Osteoporosis Treatment | Osteoporosis Prevention | Hormone Replacement Therapy & Osteoporosis | Hormone Replacement Therapy

 

Hormone Replacement Therapy & Osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis is a gradual decrease in bone mass and density that hits postmenopausal women especially hard. Though information varies, most osteoporosis information places postmenopausal Caucasian women at a 50 to 80 percent risk of sustaining a hip, spine, or forearm fracture due to osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis is almost entirely preventable and even reversible with prevention and treatment measures. New research information shows that hormone replacement therapy does not adequately protect women from osteoporosis.

Though women often associate osteoporosis with menopause, bone loss actually begins years before menopause. Most women reach peak bone density at about 30 and will lose about .7 percent on their bone density after that. Bone loss accelerates for three to five years around the time of menopause and then continues to decline at the rate of about 1 to1.5% per year.

Diosgenin cream ingredients | Benefits diosgenin cream | How to use diosgenin cream.  |  Return to Eden Diosgenin (nicknamed Progesterone) Cream. Do you remember our newsletter last year detailing how Wyeth Pharmaceuticals was attempting to stop compounding pharmacists from prescribing natural progesterone (diosgenin) after their profits fell by more than 57%  from $2.07 billion in 2003 to $800 million in 2004 (after the WHI study had to be stopped)? Well, now they have gone after centers like ours making complaints to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).  The FTC's position backed by the big pharmaceutical companies is that Dr. John Lee, M.D.'s studies were not scientific and did not rise to the standard of FDA and National Institutes of Health studies, and that our claims about natural progesterone are false, unfair, deceptive, misleading advertising in violation of the law..  (Please read what Dr. Helen Pensanti M.D. has to say about this. Read on to how the study was conducted.)   This is an attempt to force women into taking unsafe proven cancer causing synthetic hormones using your tax dollar to harass natural hormone suppliers. We here at the Women's Menopause Health Center refuse to take away your choice of a healthy alternative to Premarin, Prempro and the other dangerous drugs. We are taking a stand against this heavy handed attempt to destroy competition. We are going to fight for your choice of a healthy way to get through menopause comfortably and safely. (Ed. note: This was from our newsletter last year. The continued harassment by the FTC has caused us to discontinue our wonderful product.  Do not be forced into taking something that can kill you. You may purchase safe progesterone cream at your local health food store, or find it a lot less expensively on line at places like ebay and yahoo stores. Do not let these heavy handed tactics destroy your health!)

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Because bone loss accelerates at menopause, at the time estrogen levels decline, conventional medicine adopted the belief that estrogen deficiency cause osteoporosis. Following that assumption, physicians regularly used hormone replacement therapy to prevent osteoporosis.

However, new study information places the hormone replacement therapy benefit to osteoporosis as myth and makes it clear that hormone replacement therapy is not the correct course of osteoporosis treatment.

• The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported a 14-year study that showed no significant difference in the frequency of hip fractures between women who used hormone replacement therapy and those who did not use hormone replacement therapy.
   

• The New England Journal of Medicine published an 8-year study following almost 10,000 menopausal women. This study also showed no significant difference in the frequency of hip fractures between women who used hormone replacement therapy and those who did not use hormone replacement therapy.

Given the serious health risks associated with estrogen and the lack of long-term benefit, hormone replacement therapy is one of the least appropriate osteoporosis treatment methods women should take.

Research and study information also shows that natural progesterone - in addition to diet and lifestyle changes - provides far greater benefit to bone health.

With osteoporosis, bone tissue dies faster than new bone tissue is made. Over time, bones become less dense and more porous. If the bones become too weak to support the skeleton, bones can break easily. If frail enough, a minor fall, bump or even a hard sneeze can cause a bone fracture.

Progesterone works to actively build new bone tissue. By supplying the body with adequate supplies of bone-building progesterone, new tissue can be made to replace old bone tissue. For women taking hormone replacement therapy for the prevention of osteoporosis, this is great news. Women no longer need to choose hormone replacement therapy and its side effects - endometrial cancer, phlebitis, weight gain, high blood pressure, jaundice, vaginal candidiasis, depression, skin rashes, hair loss, nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, cysts and more - to halt bone loss.

Many other factors play a significant role in osteoporosis prevention. Caucasian women - especially those with a family history of osteoporosis or poor diets in their younger years - are at the greatest risk of osteoporosis after menopause. Women with poor diets, low calcium intake, low body weight, low physical activity and alcoholism are also at risk for osteoporosis.

You cannot change your sex, race or age but you can change other factors that contribute to osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis Risk Factors: (Other than being a postmenopausal woman):

• Family history of osteoporosis.

• Caucasian.

• Low body weight.

• Early menopause Low calcium intake.

• Low physical activity.

• Cigarette smoking.

• Drinking more than two alcohol drinks daily .

• Long-term steroid therapy.

• Long-term anti-convulsant therapy.

• Drug therapy that causes dizziness.

• Hyperthyroidism.

• Coffee intake of more than two cups daily.

• Alcohol intake of more than two drinks daily.

• Regular antacid use.

Early signs of osteoporosis include gradual loss of height, loose teeth and persistent low back pain. Sudden insomnia and restlessness and nightly leg and foot cramps are also early warning signs of osteoporosis.

Many women are not aware that they are losing bone mass until after a bone fracture. It behooves women of menopause age to know the status of their bone health and use osteoporosis prevention measures to prevent bone loss before it begins.

One way of testing bone loss is to check your height every six months. If you start losing height, you are losing bone on your spine. This method of checking bone loss does not give a comprehensive profile of bone health but it does give a general indication of bone loss.

The best way to determine bone density and fracture risk before a fracture occurs is to have a bone mineral density (BMD) test. A bone density test measures bone density in the spine, hip and/or wrist, the most common sites of fractures due to osteoporosis. There are bone density tests now available that measure bone density in the middle finger and the heel or shinbone.

The bone density test identifies risk for fracture. The lower the bone density, the greater the risk for fracture. The bone density test compares a person’s bone density to the expected bone density of a person of the same age, sex and size, along with a comparison of bone density at the optimal peak bone density of a healthy young adult of the same sex.

Hospitals and imaging centers offer bone density tests. There are many different bone density test methods. All are painless and noninvasive. The dual energy X-ray absorptiometry is one of the best scanning techniques that offers accuracy and minimal radiation exposure.

Women should have a bone density test performed as they enter menopause. The early bone density test serves as baseline information to compare against future bone density tests.

Many experts recommend having a second bone density test 12 to 24 months after starting an osteoporosis prevention regime to make sure the protective program is working. After that, additional tests aren't needed unless lifestyle or other health conditions change.

Women taking hormone replacement therapy for osteoporosis prevention should use the bone density test to verify that hormone replacement therapy is indeed providing positive benefit to bone health. If bone loss continues while using hormone replacement therapy - and studies show that it likely will - women should change their osteoporosis prevention regime to one that will provide better results.

Research shows that osteoporosis prevention measures of a healthy calcium-rich diet, exercise and progesterone work better than using hormone replacement therapy.

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