THE PROS AND CONS OF HORMONE THERAPY

HRT Guide The Pros and Cons of Hormone TherapyThe issue of hormone therapy to treat menopausal symptoms used to be a simple one. You had hot flashes, sleep disturbances, vaginal changes—you took hormones. Worried about your bones and heart—you took hormones. All that changed, of course, in the summer of 2002 with the announcement of the results of part of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), the first-ever, long-term study of the effects of hormone therapy on postmenopausal women. You know what happened next—millions of women panicked, ditched their hormone therapy and frantically searched for options. A couple of years later, when the estrogen-only (Premarin) arm of the WHI found an increased incidence of stroke in women on the drug with no cardiovascular benefits, it seemed that hormone therapy as a treatment for menopausal symptoms would go the way of the