Source: salon.com
Not long ago on her TV show, Oprah Winfrey sat beside actress and self-proclaimed women’s health guru Suzanne Somers and told millions of viewers to read Somers’ 2007 book, “Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones.” Somers was singing the benefits of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy for postmenopausal women.
Hormone replacement therapy is one of medicine’s most controversial subjects. In 2002, after a period of prescribing HRT routinely to women to improve their energy, sex drive, heart health and bone strength, and to reduce the risk of certain cancers, doctors were forced to do an abrupt about-face. A study known as the Women’s Health Initiative, which followed more than 150,000 postmenopausal women starting in 1991, concluded that prolonged HRT (more than two years) increased the risk of heart attacks, strokes and breast cancer. It wasn’t what doctors or their patients had hoped for, but it was the scientific truth. Doctors have therefore been recommending that hormone replacement therapy be taken for short periods of time to mitigate those risks.
