Hormone Supplementation for Heart Health – Bad or good?

“I have my hormones healthy. Many doctors are providing females synthetic hormones, which simply eliminate the symptoms, but it’s doing nothing to actually change the hormones you have lost. Without our hormones we die.” Actress Suzanne Somers

Heart disease is the top killer of both girls and males in American and in most regions of the planet. Female hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is used in the recent past for reducing the risk of heart attacks as well as lowering the risk of death of women with established cardiovascular disease. But, new data provides evidence that is compelling that HRT might actually make heart disease worse in women. On the contrary, since males suffer from earlier heart problems than ladies, it’s been postulated that the male hormone, testosterone may add to the danger of heart problems. As a consequence, andropause, the male equivalent of menopause, hasn’t been treated with male hormone replacement therapy, because heart disease prevention. The latest research studies suggest that male hormone supplementation might be heart protective.

Female Hormones

Postmenopausal women have a better risk of developing heart problems. Since menopause is linked with a decline in the female hormones, it was postulated that HRT should assist in preventing heart disease. This particular reasoning was further supported by research published in the August 28, 1997 issue of the brand new England Journal of Medicine, showing that estrogen increased the good HDL cholesterol comparably to the cholesterol lowering statin, simvastatin, and reduced both the undesirable LDL cholesterol and Lp(a), another lipoprotein which raises cardiac risk. Research data similarly indicated that in doses that are very low, estrogen inhibited platelet aggregation and decreased PAI 1, plasminogen activator inhibitor, and thereby helped dissolve small blood clots in the blood vessels. Estrogen has in addition been discovered to improve production and activity of the artery protective nitric oxide and in addition functioning as an antioxidant. These promising studies resulted in recommendations that a program of low dose estrogen, with or even with no progesterone, may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease in postmenopausal women.

“The problems with all the stress hormones is that they’ve some other sightcare side effects (advice here),” proclaimed Rafael de Cabo, an investigator at the Laboratory of Experimental Gerontology, part of the U.S. National Institute on Aging. Two leading studies found HRT was actually increasing women’s threat of heart attack by 29 %, stroke by forty one %, and the risks of breast cancer by 26 %. In the August 1998 Journal of the American Medical Association, results of the Heart and Estrogen/Progestin Replacement Study (HERS) were printed. In this randomized, placebo controlled, clinical trial involving 2,763 postmenopausal girls with recognized coronary illness, with an average age of sixty seven, HRT appeared to increase the chance of CHD occurrences during the earliest year of treatment. The second study (WHI) involved 16,608 postmenopausal ladies aged 50 79 years without history of heart disease, and without a story of hysterectomy. This particular trial was stopped too early on May 31, 2002, due to a significantly higher incidence of CHD in addition to breast cancer in the number on estrogen/progesterone. This unique data was noted in the July 17, 2002 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association in an article entitled Benefits and “risks of Estrogen Plus Progestin in Healthy Postmenopausal Women: Principal Results From the Women’s Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Trial”.

“When your estrogen levels decrease it’s your body’s signal that you are not in childbearing years. Well, as you’re shedding the hormones of yours, that even means the bones of yours are going to obtain brittle.” Suzanne Somers. Approximately 20 million American women now use different types of hormone replacement therapy. HRT is frequently used for help of the signs of menopause, like hot flashes, sweats and disturbed sleep. It’s also used to prevent or decrease the speed of bone loss in osteoporosis. There is additionally some proof that HRT may help prevent Alzheimer’s disease, cancer of the colon, and the age related vision loss called macular degeneration. Negative effects from taking HRT tend to be short-run and might include unusual vaginal bleeding and discharge, headaches, nausea, fluid retention and swollen breasts. Not to mention it is able to worsen cardiovascular disease. At this particular time, HRT shouldn’t be used for prevention of cardiovascular disease in postmenopausal females.

Male Hormone

“He’s a guy. They don’t talk, they fight. It is everything that insane testosterone.” British Actress Kim Cattrall. Testosterone is the primary male sex hormone as well as an anabolic steroid. It is produced by the testes, the adrenals and ovaries. The primary roles of its are enhancing libido, energy, and immune function, in addition to protecting against osteoporosis. Testosterone levels in the men belong with advancing age, resulting in the male equivalent of the female menopause, known as andropause. Elderly male population have the greatest prevalence of coronary artery disease, as well as additionally relatively low testosterone levels. males with high blood pressure have lower testosterone levels than regular males. In patients with chest pain, men with coronary artery blockages on the angiogram have lower testosterone quantities compared to those with normal angiograms.