Women have been oversold HRT for decades

High-quality studies, rather than drugs companies, are finally driving menopause treatment – but there’s a lot of ground to make upOn my desk I keep a copy of Feminine Forever, a book promoting hormone replacement therapy (HRT), published in 1966, by Robert A Wilson. On the front, it proclaims that it is “a fully documented discussion of one of medicine’s most revolutionary breakthroughs – the discovery that the menopause is a hormone deficiency disease, curable and totally preventable and that every woman, no matter what her age, can safely live a fully sexed life for her entire life”.I keep this book to remind me of a few things. One, that it is possible to be very, dramatically wrong in medicine – especially when you are very sure of yourself. Two, that when you make big promises, you should have robust, unbiased and powerful data to support them. Three, that when medicine tries to suggest that a new large section of the population – on this occasion, that all women over menopausal age – are “diseased”, one had better look to see who is behind that claim, and why. And last, hype around new medical products are, sadly, nothing new. Continue reading...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Health Medical research Menopause Women Society Science Source Type: news