ESTROGEN AND PROGESTERONE
HORMONE REPLACEMENT
FOR POSTMENOPAUSAL WOMEN
By
E.Y. Chein, M.D.

It is a commonly known and accepted fact that the female hormone levels of estrogen and progesterone drop drastically low after menopause. Is estrogen/progesterone hormone replacement therapy the great elixir for the health problems aging women experience?

Increasingly, plenty of scientific medical evidence has doctors answering that question with a resounding "Yes!" Dr. Michael Kicerekoper of Wayne State University states, "There is nothing globally that takes care of the problems associated with menopause like estrogen does." He thinks that estrogen/progesterone hormone replacement therapy is terrific for postmenopausal women, and that view is widely shared by his colleagues now in the areas of Orhopedics, Gynecology, Cardiology and Internal Medicine.

Before menopause, women's bodies are protected from heart disease, for example, by the ovaries' natural production of estrogen and progesterone hormones. But after menopause, heart disease skyrockets, surpassing even the male population. It is the leading cause of death in older women with over a half-million deaths per year in the United States, more than twice as many as all cancer deaths combined.

Several prestigious medical groups, among them the American College of Physicians and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, have released papers propounding the position that postmenopausal women should seriously consider preventative estrogen/progesterone hormone replacement therapy to reduce the risk and symptoms of osteoporosis and heart disease, two of the primary scourges of aging in women. In a major study, "Postmenopausal Estrogen/Progesterone Interventions Program", recently announced that estrogen and progesterone clearly improve a number of key risk factors for heart disease in postmenopausal women.  Prevention of osteoporosis is another stand-out, with studies showing that estrogen hormone lowers the risk of hip fracture, the most disastrous consequence of osteoporosis, by an impressive 60 percent. So overwhelming is the evidence of estrogen hormone replacement therapy in the prevention of osteoporosis that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) now allows manufacturers to market it and advertise it for that
purpose.