Re: Suzanne Sommers and her "Immune system count" vs Cancer controversy
From an AP article on the topic I stumbled across today:
"Alternative remedies are especially popular with upscale, educated women who like to research and find their own solutions to medical problems. They like the idea of personalized treatments versus off-the-shelf prescription drugs. However, instead of a safer option, they are getting products of unknown risk that still contain the estrogen many of them fear, women's health experts say. 'Misinformation is rampant' about bioidenticals, said Dr. JoAnn Manson, preventive medicine chief at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. 'It really is buyer beware.' ...
- 'Bioidentical'" is a marketing term that has no accepted medical meaning. Its implied benefit is not unique to alternative remedies; many prescription drugs contain hormones that chemically match estrogens and progesterones made naturally by the body.
- Custom-compounded hormones are not approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration and have not been proved safe or effective. They may carry the same cancer and heart risks as traditional treatments and have had even less testing to find out. ...
'Women need to understand there's no rigorous evidence these preparations are any more effective or any safer than traditional hormone therapy. In fact, there's much less evidence for efficacy and very little research on long-term safety,' said Manson, who has no industry ties and was a key researcher in the big federal study that warned women in 2002 of the health risks from long-term hormone use. ..."
The article talks about Suzanne Somers specifically.
http://health.yahoo.com/news/ap/us_m...menopause.html 
Search Tags
Nursing News