Hope for HRT users

Vegetarian Times, Oct, 2002

The six million American women who until midsummer were taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) need not despair. There's still hope for those seeking relief from the symptoms of menopause. In July 2002, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced its conclusion that health risks associated with the popular combination of estrogen and progestin outweigh benefits, ending its Women's Health Initiative Study and telling the 16,000 women in the study to stop taking conventional HRT treatments.

The decision, which effectively withdraws the medical establishment's support for conventional HRT, opens the door to alternative therapies, some of which have been helping women for centuries. Almost a third of perimenopausal women already use alternative therapies, reports the North American Menopause Society, a percentage that should increase as new products come on the market. Chief among these newer alternatives are "bioidentical," or natural, forms of hormone replacement, which use naturally derived hormones from soy and other plants to match more closely the hormones that are manufactured by the body. Other treatments address specific symptoms. Black cohosh and flaxseeds, for example, may reduce hot flashes, night sweats and depression. Evening primrose is thought to lessen night sweats, and the herb dong quai is used in Asia to alleviate hot flashes. The evidence that black cohosh relieves menopause-related discomfort is strong enough that the NIH plans a yearlong trial of the herb. For more information on developments in the natural HRT field, see Better Nutrition's October 2002 issue. Or visit www.betternutrition.com.