Hormone Therapy Works for Hot Flashes, Not Disease Prevention — the Distinction Is Important
On November 1, experts at the U.S Preventive Services Task Force issued its newest recommendations against using menopausal hormone therapy (MHT), in the hopes of preventing chronic diseases like heart disease and cancer.It was the fifth update with the same advice on the topic of women in menopause potentially using estrogen (with or without a progestin) to stave off long-term disease.This recommendation angered scientists from the University of California in San Francisco — not because it was incorrect, but because it was misplaced. The same day they published an editorial in the prestigious journal JAMA decrying this focus on chronic disease prevention because of the confusion it causes women.The USPSTF conclusion that “the use of combined estrogen and progestin for the primary prevention of chronic conditions in postmenopausal persons with…