The Benefits of Hormone Replacement Therapy: Exploring the Science Behind It
Hormone replacement therapy is a medication that can help relieve symptoms like hot flashes and vaginal dryness that are common throughout the menopause transition. It consists of estrogen and progesterone given as a pill, cream, or patch that circulates through your body.
Reduced Risk of Breast Cancer
In clinical trials of women with breast cancer, hormone therapy cut the risk of cancer returning or spreading in half. Hormone therapy includes estrogen and progestin, chemicals produced in the ovaries during the menstrual cycle. Usually, women who have not had a hysterectomy take both estrogen and progestin (combined HRT).
These hormones play important roles in a woman’s body, but levels fall as you go through menopause. This causes various symptoms, such as hot flashes and mood swings. Taking hormone replacement therapy can help restore these levels and relieve symptoms. Whether or not you should start HRT depends on your age, medical history, family history, and the type of hormone you take. You must also consider other health issues, such as heart disease, blood clots or osteoporosis.
Increased Energy
Hormones affect nearly every aspect of the body, including energy levels. Feeling sluggish or always tired isn’t just part of getting older; it’s often a sign of an imbalance. You can regain your vitality by visiting hormone replacement therapy Denver. Women experiencing menopausal symptoms can benefit from bioidentical hormones like estrogen and progesterone through HRT, which helps alleviate bothersome menopause-related symptoms such as hot flashes, vaginal dryness, and bloating. Women can get bioidentical hormones through pills, creams, or patches.
Men suffering from andropause can also benefit from the same hormone therapy, which can help improve testosterone levels. Testosterone plays a role in building muscle and increasing energy levels. It can even help restore a man’s libido.
Lower Risk of Heart Disease
Women in perimenopause, the period before menopause, who use hormone replacement therapy have a lower risk of heart disease. A study by Cedars-Sinai researchers found that women in perimenopause who used estrogen experienced lower rates of plaque buildup in the arteries.
Premenopausal women have a sex advantage over men regarding heart disease and osteoporosis, but this protection disappears after menopause. Epidemiologic data indicated that estrogens protect against CVD, but the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) randomized prospective primary or secondary prevention trials did not demonstrate this benefit.
However, this does not mean all hormone replacement therapy forms are safe for all women. Women with a history of blood clots, stroke, deep vein thrombosis, or pulmonary embolism should avoid taking oral estrogens or estrogen and progestin pills. A patch or cream might be better for these women because it doesn’t enter the bloodstream.
Lower Risk of Bone Loss
Estrogen deficiency at menopause is the primary cause of bone loss and osteoporosis; hormone therapy can effectively prevent this.
Studies have shown that long-term estrogen and progestin treatment significantly decreases skeletal fractures, reducing the risk of hip and vertebral fractures, especially in women not selected for high-risk osteoporosis.
Conventional doctors used to recommend HRT for this purpose. Still, synthetic estrogen HRT has a lot of unintended and dangerous side effects (such as stroke, heart disease, and breast cancer) and is associated with a greater risk of bone loss in the long run. The estrogen and progestin found in our products, such as conjugated equine estrogens and medroxyprogesterone acetate, along with low-dose intrauterine devices with levonorgestrel, are safer alternatives for preventing postmenopausal bone loss.
Increased Mood
Hormones are responsible for many of the functions in our bodies, including anxiety, appetite, heart rate, sleep cycles, urination, and sexual function. Hormone levels naturally fall as women age, resulting in menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes and vaginal dryness. Hormone replacement therapy restores female hormones to a higher level to relieve these menopause symptoms and improve a woman’s quality of life.
Results show that for healthy women under 60 who are experiencing troublesome menopause symptoms, hormone replacement therapy may be the right option. For some, this will include taking systemic estrogen and an antidepressant medication to help with mood.
