The Great Hormone Scare of 2002: Short Version
Why our mothers might warn us off of hormone therapy
Hi Beautiful Friends,
The Women's Health Initiative -- the biggest, most expensive NIH study to date -- rather than studying the impacts of hormone therapy on symptomatic, perimenopausal women looking to improve quality of life, selected an older population with an average age of 63, many of whom were already experiencing post-menopausal bodily changes due to a decrease in hormones and chronic diseases of aging. For instance, many were on blood pressure medication.
On July 9th, 2002, a week before the study was published, a small number of principal investigators of the WHI put together a hasty press release misleadingly linking hormones directly to breast cancer although results had not reached statistical significance.
In a 2006 update of the same cohort of women, the WHI found that the reported increase in breast cancer had vanished, but this news somehow never made headlines. (A. Bluming, MD & C. Tavris, PhD, Estrogen Matters, p. 29)
Of important note too is that the hormone formulations tested in the WHI are no longer commonly prescribed in the modern management of hormone therapy to treat symptoms.
In an updated 2022 Position Statement, the North American Menopause Society (recently renamed The Menopause Society) re-examined the body of evidence from hormone therapy trials and studies including the WHI and concluded that:
“For healthy women with menopausal symptoms who are younger than 60 or within 10 years after menopause onset, the benefits outweigh the risks.”
Some of these benefits include: cardiovascular, bone, brain, genitourinary, vasomotor, metabolic, colon, skin, joint, muscle, sleep, and mood.
Watch Dr. Sharon Malone dispel some of the WHI findings on Oprah.
Even Dr. Joann Manson who was a principal investigator of the WHI stated on Dr. Attia’s podcast thedrive #253:
“Women never should have been denied hormone therapy for the treatment of bothersome distressing hot flashes, night sweats to improve their quality of life. Especially generally healthy women in early menopause, who have such low absolute rates of adverse events.”
For a more in-depth look at the WHI, please see my blog post:
