Doctors back changes to menopause hormone replacement warnings

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Doctors say women experiencing menopause are being scared off accessing hormone replacement therapy because of exaggerated risks to their health. The US medical regulator wants to remove several health risk warnings from HRT products.

Transcript

00:00There is no drug that doesn't come with a set of risks and everything has to be taken

00:07in context. It's important to have the discussion with the woman in front of us, take into consideration

00:13what she is suffering with and then make that decision with her. And talk about the risks.

00:18Of course we should talk about the risks, but the risks are very much to do with the

00:23place we're starting from. What has sometimes put women off is what we see from research

00:30and there's one particular study that came out now almost a decade and a half ago which

00:35talked about the increased risk for women of breast cancer and some other things as well.

00:40But what that study showed was that that risk was higher if you started HRT later in life,

00:46MHT later in life once you had turned 60 and took it for a longer time. The vast majority

00:51of women who need to take some form of hormone replacement need to do it when they approach

00:56menopause. So they're relatively young in their 50s and so the risks when you are in your 50s

01:01are very different from the risks when you are 60 plus or 70 plus. And I think that's

01:06the discussion that we need to have with the individual woman who has come to us for help.

01:11It can make a huge difference to women's lives. We know that women who are perimenopausal or

01:17indeed have experienced menopause can have some really significant symptoms like hot flushes,

01:23sometimes mood disturbances, sleep disturbances that affect their ability to take part in

01:29life, you know, to be just a normal human being. And those can have really significant effects

01:35on ability to work, ability to participate in family life, ability to exercise. Those are

01:41the sorts of things that women should get help and menopausal hormone replacement is one

01:46of the best ways of helping women with those symptoms.

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