Menopause and estrogens

Getting yourself informed on these two major health issues is worthy of several hours of study. The information is coming rapidly with new studies coming to closure on a regular basis and new recommendations based on the studies seems to be a weekly news item. You can count on the scientists to do a very careful analysis of all the study results and distill the information into useful clinical guidelines.

The North American Menopause Society (NAMS) is the best single source for a comprehensive look at all the issues that you will face in this right of passage. You may want to bookmark this site and refer back to it every time a new issue is raised on the Nightly News: http://www.menopause.org/Consumers.aspx

This link will amplify the American College of Gynecology's position on The Women's Health Initiative (WHI). http://www.acog.org/from_home/publications/press_releases/nr04-11-06.cfm. The Women's Health Initiative is the study that prompted a major change in or recommendations for the use of estrogen therapy routinely.

And finally, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute has a detailed position paper dealing with concerns raised in the Women's Health Initiative: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/whi/estro_alone.htm This is a fairly technical report but certainly worthy of close inspection.