diminishes libido, reduces oxygen levels in all cells, causes a decline of zinc and the retention of copper
and gives rise to a cystitis-like syndrome. Over 70 per cent of women on estrogen or progestogen
experience such strong side effects that half of them stop taking the drug after 6 months. In 1992, the
British Medical Journal listed some of the side effects of HRT, which are very similar to the PMT-like
symptoms these hormones are supposed to treat. They include: monthly period-like withdrawal bleeding
and eventual breakthrough bleeding, abdominal cramps, bloating, breast tenderness, irritability,
depression and anxiety.
Progestogens can also cause abnormally high calcium levels in the blood, alter its sugar and insulin
concentrations, increase the severity of migraines, and lead to gallbladder disease, liver cancer and urinary
tract infections.
Yet many doctors still prescribe HRT routinely as a preventive to avoid discomfort during menopause,
wrongly assuming that every menopausal woman will also suffer from discomfort. Hormones are even
sold as rejuvenatory drugs and prescribed for circulatory problems. They are recommended to middle-
aged women who develop signs of depression, although depression can occur at any age and may be
caused by numerous other factors than a drop in hormone levels.
In America, doctors use a highly detailed manual called the Physician’s Desk Reference. By law, the
drug manufacturers are required to list all the risks of their drugs in this manual. The entry for Hormone
Replacement Therapy includes: womb cancer; breast tenderness/enlargement; undesirable weight
gain/loss; elevated blood pressure; mental depression; reduced carbohydrate and glucose tolerance; hair
loss; vaginal candidacies (thrush); jaundice; abdominal cramps; vomiting; cystitis-like syndrome.
Menopausal symptoms may begin to seem mild when compared with any of these side effects.
Hrt Fails To Prevent Bone Loss
Many older women take HRT to prevent osteoporosis – a disease characterized by a loss of minerals
from bone tissue. A large number of them have been warned by their doctors that their bones will crumble
if they don't take it. The latest results from an ongoing study of 670 women in Framingham,
Massachusetts, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, October, 1993 shows, however, that
HRT fails to protect women from osteoporosis—therefore eliminating one of the main reasons for its use.
Only those women who were on HRT for longer than 7-10 years, far longer than most women stay on the
drug, had higher bone mineral density. However, even those on HRT for 10 years were still not protected
from osteoporosis. As soon as they stopped taking HRT, bone mineral density declined rapidly, so that by
age 75 it was only 3.2 per cent higher than it was in women who had never taken the hormones.
Increased bone mineral density has always been considered a positive effect of the long-term use of
estrogen and progestogens contained in HRT and the contraceptive pill. But researchers from the
University of Pittsburgh, U.S.A., found that women whose bone mineral density increased as a result of
taking extra hormones also have a far greater chance of developing breast cancer. The indicator for breast
cancer risk is therefore not, as previously assumed, bone mineral density but hormone supplementation.
Since most women begin menopause in their fifties, and the greatest risk of fractures is when they are
in their eighties, HRT offers no benefits, unless they take it for 30 years or longer. In such a case, the risk
of developing cancer and other health problems is so high that the use of these drugs is rarely warranted.
In 1992, the New England Journal of Medicine provided clear evidence that lack of estrogen does not
cause osteoporosis. In fact, some evidence suggests that estrogens actually contribute to osteoporosis.
Women experience significant bone loss during the 10 to 15 years before menopause, despite an ample
supply of estrogen. During this time there is an almost total decline of progesterone, another female
hormone. Synthetic progesterone, called progestins, is now given, combined with estrogen, but the