New Research Shows that Hormone Replacement Therapy Decreases Death Rates in Younger Postmenopausal Woman
For more than sixty years the HRT (hormone replacement therapy) has been widely utilized as a treatment targeting women who reached menopause and encountered estrogen deficiency. Some investigations on the hormone replacement therapy proved that when this therapy was used to treat younger women who were at menopause the mortality rate encountered an important decrease. This meant that used on a routine basis, the hormone replacement therapy increased the number of life years of postmenopausal females.
Nonetheless, the WHI (Women’s Health Initiative) which is an important research showed that using the hormone replacement therapy for older women who were at menopause several predispositions for various outcomes would increase. However, this therapy did not increase the mortality rate. The research was released in the year 2002. This investigation and its outcomes generated a wide debate related to the possible advantages and disadvantages of using the hormone replacement therapy.
A recent study released in The American Journal of Medicine in its November edition comprised an investigation which comprised a meta-analysis of the public information. This was done by utilizing Bayesian methodology and has as result the fact that using the hormone replacement therapy is prone to diminish the mortality rates among females who reached menopause at a younger age.
The Bayesian method utilizes past data which is upgraded by new available knowledge in order to infer about a certain outcome from a statistical point of view. The scientists evaluated the outcomes of nineteen random tests which comprised data regarding the age of the women coming from the Women’s Health Initiative. The subjects were formed by 16,000 women who reached menopause at a younger age. The group`s average age was of 55 years and summed up 83,000 human being years. The researchers discovered that the group`s risk of death was of 0.73.
Afterward the investigators added to the study information coming from eight evaluation researches. After computing the relative death risk, they discovered that it was 0.72. After this step, the scientists utilized the Bayesian analysis method to summarize the information they had obtained earlier. During this process they found out that the possibility of a death benefit in the studied patients was 1.0. This figure means that the possibility of the theory that the hormone treatment decreased total death rate in women who reached menopause at a younger age is 1.
The leading author of the study was medical doctor Shelley Salpeter. She said that her team`s discoveries had to be evaluated from the possible advantages and disadvantages of the hormone replacement therapy point of view. The public data which they had showed that the hormone replacement therapy used in treating women who reached menopause at a younger age enhanced the females` predisposition of developing breast malignant tumors or pulmonary embolism, but reduced the predisposition of cardiovascular problems, developing colon malignant tumors and hip fractures.
The advantage of reducing the risk of cardiovascular problems came as a result of a slight increase in the stroke rates but a much higher decrease in the problems related to coronary heart illnesses. The whole death benefit brought to women who reached menopause at a younger age observed during the random tests and evaluation research showed that the decrease in problems ranging from heart disease, fracture, and colon cancer was much greater than the increase in the number of death provoked by breast malignant tumors, pulmonary embolism and strokes. Moreover, the hormone replacement therapy used for younger women brought to them an enhancement in their life quality measurements, at least in the period after concluding this type of treatment.
