Horse Urine … Really?

An excerpt from my new book Undoctored. This one little tale about hormonal health of human females, pregnant horses, and drug patents paints a microcosm of the bigger healthcare picture. It is an example of how when money becomes the primary goal, health may not be served. For years, physicians prescribed estrogen hormone replacement for women experiencing menopause, believing that drugs like Premarin, manufactured by harvesting estrogens from the urine of pregnant horses, prevented osteoporosis, improved cholesterol values, and reduced cardiovascular risk, since preliminary epidemiological studies, not real clinical studies of proper design, had suggested such benefits. Despite the lack of evidence, Wyeth-Ayerst (now part of Pfizer) spent many millions of dollars advertising Premarin and promoted its use to doctors, causing it to be the number-one most widely prescribed drug for years. After several decades of being accepted as a routine prescription, regarded as no worse than aspirin for a headache, the whole thing fell apart in 2002 with the publication of higher-quality (randomized, controlled) studies, such as the 16,000-participant Women’s Health Initiative, demonstrating that horse estrogens increased risk for heart attack, stroke, blood clots, breast cancer, and endometrial cancer.7 Though still available, Premarin has fallen from its perch as the most widely prescribed medication. There’s more to this story: Premarin is nonhuman, a mixture of various estrogens s...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - Category: Cardiology Authors: Tags: Hormone Replacement Drugs Undoctored Source Type: blogs