HRT drugs shown to cause asthma

Monday, April 05, 2010 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: HRT drugs, asthma, health news

(NaturalNews) A new study out of France has revealed that women who undergo oestrogen-only hormone replacement therapy (HRT) are at a heightened risk of developing asthma for the first time. Several previous studies have also indicated that the oestrogen hormone increases a woman's risk of developing asthma.

Published in the medical journal, Thorax, the study involved more than 57,000 French women in their menopausal years who had never before been diagnosed with asthma. Researchers tracked them over the course of ten years and evaluated those who developed asthma based on what medications they had been taking. They found that women who took oestrogen-only HRT were 67 percent more likely to develop asthma.

Of the 57 or so women who were diagnosed with asthma each year during the study, 56 percent of them had taken HRT within the past two years. Participants who had previously had an allergic disease and who also took HRT had an increased risk of developing asthma as well. Researchers also saw a decreased risk of getting asthma in women who stopped taking HRT drugs for a few years.

Asthma used to be a rare disease that typically only developed in certain children. Today, asthma is common among all age groups and cases of it have been increasing over the years. Medical professionals have been trying to figure out what are the primary causes of asthma and whether certain pharmaceutical drugs and synthetic hormone therapies play a role in causing the disease. They seem to have found a connection.

Synthetic HRT is already known to increase a woman's risk of heart disease, stroke, blood clots, and breast cancer. Many are convinced that the risks of synthetic HRT far outweigh the benefits, which has led many of them to consider natural HRT instead.

Bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, or BHRT, is often unfairly marginalized by mainstream medicine as inferior to synthetics, however its success is clearly observable in women who take it. Many believe BHRT is far superior to synthetic HRT because it does not include heightened disease risk and negative side effects and can be tailored specifically for each individual woman.

Since there are many different formulations of BHRT, women should contact their physicians to determine which type is best for them. Once determined, precise dosages of estrogens, progesterone, testosterone, and/or DHEA can be formulated at any registered compounding pharmacy, ensuring that women receive the proper treatment for their specific needs.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/bestt...