Talk about health

Just when I was mulling over something to write about today, I heard on the News that some scientist had reviewed the data on HRT research and come to completely the opposite conclusion from the original researchers. Apparently this bloke thinks that HRT protects women from heart attacks after all and women should go back to using it NOW!

Aren't our journalists wonderful? They interviewed some lady who expressed her anger that she had been taken off her HRT five years ago and suffered consequently from the loss of her daily fix of female horse hormones(Pregnant Mares Urine = Premarin).

No word from the alternative medicine camp and no comment from the original researchers either. A little strange, I thought, not to approach them for reasons that they clearly had misinterpreted their own work. Or had they?

Giving two minute cover for years of work and carefully thought out conclusions binned in favour of the drug industry is just a little on the suspicious side. Now, I can't say how the original results are flawed and neither can I say how the new information is so completely different from it. I wonder what is going on here. Is the latest release some jiggery-pokery at the behest of the drug industry? Or is it genuine scientific fact?

Whatever it is, I'm sure the next few weeks will see some clearing of the muddied waters. For what its worth, my view is that HRT will never be the only or necessarily the safest way to control the menopause and its attendant symptoms.

Menopause is a natural process, not a disease. Unfortunately, many women suffer symptoms associated with the changes, and often these symptoms badly affect their lives. But taking HRT, a synthetic drug, is bound to have some side effects. And occasionally these could be harmful in the extreme. It's true of every drug, and HRT is no different.

The original story caused many women to reassess the alternatives and brought these alternative approaches to mainstream thinking. Sure, HRT was an easy thing to use - a pill or a patch. Like many mainstream treatments today all you need is a prescription and away you go.

What women need to consider is the ease of access with the possibility of fatal side effects. Research might eventually agree on a number for this - x deaths per thousand cases. But what is sure is that alternative therapies don't kill very many people as compared to drugs. So think carefully before you jump back on the HRT bandwagon.

This scientist may have started it moving again, but has it only got one wheel?

Wishing you the very best of health.