• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Alternatives Aid Post-Menopausal Women

Posted on: Thursday, 6 October 2005, 18:00 CDT

By EMILY CRAWFORD Journal Staff Writer

Post-menopausal women who need hormone replacement therapy to treat symptoms stemming from low estrogen levels have an alternative to estrogen-progestin drugs such as Premarin that are derived from horse urine.

Since the National Institutes of Health released the results of a clinical study -- called the Women's Health Initiative -- that found the risks of taking estrogen-progestin drugs outweighed the benefits in 2002, consumers and health care providers have been looking for a safer substitute.

The study found that the combined drugs caused increases in breast cancer, heart attacks, strokes and blood clots in the women participating in the trial.

One possible alternative to drugs such as Premarin are bio- identical replacement therapies, which are derived from plants. These hormones are considered to be "bio-identical" because they can be processed so that they exactly match the hormones found in women.

The drug Premarin came close but did not exactly match the hormones in a woman's body, said Dr. Justina Trott, the director of Women's Health Services in Santa Fe.

Most of the bio-identicals are derived from soy products and are put through chemical reactions to create an exact match.

These hormones are being touted as a "natural" alternative but Premarin is derived from horses, which are just as natural as plants, Trott said.

"Bio-identical doesn't mean that it comes from a 'natural source,' '' Trott said. "Bio-identical means if we took the chemicals out of my body and took the chemical from a pharmacy, we shouldn't see any difference."

Though Trott is skeptical of drug companies' marketing tools to sell the bio-identicals as a "natural" and therefore goodfor-you alternative, she does believe that bio-identicals could be better for women than other hormone replacement drugs.

"It makes sense to me that using a bio-identical anything would be better for you than something that is close but not exactly the same within our body," she said.

Once health practitioners decide what combination or ratio of hormones are needed, bio-identical therapies can be made into a custom dose for the patient at a pharmacy that "compounds" or creates custom medication, said Mike Monske, a pharmacist at Pharmaca.

"We can up or down the dose," he said. "We can tailor it to what the woman needs."

Source: Albuquerque Journal

More News in this Category