Ep. 198 Dispelling Myths about Hormone Replacement Therapy

I am delighted to have two respected researchers, Dr. Avrum Bluming and Dr. Carol Tavris, joining me today! They are the co-authors of the book, Estrogen Matters. 

Avrum Bluming received his MD from the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. He spent four years as a senior investigator for the National Cancer Institute. For two of those years, he was director of the Lymphoma Treatment Center in Kampala, Uganda. For more than three decades, he has been studying the benefits and risks of hormone replacement therapy administered to women with a history of breast cancer.

Carol Tavris received her Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Michigan. Her books include Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me), with Elliot Aronson; Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion, and The Mismeasure of Woman.

Estrogen Matters provides a lot of scientific information that refutes much of the fear-mongering around hormone replacement therapy. It is helpful for women who have gone through cancer therapy and those who have not had to deal with cancer, in terms of the conversations they could consider having with their healthcare professionals.

Dr. Bluming and Dr. Tavris are both incredible individuals, and it was an honor to interact with them! In this episode, we dive into statistical manipulation and the influence of the Women’s Health Initiative. We talk about the study limitations and the role of data mining. We discuss the benefits of hormone replacement therapy and its impact on cancer risk, coronary artery disease, bone and brain health, and more. We also look at synthetic versus bioidentical hormones, routes of administration, and what we need to think about in our own hormonal health journeys. 

I hope you enjoy my conversion with Drs. Bluming and Tavris today! Stay tuned for more!

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:

• Dr. Bluming talks about the Women’s Health Initiative and explains why we went off-course after it came out in 2002. 
• The symptoms of menopause are not trivial. They are physically and mentally harmful to the body. 
• We need to understand the social and political trends against hormone replacement therapy.
• We need to understand that estrogen for women in menopause plummets to one percent of what it was before menopause.
• Dr. Bluming discusses the various issues with the article about hormone replacement therapy.
• If a woman starts taking hormones within ten years of her last menstrual period, she will have a reduced risk of heart disease and strokes and also improved longevity. 
• The women who fear taking hormone replacement therapy are afraid of breast cancer. 
• Estrogen reduces the risk of heart disease by up to fifty percent.
• Drs. Tavris and Bluming talk about bone health. 
• The impact of hormone replacement on brain health.
• How the investigators of the Women’s Health Initiative manipulated their findings on dementia.
• How data mining gets used to sub-stratify data that has already been studied.
• The truth about bio-identical hormones.
• There is a lot of misinformation around the route of administration for estrogen.

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