May 06
28
New Study Suggests Estrogen Only Pills Not Good for Menopausal Women
In a new study released today, it was found that estrogen only hormone pills may have adverse effects on the women that take them for symptoms of menopause and hormonal imbalance such as hot flashes, mood swings and other discomforts of getting older as a woman.
Apparently, estrogen heavy pills raise older women’s risk of blood clots, but not as much as supplements that also contain progestin, according to the new study which was performed on approximately 10,000 women.
The study is the most thorough one to date on the effects of estrogen-only hormone pills on women over a certain age, for the relief mostly of menopause symptoms. The results were not compellingly startling since researchers had a clue that this was the case, but the findings add to a long list of complications found by the Women’s Health Initiative, a large research project sponsored by the US government that has contradicted widespread and long-held beliefs that hormones taken at menopause promote health and postpone age related discomforts and illnesses.
In 2002, the WHI linked estrogen-progestin pills to heart attacks and breast cancer and found that they also doubled the risk of blood clots. As a result, millions of U.S. women stopped taking supplements. Is anybody else thinking what I am? What if you’re on the pill?
Aren’t birth control pills composed of the exact same thing they’re talking about here – synthetic estrogens, progestins and other hormones? I don’t know, I do know though that I’d LOVE to go off the pill, but I’m too terrified of getting pregnant at this stage in my life. What’s a girl to do?
