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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.
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