Word: progestin
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...paper, which appears in the Feb. 5 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, found that the rate of breast cancer in postmenopausal women fell just two years after they stopped hormone therapy and continued to decline yearly. In addition, researchers found that women taking supplemental estrogen and progestin had doubled their risk of breast cancer after five years, compared with women not taking...
...although the academic back-and-forth over what caused an undeniably good health trend - a reduction in breast cancer - might seem superfluous, the study does reaffirm an important message for women: Hormone use at menopause does increase the risk of breast cancer, so estrogen and progestin should be used for the shortest possible time, only to relieve menopausal symptoms. "This study isn't an indictment of hormone use at menopause," says Berek. "It just means that like all medicines, hormones have their benefits and risks, so they have to be used very judiciously and for a short time...
...some researchers, unsurprisingly, jaded. "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink," says Dr. David Handelsman, an Australian researcher who has spent two decades studying male contraceptives, including an implant-injection system that delivers testosterone via an implant in the arm, plus a progestin in four yearly injections. "The pharmaceutical industry is completely disconnected from the public and medical perceptions of need...
...research would suggest several other options are possible. Studies show that the right combinations of testosterone and a progestin can successfully and reversibly suppress sperm production in most men. Though a combination oral birth control pill wouldn't work - the necessary testosterone would get broken down too quickly in the liver - researchers have developed several other delivery methods: monthly injections, creams and twice-a-year synthetic implants into the arm. None of these birth control methods are as convenient or noninvasive as the Pill for women, but they are as safe and as reversible...
...option for short-term treatment of menopausal symptoms. When used for the short-term treatment of distressing symptoms, it's likely that the benefits outweigh the risks." As confusing as they seem, taken together, every analysis from the WHI actually does paint a clearer picture of how estrogen and progestin can affect a woman's body during and after menopause, and doctors are learning more about the safest way to provide women with the advantages of these hormones in relieving menopausal symptoms. It's just that the story has many chapters yet to come...