Doctors recommend HRT but the media give me anxiety. Who is right?

Many doctors recommend HRT but the media give me anxiety. Who is right?

The media seem to highlight anxieties about HRT but the majority of doctors believed that the benefits of HRT were greater than the risks.

When you reach your menopause your ovaries will have run out of eggs. Menopausal symptoms are side effects resulting from nature preventing babies being delivered to women beyond middle age (Q 26.2). If any other gland stops working doctors recommend replacing the missing hormones. This is true for diabetics who require insulin or those with hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid gland) who require thyroxin. Hormone replacement therapy can be seen as replacing hormones that the ovaries are no longer capable of producing.

Let us look at the Lancet data of 1997 again (Figure 27.3). The media stated that there is a 25% increase in the incidence of breast cancer in HRT users. Many women heard ?25%? and said ?1 in 4 risk no thank you. Count me out!? The 25% was the increase compared to the underlying risk. By the age of 75 years, 7.5% of women who had never taken HRT will have developed breast cancer. If HRT had been taken for fifteen years, by the age of 75, 9% would have developed the disease. The majority of these 90 women per thousand would have developed the disease anyway. The additional risk is actually 1.5%! When compared to the 7.5%, 1.5% represents about a 25% increase. The facts are the same - the presentation is different.

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