Eine im renommierten New England Journal of Medicine publizierte Studie untermauert den seit einiger Zeit immer wieder von Experten geäußerten Verdacht, das die bei Frauen in den Wechseljahren routinemäßig empfohlene Hormonersatztherapie mit Östrogenen und Gestagenen auch die Lebensqualität nicht verbessert. Unlängst war mehrfach nachgewiesen worden, dass diese Therapie das Gesundheitsrisiko deutlich verstärkt. Die Nachteile der Therapie sind so gravierend, dass den meisten Frauen empfohlen werden muss diese Therapie- nach Rücksprache mit ihrem behandelnden Arzt -  möglichst umgehend zu beenden.  mehr

New York Times , March 19th, 2003
Delusions of Feeling Better
Bit by bit the evidence is accumulating that most women are foolish if they keep taking hormone pills for years at a time. Last year federal health officials halted a large study of hormone replacement therapy because the pills used, a combination of estrogen and progestin, were causing more harm than good. Women taking the pills had a greater risk of breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes and blood clots than other women, and the damage was not offset by a small beneficial effect in reducing the risk of colon cancer and hip fractures. Even so, many women have been reluctant to abandon the hormone therapy because it makes them feel better, more energetic, mentally sharper and more sexually responsive. Or so they have thought.

Now comes the bad news that they have most likely been mistaken. New study results just released by The New England Journal of Medicine show that the pills had no significant effect on the quality of life of a large group of postmenopausal women. Women who took the pills did not feel any healthier or more vital than comparable women who took placebos, nor did they have more sexual pleasure. Compared with those in the placebo group, their minds were no clearer, their memories no better, and their mental health no different. The pills did have marginal effects on sleep disturbances, physical functioning and pain, but these were not clinically significant and disappeared after a year or so of use.

This is a stunning reversal of fortune for drugs that have been widely used by many women not just to treat the hot flashes and night sweats of menopause, a well-established use, but also as a long-term elixir to ward off aging. So engrained is the belief in hormone therapy that many women and many doctors refuse to believe the mounting evidence against it. But the findings were generated by the respected Women's Health Initiative, which randomly assigned more than 16,000 women to take either the hormones or a placebo. The results ought to embarrass Wyeth, the manufacturer of the pills tested, which has long implied that hormone therapy is a virtual fountain of youth. They should also shake the confidence of everyone who has believed, on the basis of anecdotal reports and less rigorous scientific studies, that hormone treatments made women feel better. A lot of the presumed benefit may have been a placebo effect.