Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

A study involving nearly 58,000 women in France over a 12-year period suggests that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may increase a woman’s risk of developing asthma after menopause. Researchers from the Gustave Roussy Institute in France and the Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica in Mexico published the findings in the British medical journal, Thorax. The study suggested that women who took HRT were 21 percent more likely to develop asthma than women who did not take HRT. The risk was even greater for women who took estrogen-only HRT compared to the combined estrogen-plus-progestin therapy, with the estrogen-only group at 54 percent greater risk of developing asthma compared to women who did not take HRT. This is the first long-term, large-scale study to suggest that estrogen-only HRT puts women at much greater risk of asthma than the combined therapy.

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There is plenty of bad press about hormone replacement therapy (HRT), a striking reversal of just a decade or two ago, when drug makers were touting the many benefits of HRT for menopausal women. Those drug makers spent millions of dollars developing advertising campaigns and paying doctors to write articles in medical journals claiming the pills that combined estrogen and progestin were the fountain of youth. They put an end to nasty menopause symptoms such as mood swings and hot flashes, and offered the added benefit of strengthening bones and protecting women against cancer and heart disease.

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Women who reported new-onset breast tenderness following use of estrogen-plus-progestin hormone replacement therapy (HRT) were at a much greater risk of developing breast cancer than women on the same HRT who did not report tenderness in their breasts, according to a study by researchers from the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California – Los Angeles.

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The advertisements no longer blanket magazines or fill television screens, but the message cannot be deleted. Over the years, millions of women were told that estrogen loss during menopause could be dangerous to their health, contributing to problems such as osteoporosis, heart disease, colon cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, tooth loss and blindness. It could also cause uncomfortable symptoms such as hot flashes, vaginal dryness and mood swings. The ads said menopause was a nasty disease that could be eliminated by just taking a once-daily pill, a hormone replacement therapy (HRT) that would help women feel like women again.

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U.S. District Judge Bill Wilson Jr. has ordered scientific data collected by the Cancer Research Center since August 2005 as a follow up to a study on the effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on postmenopausal women should be released to Wyeth Pharmaceuticals as it defends itself against numerous lawsuits over the safety of its HRT meds.

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Researchers in Ottawa, Canada are hoping to ease women’s fear of hormone replacement drugs by creating and testing synthetic hormones to combat aggravating symptoms of menopause, according to Canada.com. The research follows an earlier grant from the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation to explore the re-engineering of estrogen estradiol, which is one of the components of the popular hormone replacement therapy (HRT) Premarin. The new grant, funded by a $267,000 research grant from the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, seeks to evaluate those compounds of synthesized molecules on the liver, cardiac and other types of cells. The goal is that it must relieve menopausal symptoms while not promoting breast or uterine cancer.

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Women who took Wyeth’s hormone replacement therapy (HRT) Prempro at least five years are at greater risk of dying from non-small cell lung cancer, according to a recent study presented at an American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.

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Women on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) who have no family history of breast cancer have the same risk of developing breast cancer as women with a family history who are on HRT, according to a University of Rochester Medical Center Study.

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The more than 2 million baby-boomer women who are approaching menopause may find themselves in a precarious position when it comes to handling hot flashes and mood swings. Should they risk the threat of breast cancer from use of hormone replacement therapy, or simply suffer through the agonizing symptoms? According to Forbes, new and detailed research offers women the opportunity to make a more educated decision.

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A new study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests a sudden decrease in breast cancer in several countries worldwide is likely linked to the 2002 Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) finding that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after menopause can dramatically increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer and other serious health problems, the Wall Street Journal reports.

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