Nexus - 0901 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

placed on HRT as a preventive treatment. Menopause itself has 1-9% of biologically active hormones.’ This means that the vast been perceived as a dangerous risk factor for the increasing majority of hormones in the tissues are not measured, resulting incidence of heart disease. But is this really true? in a misdiagnosis of oestrogen deficiency when a majority of "Absolutely not!" s Professor Hugh Tunstall-Pedoe, a women actually have normal or excess levels of oestrogen. renowned Scottish cardiovascular epidemiologist. According to According to the World Health Organization and recent him, it is a myth that menopause is bad for women's hearts. "It research, the only valid way to test hormone levels is with saliva is unarguable that risk of myocardial infarction [heart attack] testing—an inexpensive test that can be prescribed by a doctor and coronary death is lower in women than in men in middle and done at home. Unfortunately, the majority of traditional ages. However, there is a myth that risk in women is held low medical doctors are not aware of the validity and efficacy of only until menopause, around age 50 years, when it rebounds, saliva testing. Thus, relying on blood serum testing to assess equalling and later surpassing that in men."* The myth implies hormone levels will usually lead to flawed test results and that coronary deaths in women should accelerate more rapidly mistreatment with inappropriate hormones. after the age of fifty. However, Professor Tunstall-Pedoe's analysis shows women's death rates do not surge after OESTROGEN'S MANY HARMFUL EFFECTS ON THE menopause and in fact never catch up to those of men. The reaw | CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM son the numbers of elderly women dying from CHD are greater In the pursuit of establishing a definite beneficial link than elderly men is simply due to women between HRT and the heart, Wyeth- living longer. Ayerst, the pharmaceutical company The corollary to the menopause/heart manufacturing Premarin, funded the disease myth is the belief that oestrogen Heart and Estrogen—Progestin Study becomes deficient at menopause. In fact, it (HERS), which was to investigate is often erroneously stated that the ovaries Premarin's effect on women with pre- fail at menopause, resulting in a significant existing coronary artery disease. depletion of oestrogen. This oestrogen The findings from this study sent loss was then attributed to a higher inci- The real problem for shockwaves throughout the medical com- dence of post-menopausal heart disease. iort munity worldwide. In the study, the Women have also been misled to believe the majority of women taking hormones increased their that menopausal symptoms and potentially perimenopausal and risk of myocardial infarction by about debilitating conditions are the result of . 50% in the first year! In addition, there declining oestrogen levels. There is a menopausal women In was a threefold increase of blood clots in growing body of evidence that disputes the Western countries is the legs and lungs and a significant idea that oestrogen deficiency is a increase in gall bladder disease.* common occurrence for menopausal an excess of oestrogen Dr John Blakely, a Canadian and a deficiency of women.° academic who has recently had an natural progesterone. As it turns out, oestrogen deficien- article on HRT published in the US cy rarely occurs in Western women. journal Archives of Internal Quite the opposite is occurring. The Medicine, has reviewed the HERS real problem for the majority of peri- findings and concludes that the menopausal and menopausal women widespread use of HRT "risks in Western countries is an excess of substantial harm to a substantial oestrogen and a deficiency of natural number".’ progesterone. In fact, the World It is unfathomable that with the Health Organization has found that overwhelming evidence of the an overweight post-menopausal HRT-cardiovascular disease link, woman has more oestrogen circulat- many doctors continue to hold firm ing through her body than a thin pre- to these outmoded theories and dan- menopausal woman. gerous drug treatments. Oestrogen levels decline at menopause, but not to zero. They When asked about the new evidence that HRT may actually usually fall only to 40-60% of pre-menopausal levels.° As a cause heart attacks for some women when they first start taking backup system, the fat cells and the adrenal glands also make the drug, Australian menopause specialist Professor Henry oestrogen, assuring that most menopausal women make more Burger said: "I don't know how many women we've killed by than enough oestrogen. Mother Nature never intended for prescribing HRT to older women with heart disease... I wouldn't menopausal women to become totally depleted in oestrogen. imagine very many." Professor Burger believes that there is still Lower levels of oestrogen at menopause are in fact a natural enough evidence to recommend HRT to women at risk of heart adjustment to that stage of life. It does not mean a pathology of disease." "oestrogen deficiency" requiring HRT. Prescribing additional Oestrogen also causes major deficiencies of key nutrients that oestrogen to women who already have normal or above-average are essential for maintaining a healthy cardiovascular system. levels can be devastating, since higher nonphysiologic levels of Vitamin C is one of those nutrients that oestrogen depletes. oestrogen have serious side-effects. Nobel Prize winner Dr Linus Pauling and his protégé Dr What gives weight to the oestrogen deficiency myth is the Mathias Rath popularised the scientific truth that heart disease manner in which hormones are tested. While the gold standard was primarily only a fulminating deficiency of vitamin C and in traditional medicine is blood serum testing, it is now the amino acids lysine and proline which help form the collagen acknowledged by major studies that blood testing only measures fibres that knit the artery walls together. 1-9% of biologically active hormones.’ This means that the vast majority of hormones in the tissues are not measured, resulting in a misdiagnosis of oestrogen deficiency when a majority of women actually have normal or excess levels of oestrogen. According to the World Health Organization and recent research, the only valid way to test hormone levels is with saliva testing—an inexpensive test that can be prescribed by a doctor and done at home. Unfortunately, the majority of traditional medical doctors are not aware of the validity and efficacy of saliva testing. Thus, relying on blood serum testing to assess hormone levels will usually lead to flawed test results and mistreatment with inappropriate hormones. The real problem for the majority of perimenopausal and menopausal women in Western countries is an excess of oestrogen and a deficiency of an geen fee av 24 = NEXUS natural progesterone. www.nexusmagazine.com DECEMBER 2001 — JANUARY 2002