Hormones In The News

March 2008 - An extensive cohort study has found that postmenopausal hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is associated with a significant reduction in the risk for lung cancer. The analysis of more than 70,000 women indicated that women's risk for lung cancer was reduced by a significant 24% if they were currently using HRT."These results support the hypothesis that postmenopausal hormone therapy is associated with reduced risk of lung cancer...

March 2008 - For thousands of years, magicians, alchemists, even a few fringe medical practitioners have fueled an unbounded optimism that we can blunt the ravages of time, stay younger for longer, maybe even defeat death itself. Their pitches have usually hinged on some drug, food or device — everything from electricity to yogurt to surgically installing the gonads of animals into our own bodies — that will slow or reverse the aging process. Every decade or so, “anti-aging” promoters grasp onto news coming out of...

March 2008 - Parents have long worried whether their kids at college are drinking too much or getting stoned. But alcohol and marijuana aren't the only substances they should be concerned about: In recent years, a growing number of young people have begun abusing prescription opiates. The problem is part of a larger trend of abuse of prescription drugs among teenagers. Several years ago, attention-deficit drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall became popular among students, who used them to improve concentration or lose weight. Now there is evidence that ...

February 2008 - Tampa, Fla. They're bullish on testosterone here at the 6th Annual World Congress on the Aging Male.Physicians and researchers from around the world gathered to review the latest findings on what low levels of the male hormone means for men, how replacing it might help and why it hasn't caught on broadly. "If we had a drug that could restore sexual function in men, make them stronger, build their bones, reduce fat and get rid of the blues, you'd say, 'Oh my God, why doesn't everybody know about...

June 2007 - Low testosterone may lead to a greater risk of death, according to a study presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society in Toronto. Men with low testosterone had a 33 percent greater death risk over their next 18 years of life compared with men who had higher testosterone, according to the study conducted by Dr. Elizabeth Barrett-Connor and colleagues at the University of California at San Diego. "It's very exciting and potentially a groundbreaking study," said Barrett-Connor. "But it needs to be...

January 2007 - After years of debate about the safety of hormone therapy in menopause, a major medical group yesterday revised its position, stating that estrogen and progestin drugs may actually protect the hearts and bones of certain women. The new guidelines from the North American Menopause Society, one of the leading scientific organizations that advises doctors about the care of women in midlife, are certain to spark more ...

August 2006 - Newswise - In four years, 50 million American women will be in menopause. The federal government's decision in 2002 to suspend the use of synthetic hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in a large scale clinic trial of the effects of HRT, left many women and physicians uncertain about the safety of synthetic hormones and searching for alternatives. Bio-identical ("natural") hormone replacement therapy (nBHRT) has been proposed by some doctors as a reasonable alternative, although it is not commonly...

November 2005 - As a 54-year-old psychotherapist, Laurie Forbes has had professional as well as personal experience in dealing with the effects of fluctuating hormones around menopause. For a couple of years, Forbes tried commercial estrogen and progestin products to relieve hot flashes and other menopause symptoms. But, she says, the treatment was even worse. Then she heard about Women's International Pharmacy in Madison, Wis., and Youngtown, Ariz. Women's International is one of what appears to be a growing number of pharmacies making and...