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We know hormones prevent heart attacks in women under 59 years of age, but what do hormones do to your blood pressure? This first article attempts to answer this important question. My comments follow.
Cardiovascular effects of 6 months of hormone replacement therapy versus placebo: Differences associated with years since menopause
Objective: This study evaluated cardiovascular effects of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) versus placebo in postmenopausal women grouped according to time since menopause.
Objective: This study evaluated cardiovascular effects of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) versus placebo in postmenopausal women grouped according to time since menopause.
Study design: Resting and stress blood pressure (BP) levels were obtained in 69 women randomly assigned to placebo or HRT in a 6-month double-blind study. Analyses evaluated if treatment effects differed among those postmenopausal less than 5 years, versus those postmenopausal 5 years or more.
Results: Compared with the placebo-treated and HRT>5 yrs since menopause groups, the HRT<5 yrs since menopause group showed reduced BP and trends toward reduced vascular resistance and norepinephrine. HRT>5 yrs group generally did not differ from placebo.
Conclusion: Reduced BP is evident in some HRT users, with diminishing benefit after the initial postmenopausal years. Time since menopause may be an important consideration in making individualized patient treatment decisions.
What this article is saying is that if a woman begins taking hormones within 5 years of her menopause, and takes them for 6 months, she will see her blood pressure (BP) drop 8.5 points on average. If she begins her hormones after 5 years since her last menstrual period, she gets little to no BP effect. Time since menopause seems to be critically important regarding the benefits of hormone therapy.
To see the full article, click on groups.yahoo.com/group/drrehertsalerts/files/ and open the file named Hormones and BP.pdf
With the obesity epidemic growing in America, diabetes is becoming ever more prevalent. This next paper explores the link between diabetes and hormone therapy.
HRT May Reduce Diabetes Risk
Jan. 6, 2003 -- Despite the negative news about hormone replacement therapy (HRT), research suggests that HRT may provide a significant benefit in helping some women reduce their risk of diabetes. The study, published in the Jan. 7 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, found that postmenopausal women with heart disease who took a combination of estrogen and progestin had a 35% lower risk of developing diabetes than those who took a placebo. The women on HRT also had more normal fasting blood sugar levels, which when high suggest the likely onset of diabetes.
Researchers say it's the first such benefit found in a large number of women -- based on more than 2,700 postmenopausal women with heart disease who were followed for about four years.
Eugene Barrett, MD, president-elect of the American Diabetes Association says that until now there really hasn't been much information on the role of HRT in the development of diabetes, and this study raises some interesting questions.
Karen E. Friday, MD, associate professor of medicine at Tulane University, agrees that further studies are needed and says her great hope is that the negative press about HRT has not halted research on estrogens because there is more that we need to know.
According to Friday, both animal and human studies suggest that estrogen plays a significant role in how the body regulates the sugar glucose, and she says we don't yet understand all of the potential mechanisms and influences of various forms of estrogen on diabetes.
Since diabetes is known to greatly increase a person's risk of heart disease, finding a way to safely reduce that additional risk through the use of HRT could have tremendous potential.
Click Here For The Complete Story=>http://www.webmd.com/content/article/57/66219.htm
Sometimes the obvious needs to be confirmed with a little research. Here's a study that says having sex late in pregnancy, might stimulate labor. Seems pretty obvious to me. Dr. R
Sex close to due date may cause spontaneous labor
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who have sexual intercourse during late pregnancy are more likely to have a spontaneous delivery at 38 to 40 weeks' and less likely to require labor induction, according to results of a study conducted in Malaysia.
It is commonly believed that intercourse hastens labor, but very little research has been published to confirm this theory.
It is commonly believed that intercourse hastens labor, but very little research has been published to confirm this theory.
Dr. Peng Chiong Tan, from the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, designed a study in which 200 healthy, married women with uncomplicated pregnancies completed diaries regarding sexual activity beginning at week 36 of pregnancy. Labor induction was carried out among women who had not delivered by 41 weeks of pregnancy.
The results showed that 6.9 percent of sexually active women had not delivered by 41 weeks, compared with 29.8 percent of abstinent women.
After factors such as ethnicity, education, occupation, perception of coital safety and husbands' age were taken into account, women who had sexual intercourse were 90 percent more likely to have delivered by 41 weeks and almost 100% less likely to require labor induction compared with women not engaging in sexual intercourse.
Although the researchers recommend sexual intercourse as a means of avoiding labor induction, they add that "in potentially compromised pregnancies caution has to be applied because the effect of intercourse and orgasm has been described as being similar to an oxytocin contraction stress test."
Click Here For The Complete Story=> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13923867/
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