Replacement Therapy

Twenty years ago, scientist Ellen Silbergeld helped prove that lead in gasoline harmed people terribly, then helped rid the United States of the danger. Now she has discovered that although that lead may be forgotten, it's not altogether gone.A new national study conducted by the University of Maryland professor shows that post-menopausal women are finding a sudden, dramatic increase of lead in their blood. Levels can rise an average of 30 percent, Silbergeld says, an increase that also raises the women's risk for hypertension and heart attacks.

You're savoring a spicy Mexican enchilada when rivulets of sweat start pouring down your face. You walk into the next room to get something and forget what you're looking for. One moment you're happy as could be and then, for no perceptible reason, you're angry or irritable or bursting into tears.No, you're not having a nervous breakdown. You're experiencing symptoms of menopause, also referred to as the climacteric or the "change of life," and, for better or for worse, lots of baby- boomer women are going through the same thing.

Q. My 2-year-old granddaughter seems to catch many minor illnesses, often with fever. She doesn't like to have her temperature taken, so her mother "estimates" the fever and usually gives her Motrin to bring the temperature down.I have a great relationship with her mother, my daughter-in-law, and I am convinced that she does what she believes is best for her children.But I wonder whether so much Motrin is truly good for them. I have always believed that fever serves a purpose in healing, although I am aware that high fever can be damaging and should be controlled.

In the largest such study to date, federal researchers have found that estrogen replacement therapy among postmenopausal women decreases the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease by more than 50 percent.Experts said the new study out of Baltimore -- which included 472 women monitored for 16 years -- is important because it is the first long-term analysis of estrogen's effects on this disease that affects more than 4 million Americans.Earlier studies had hinted at such a beneficial effect but were much smaller and covered periods of up to only a few months.

I do not understand why everyone thinks estrogen is so wonderful. My doctor prescribed hormone replacement therapy (HRT) a year ago and it almost ruined my life.At first the symptoms were subtle. My hair started thinning and my libido gradually disappeared. After a few months I developed headaches and problems with my vision. My condition grew worse and I experienced dizziness and numbness in my hands and legs.When I finally stopped the hormones I gradually got better, though my vision is not back to normal yet.Is there any way to get the benefits of estrogen from an herbal medicine?

About 25 percent of postmenopausal women in the United States take estrogen replacement therapy because of evidence that it protects against osteoporosis and heart disease. Even more of these women feel free to have a drink now and then because of research showing that it, too, may protect against heart disease.But a new study raises a host of questions about the long-term health consequences of drinking even small amounts of alcohol while taking the hormone therapy.The study found that when postmenopausal women on oral estrogen drank the equivalent of just half a glass of wine, the levels of estrogen circulating in their blood nearly doubled, on average.

The top-selling drug in America is Premarin, a combination of estrogens refined from pregnant mares' urine. This formulation has been on the market for more than 50 years. Few drugs have experienced such phenomenal success for such a long time.Initially, Premarin was prescribed to relieve hot flashes and other symptoms of menopause. In the 1960s and early 1970s this drug became extremely popular. Many women were led to believe that hormones could keep them looking young indefinitely. The book "Feminine Forever" endorsed estrogen replacement therapy.

Women who take a combination of two female hormones -- the same ones commonly used to quell the symptoms of menopause -- can also lower risk factors for heart disease and stroke, according to a national study published today.The study found that post-menopausal women taking estrogen and progestin can lower their "bad cholesterol," raise their "good cholesterol" and prevent increases in clotting factors that can trigger heart attacks and stroke.Just as important, researchers involved in the study found that the two-drug combination did not seem to cause a thickening of the uterine lining -- a condition that often progresses to cancer.

As the number of women over 60 gradually increases, the debate over the benefits and risks of using estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) in menopause has heated up. Scientists are still trying to determine the value of this treatment.Q: What are the proven benefits of estrogen replacementherapy?A: Estrogens given around the time of menopause will definitely reduce the hot flashes or flushing and the osteoporosis that occur during this period of change. Although aging will still cause bone loss, the rapid loss in bone density that occurs around the time of menopause does not occur and so women experience only the gradual decline, which is common to both sexes.

Heart disease often gets lost in discussions of women's health because it strikes men at an earlier age, but experts are quick to point out that it ultimately kills as many women as it does men.It also kills as many women as do all cancers combined. And taken together, the related diseases of heart disease and stroke kill about a half million women each year -- twice the number killed by cancer.This is why Dr. Trudy Bush, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, speaks passionately about a coming study that will test the theory that hormone replacement therapy can dramatically reduce heart-related deaths in post-menopausal women with histories of heart disease.

For doctors at Anne Arundel Medical Center, the common-sense idea was too good to pass up: offer habitual smokers a low-cost CT scan to see if cancer has taken root in their lungs. CT scans can spot lung nodules as small as a grain of rice. Lung cancer, the deadliest of all cancers, is often caught too late to be cured, long after the first symptoms have appeared. "If you find [lung cancer] earlier and smaller, you have a better chance of curing it," said Dr. Kenneth Adam Lee, the hospital's chief of thoracic surgery.

Several years ago, I noticed that gum irritations healed more quickly after I used Listerine. I decided to try it on facial blemishes. If it is applied as soon as a blemish begins, the spot fades quickly. You are the second person who has told us that Listerine mouthwash can speed blemish healing. We cannot explain why it might work, but it seems like a benign approach. Months ago, I heard about a new prescription drug for weight loss that also lowered cholesterol and blood sugar levels.

I just read the question posed about removing petroleum jelly from hair and I have a solution. As a child, my mom and her best friend convinced me to let them put huge quantities of Vaseline in my hair. After all, I was being a monster for Halloween, and I'd be scarier with crazy hair! I spent the next two days in tears while they shampooed my hair with everything from dish soap to Boraxo. Finally, someone suggested Goop, the garage mechanic's hand soap. It finally broke through the inch-thick layer of grease!

Nearly two-thirds of women who use hormone supplements to control menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats and depression suffer a recurrence or a worsening of symptoms once they stop the therapy, according to a study published yesterday. But many of the 63 percent who had a recurrence were able to ease symptoms with "lifestyle changes, such as drinking more fluids, starting or increasing exercise [and] practicing yoga," said Dr. Jennifer Hays of Houston's Baylor College of Medicine, one of the study's authors.

My grandson has behavior problems and has been on Prozac since age 4. Because he is still disruptive in class, the doctor recently added Adderall. His concentration is somewhat improved, but he is still disruptive. Is the combination of Prozac and Adderall safe for a 7-year-old? The Food and Drug Administration has recently asked makers of serotonin-type antidepressants like Prozac to add new warnings. The agency cautions prescribers that some children may experience anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, irritability, hostility, impulsivity and restlessness.

Estrogen therapy not only does not protect women age 65 and older against Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia, as scientists once hoped, but it might slightly hasten senility, according to the results of a study of women's health. These results, reported today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, could end scientists' hopes for estrogen replacement therapy in older women. The treatment, once thought to reduce many of the ravages of age, such as strokes and dementia, seems to enhance those problems.

Why isn't more attention given to the best sunburn preventive, aspirin? Before a heart attack in 1978, I suffered from sunburn with blisters every year. Starting in 1978, I have taken a coated aspirin daily to prevent another heart attack. I have not had a sunburn since then. My skin temporarily reddens, without pain or blistering, and eventually tans. A study on aspirin several years back revealed that aspirin increases the skin's resistance to sunburn. Nothing can really prevent a bad burn if someone spends too much time in direct sunlight.

Women who recently learned that hormone therapy can raise their risk of heart disease and other ailments might someday have to consider a potential benefit: that hormones protect against Alzheimer's disease. Scientists studying elderly women in a Utah county found that those who took the hormones had lower risk of developing the brain disease, which wipes out memory and the ability to carry out simple tasks. The findings "provide new evidence to suggest a protective effect" of hormone replacement therapy, according to researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health whose study appears in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.

When a large study of hormone replacement therapy was abruptly halted last summer because of risks from the drugs, scientists immediately began to reassess all other studies involving the drugs. Another study has been halted, and participants in others have had to give their consent again. Researchers say the ripples from the hormone replacement study will spread for years, making them think carefully about when, if ever, to subject healthy women to estrogen therapy in scientific studies.

This report just in: Everything you know is wrong. Sorry to break the news, but don't feel bad - tomorrow you'll probably believe something completely different. Why, only a few weeks ago, it seems, we all knew exactly what was right and what to think. Then, we held these truths to be self-evident: CEOs were civic role models, the safest place for your kid to play was the front yard, and only fools and knaves didn't have their life savings in the stock market. Pasta and bread were good for you; red meat was bad. Estrogen replacement therapy was heaven-sent for women of a certain age, and arthroscopic knee surgery was a miracle cure for scores of arthritis sufferers.