Hormone Replacement?

By Mehmet Oz, MD and Michael Roizen, MD:

We wouldn’t blame you if the latest round of horror story headlines about hormone therapy (HT) and breast cancer inspired you to flush your pills. Scary? Absolutely. But less so and in fact even misleading when you know three things.

Yes, we beg to differ strongly that scariness is BS (bad interpretation of science, and maybe just bad science). Here are three things you should know:

1. Estrogen used alone in this study decreased the risk of breast cancer in this and other studies, strongly suggesting the problem was with the combo.

2. Today’s hormone therapy can be safer than that used in the study. So safe, in fact, that it’s an intelligent option for the one in three women with nasty menopausal symptoms.

3. The safest HT also protects you from the number one killer of women: heart disease. If you’re among the 83 million women in North America who are nearing or going through menopause, here’s the science. Yes, we’re going against the establishment, but you deserve the real data from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) — not the BS headlines from people who seem not to have cared about what the data in the study were — and from other studies.

What are the newer, safer forms?

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