Hormone Therapy No Longer Recommended – Mercola.com

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 Therapy No Longer Recommended - Mercola.com