Interesting article on HRT in D Mail

[PollyPerky]

Yes, I know it's the Mail and Sarah Vine, but there are some valid points imo and some relevant quotes from drs. I tend to agree with her ideas that HRT can be / was seen as some a vanity type of drug used by women the same as they might ask for Botox etc to preserve 'youth'.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4889864/SARAH-VINE-asks-society-demonises-women-trying-HRT.html

(Oddly though I thought SV had written before about her HRT and was a patient of Studd- yet here she refers to her gynae as a 'she'.)

Well I fully intend to go on HRT when the time comes. I watched my DM experience an unmedicated menopause and it was utterly miserable, both for her and those who had to live with her! She was in a decade-long foul mood and she gained weight overnight and struggled to get it off again. I have no intention of going through that. Also, I remember all the kerfuffle about certain types of contraceptive pill in the early 90s, which were then quietly debunked by later studies, so I'm not surprised that HRT has now been given the all clear. My aunt (my DM's older sister), was on it for years and she both looked and said she felt great. That's enough for me.

Most of those studies that caused the worry over the safety of hrt were done using the oral form of hrt. Not the patches or gels. The oral form has to go through the the lover and is toxic. The gels and patches are absorbed differently and therefore bypass the liver.

It's not really about pills v gel/ patches, or the liver. All drugs go through the liver eventually once they are in the blood stream. But all oral pills are 'first bypass' through the liver meaning that's where they are broken down so they can enter the blood stream compared to topical products which go via the skin.

The sort of estrogen used in the WHI study was congine equine estrogen (CEE) which is a synthetic form. Most HRT now is estradiol. Also the WHI study was not representative of most women's use of HRT; the average age was 63, they were overweight and some had used HRT before.
The other most important difference with the WHI study was that all the progestins used were synthetic and these are the worst for breast cancer (see stats.)