Hormone replacement therapy for treating menopausal symptoms: Benefits and risks

Scorching flashes, night time sweats and sleep disturbances are widespread signs of menopause that may have an effect on well being, high quality of life and work productiveness. A brand new evaluation printed in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Affiliation Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.221438 recommends menopausal hormone remedy, traditionally generally known as hormone substitute remedy (HRT), as first-line remedy in folks with out danger elements.

Menopausal signs could happen as much as 10 years earlier than the final menstrual interval and may final greater than 10 years, with unfavourable results for many individuals.

“Menopause and perimenopause might be related to distressing signs and lowered high quality of life,” writes Dr. Iliana Lega, Ladies’s Faculty Hospital and the College of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, with coauthors. “Menopausal hormone remedy is the first-line remedy for vasomotor signs within the absence of contraindications.”

The evaluation summarizes the most recent proof for diagnosing and treating menopausal signs in addition to the dangers and advantages of therapies to assist clinicians and sufferers handle the situation.

“Though many therapies exist for menopausal signs, fears across the dangers of menopausal hormone remedy and lack of information relating to remedy choices usually impede sufferers from receiving remedy,” write the authors.

Advantages of menopausal hormone remedy embrace

• lowered sizzling flashes in as many as 90% of sufferers with reasonable to extreme signs;
• improved blood lipid ranges and a potential lowered danger of diabetes; and
• fewer fragility fractures of the hip, spine and different bones.

What in regards to the dangers?

• Though earlier proof has proven an elevated danger of breast most cancers, the danger is far decrease in folks aged 50–59 years and in those that begin menopausal hormone remedy within the first 10 years of menopause.
• Some research present an elevated danger of ischemic stroke in ladies older than 60 years who begin remedy 10 years after the beginning of menopause, however the danger is low for these youthful than 60.

For folks with danger elements or those that don’t wish to take menopausal hormone remedy, nonhormonal therapies, reminiscent of some selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and different drugs, may also help alleviate signs.

“Regardless of early issues of an elevated danger of cardiovascular occasions with menopausal hormone remedy after the Ladies’s Health Initiative trial, growing proof exhibits a potential discount in coronary artery illness with menopausal hormone remedy amongst youthful menopausal sufferers, particularly those that begin menopausal hormone remedy earlier than age 60 years or inside 10 years of menopause,” write the authors.

They emphasize that it is essential for clinicians to ask about signs earlier than and through menopause and to debate therapies with sufferers primarily based on their private preferences and potential danger elements.