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<\/p>\nAround 10 years ago, when I was going through menopause, I switched to a new OB\/GYN who nearly convinced me to go on Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). I had told her that my mother struggled with hot flashes and depression during her \u201cchange of life\u201d, as they say, and I was worried about what it would be like for me. As a preventive measure, she prescribed HRT. Jump two frames forward and there I was, standing in line at the local pharmacy waiting to pick up my meds, but feeling very ambivalent. I\u2019ve always been drug-adverse, and I thought, \u2018why am I considering taking these meds unless it\u2019s absolutely necessary?\u2019 I was trying to stave off a problem that didn\u2019t actually exist!<\/p>\n
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Serendipitously, I started to chat with the woman in line next to me, a friend of a friend, who suggested that if I had questions about HRT, I should take a look at Dr. Christine Northrup\u2019s book, \u201cThe Wisdom of Menopause\u201d. Even though I walked out of that store with a filled prescription, I never cracked the bottle. Northrup says, \u201cI’ll take my chances with the hormones that mother nature has taken at least 3 million years to come up with\u201d, arguing that women with healthy ovaries and adrenals may not need (HRT). Even for the one-third of women who have had their ovaries removed and may benefit \u201cfrom a little estrogen or a little progesterone or possibly a little testosterone\u201d, Northrup says that \u201cin no case should these be the conventional hormones that are synthetic. This is important for people to know: you cannot patent a naturally occurring hormone\u201d. (Northrup’s advice about nutritional supplements below.*)<\/p>\n
It turns out that there are some serious reasons to avoid HRT. Medical sociologist, Gayle Sulik<\/a>, writes:\u00a0 \u201cClearly, there is a relationship between the use of synthetic hormone therapies and breast cancer even if the mechanisms are not fully understood. In 2002, when the findings from the Women\u2019s Health Initiative\u00a0estrogen-plus-progestin study<\/strong> came out, about 38 percent of postmenopausal women in the U.S. were using some type of hormone therapy drug. When the WHI findings hit the news, sales plummeted <\/a>and\u00a0breast cancer incidence rates also dropped”.<\/p>\n I later read somewhere that around 40% of women who get their HRT prescriptions filled never take the stuff, and that info validated my choice. The link between HRT and breast and other cancers was too real to me. My mother had had breast cancer, and it seemed like taking these drugs was like playing with fire. Instead I devoured literature on alternative ways to deal with menopause symptoms, drank my soy milk and copped a \u201cbring it on\u201d attitude.<\/p>\n As if there weren\u2019t enough reasons to question the use of Hormone Replacement Therapy, I just discovered another. Call me na\u00efve or sheltered, but it never occurred to me that Premarin \u2013 an HRT taken by a number of my friends \u2013 was named for what it actually is: Pregnant Mare\u2019s Urine<\/em><\/strong>. In other words, the drug of choice for so many menopausal women comes from horses that are \u201cfarmed\u201d for this exact purpose. Northrup says, \u201cPeople will tell you that Premarin is natural–yeah, it’s natural if you are a horse!\u201d<\/p>\n According to an April 5th<\/sup> Boston Globe article by Nestor Ramos<\/a>,, these horses are kept \u201cinside long barns in the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan\u201d, lined up in rows of small stalls, \u201ctubes snaking up from under them into vessels nearby\u201d. Geez! Ramos, comments, \u201cIt sounds like science fiction \u2014 some equine version of \u201cThe Matrix,\u201d in which a superior species saps humans for their nutrients \u2014 but it\u2019s true: The urine is precious\u201d.<\/p>\n The article is a human interest piece focusing on two women \u2013 one, age 70; the other, in her late 20s \u2013 who share a love of horses. It turns out that while selling Premarin is a profitable industry, \u201ckeeping hundreds of horses pregnant every year\u201d in order to gather their urine has a downside. The mares have babies, and selling the foals for meat is also apparently a profitable business. The elder woman has spent years going back and forth to Manitoba to rescue some of these foals from the \u201cslaughterhouse floor\u201d, but her energy to make this trip has waned, so having a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 who shares her passion has made it possible for her to carry out this mission, and in a way, build in the potential for someone to carry on when she no longer can make the journey.<\/p>\n I love the story of these two women: one in which the passion and leadership of the \u201celder\u201d inspires the younger, and the vibrancy of the younger who makes this difficult journey possible. But what if there wasn\u2019t such a lucrative industry around harvesting pregnant mare urine in the first place to supposedly rescue aging women from a natural change in their reproductive cycles? Northrup comments, \u201cThe hormones that naturally occur in the human female body have been altered so that the drug companies can justify the R&D programs to patent a hormone and therefore make their money. It’s frightening!”<\/p>\n Check out this Huffington Post piece by investigative reporter Martha Rosenberg, called “When the publication plan is ready, the research will appear”, in which she describes how the marketing arm of a drug company published articles denying the link between HRT and cancer. “Though the marketing firm’s “science” is egregiously flawed — HT has strong links to breast cancer, breast cancer, heart disease<\/a> and Alzheimer’s<\/a> — the papers have not been retracted.”<\/p>\n The cultural narrative for menopause, very much aided and abetted by the pharmaceutical industry \u2013 is that it\u2019s a medical crisis to be tackled. Women\u2019s natural reproductive functions have long been viewed as indicative of \u201cotherness\u201d, weakness and incapacity, from menstruation to menopause. While many women surely benefit from a medical approach to easing symptoms of menopause, we must question who and what the medicalization of menopause serves, and recognize that menopause isn\u2019t a wasting away, a time in which we go bonkers and lose our minds and bodies. It is just another passage in a series of chapters in women’s lives.<\/p>\n * Northrup does recommend the use of nutritional supports such as omega 3 fats and B vitamins, \u201cto help clear estrogen dominance from your system”.\u00a0 Because when you stop ovulating and you don’t have progesterone to balance the estrogen, “that can create a state of anxiety, jitters, and headaches\u201d. Her advice? Eating soy or ground up flax seed \u201chelps a great deal to give you plant hormone support while your body is making the transition\u201d.<\/p>\n For more reading, see:<\/p>\n Peter Conrad: Medicalization and Social Control: http:\/\/66.199.228.237\/boundary\/addiction\/medicalization_and_social_control.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n Meyer, Medicalization of Menopause: Critique and Consequences: http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/11809008<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/media1.s-nbcnews.com\/i\/msnbc\/Components\/Art\/HEALTH\/061214\/AP_MAMMOGRAMS.gif\")
An article published in the New England Journal of Medicine <\/a>also linked a sharp decline\u00a0(6.7 percent<\/a>)\u00a0in breast cancer incidence in 2003 with the release of the first Women’s Health Initiative report “and the ensuing drop in the use of hormone-replacement therapy among postmenopausal women in the United States.'”<\/p>\n