HRT

[Guest guest]

Alon is correct that there are no significant studies

supporting the safety of natural HRT. I've worked in

pharmaceutical companies for many years. Studies take

millions of dollars. Drug companies pay for them in

the hope that they will clearly show the safety of

their products. The nurses study that found the

synthetics to increase cancer risks were funded at

least in part by the company that produces Premarin in

the hopes of showing it's safety. The same study

showed that HRT did not protect against heart attack.

(Note that the people who did the original heart

attach study have been publicly doing service

announcements for year to try and tell people that it

was an error that was being spread to physicians.)

 

There are no funds for such research. We would have

all heard about it if there were.

 

When a pharmaceutical company has a product that they

think will work they do animal studies to see if it

will work. This will show that it doesn't kill the

patient and help set the dosage. Then they do very

small human studies again to show it works and doesn't

kill patient and figure dosages (Phase I). Then there

is a larger study that will show how effective the

drug is as well as that it is still safe (Phase II).

Then they do the very large study (Phase III). Drugs

that have been very safe and effective for years in

the small studies are found to be unsafe or not

effective. This why it costs so much to bring a drug

to market. Most drugs fail by phase three.

 

When a clinic has a set of patients who do well with a

treatment or drug, it might be like very earliest

studies at best. More likely samples are much smaller

than even a Phase I trail. So interesting but not

conclusive.

 

The physician researcher I heard talk about HRT

described synthetic hormones this way. Premarin is as

different from estrogen as testosterone. I'm not sure

about " natural " HRT. They have delivery systems that

might change the nature of the hormones also. The

hormone that we produce in our bodies are are not

coming in as isolated supplements.

 

It's something to think about.