Hormone replacement therapy has had some bad press through the years. You may have heard that HRT raises vascular and cancer risks, and does not even prevent osteoporosis. But the news just keeps getting worse.
The latest study shows HRT does not even stop your menopausal symptoms! What? you ask. My hot flashes are so much better!
Its true that the chemicals extracted from horse urine can make your symptoms better. But when you eventually stop the chemicals, the menopausal symptoms will return. A robust 21% of Prempro users surveyed said that their hot flashes returned after discontinuing the drug. Compare that to the 5% who were given dummy pills.
In essence, HRT only postpones your symptoms. So if you use HRT to relieve hot flashes now, you will just have to suffer them later. That means the drug companies have essentially made you dependent on these chemicals for the rest of your life.
So how can you avoid this dependence? Allow menopause to take its natural course. It gets the withdrawal over with quickly, instead of postponing the symptoms until you quit the horse urine extract.
To help you deal with hot flashes, I recommend black cohosh. Its one of my favorite alternatives and its readily available in most grocery, major retail, and health food stores.
Do Nothing and Double Your Risk of Breast Cancer
Researchers now say that women have a one in seven chance of getting breast cancer. But as bad as your risks are now, the Shanghai Breast Cancer Study from China says lack of exercise doubles your risk. Researchers took data from 1,459 breast cancer patients and compared them to 1,556 controls. Women with high body-mass index and low-energy expenditure incurred the highest risk.
Obesity (high body-mass index) and lack of exercise combine to increase insulin, the hormone of aging, cancer, and death. As obesity rates increase, so do the rates of breast cancer. If you are overweight and not exercising, you need to start today. Start by walking around the block. Then increase your distance and intensity gradually.
Ref: Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, June 2005; Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers Prevention, June 2005 14(6):1496-501.