by using lower doses, patches and gels instead of tablets that directly impact on the liver, and suggesting that HRT is mainly for women with night sweats, hot flushes, anxiety and depression,” she says. “Today it is generally believed to be appropriate for women to use HRT short-term for two to five years and for the relief of menopausal symptoms."

"But HRT is only one part of menopause management,” says Dr Margaret Smith, Gynaecologist and founding member of the Australasian Menopause Society. See the article titled, Managing Menopause for more information.