September 14th, 2011 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in Research
No Comments »
The idea that heart disease mortality rises dramatically at menopause has been one of the truisms of medicine that spawned a generation of hormone use by women and led to the rise and subsequent fall of Prempro in the Women’s Health Initiative, the end-all-be-all study that failed to prove the truism. The truism is still so strongly believed that research to prove it right continues, using different hormone formulations and different cohorts of women, in the hopes that the hormonal fountain of youth was just misbranded and given to the wrong aged cohort.
Now comes a landmark study that suggests that what we’ve thought all along about heart disease and menopause may actually be wrong.
Dhananjay Vaidya and colleagues at Johns Hopkins and the University of Alabama have re-analyzed mortality data on men and women in the UK and US and concluded that, contrary to popular belief, heart disease rates and mortality do not increase dramatically with menopause, but rather rise more gradually as a function of age in both men and women.
“Our data show there is Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Blog That Ate Manhattan*
April 12th, 2011 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in Health Tips, Research
1 Comment »
This is the study that doesn’t end…
The longterm follow up extends…
Some people started studying hormones in menopause,
And they’ll continue publishing more data just because…
(repeat)
In yet another paper in a major journal, we hear once more from the investigators of the Women’s Health Initiative. This time it’s the long term outcomes of women who took estrogen alone, now seven years out from stopping their hormones. What new information can we learn from this extensive analysis of new data?
Nothing.
Really.
The WHI’s been telling us the same thing about ERT (Estrogen replacement therapy) and HRT (Combination estrogen/progestin therapy) since 2002, and all each subsequent study does is reinforce and expand on that initial data. Unfortunately, it will probably take a few more papers before some folks accept the results of this important study, which, though flawed, continues to inform the practice of menopausal medicine.
Allow me to summarize what we know – Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Blog That Ate Manhattan*
March 5th, 2011 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Opinion, Research
No Comments »
It’s hard to believe that turbulence could be a good thing for the heart. Consider how the word turbulent is defined: “Characterized by conflict, disorder, or confusion; not controlled or calm.” Those traits don’t sound very heart-healthy. But when it comes to heart rhythm, it turns out that a turbulent response — to a premature beat — is better than a blunted one. The more turbulent the better.
No, you haven’t missed anything, and turbulence isn’t another of my typos. Until [recently], heart rate turbulence was an obscure phenomenon buried in the bowels of heart rhythm journals.
What Is Heart Rate Turbulence (HRT)?
When you listen to the heart of a young physically-fit patient, you are struck not just by the slowness of the heartbeat, but also by the variability of the rhythm. It isn’t perfectly regular, nor is it chaotic like atrial fibrillation (AF). Doctors describe this — in typical medical speak — as regularly irregular: The heart rate increases as the patient inhales and slows as he or she exhales. This variability occurs as a result of the heart’s responsiveness to its environment. The more robustly and quickly the heart responds, the healthier it is.
HRT seeks to measure how quickly and vigorously the heart rate reacts in response to a single premature beat from the ventricle — a premature ventricular contraction (PVC). Normally after a PVC, the heart rate speeds for a few beats, and then slows back to baseline over the next 10 beats. The healthy heart responds with a more intense rise in heart rate and a quicker return to baseline. Using simple measurements of heart rate from a standard 24-hour electrocardiogram (ECG) monitor, a propriety software program averages many of these responses and comes up with a measurement of turbulence onset and turbulence slope. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*
January 23rd, 2011 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in Opinion, Research
No Comments »
In a well done placebo-controlled study published in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), use of escitalopram (Lexapro) reduced hot flashes in menopausal women.
Investigators enrolled 205 women, randomizing them to either Lexapro 10 mg or placebo, with instructions to increase to two pills a day if needed after four weeks. Lexapro users experienced about a 60 percent reduction in hot flash frequency over the eight-week study. About half ended up on the larger 20 mg daily dose by study’s end. The drug’s effect was apparent at about one week of use, and it was well tolerated.
As in almost studies of menopausal treatments, the placebo group also experienced a significant reduction in symptoms — about 40 percent — but the difference between placebo and drug groups was significant. Compared to placebo users, Lexapro users had a bigger rebound of symptoms when stopping their treatment, were more satisfied, and more likely to want to continue the study drug, another validation of the drug’s efficacy. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at tbtam*
December 14th, 2010 by Peggy Polaneczky, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News, Opinion, Quackery Exposed, Research
No Comments »
Confused about hormone replacement therapy (HRT)? I can’t imagine why…
*This blog post was originally published at tbtam*
