Hot Flash Havoc Newsletter

Volume 3, Issue 7

July 2013

www.hotflashhavoc.com 

twitter 

Dear Women of All Ages,

This may be the most important letter that I will write to you.

 

The following 3 articles reveal the true findings from the WHI (Women's Health Initiative) study of 2002.  One of the compelling reasons for making our movie HOT FLASH HAVOC was to bring attention to the government's non-release of the important findings of this study. A study we, the taxpayers, paid for but from whom this data was withheld left us wondering why they would miscommunicate this vital information. This potential conspiracy by the head of the National Institutes of Health caused many women to use alternative drugs or give up on estrogen therapy entirely. 

 

These articles, in particular, address Hysterectomies and the impact of hormones on your overall health.  Before you have a hysterectomy, it is important to understand the impact that the loss of your ovaries will have on your mind, your bones, your heart and multiple functions important to your body. 

 

We are privileged to have Dr. Philip Sarrel, emeritus professor Yale University, in our movie and are proud to support his findings that may save thousand of lives for women today. 

 

This information has been in the data that the WHI refused to release until we released this movie. It is now 11 years since this study on hormones was and misinformation was released to the general public that scared women about breast cancer and heart disease, causing them to throw out their hormones. 

 

Please read these articles carefully and understand the benefits and risks surrounding hysterectomies. So GET EDUCATED, BE INFORMED AND YOU DECIDE your health. If you have not seen HOT FLASH HAVOC it is time to see and share with friends.  You can order the online stream for only $4.99 and gift it to your friends for 20% off.  Please take the time to be educated about your health, at the end of the day that is all we have.

 

Best Regards,  Heidi

 

Heidi HoustonHeidi Houston 

Executive Producer Hot Flash Havoc
PO Box 1188
Aspen, CO 81612
970-920-4848 office
970-920-2260 fax

ad-final   

Click on the poster above to watch the trailer, rent the film, or buy the DVD.


Avoiding estrogen therapy led to deaths of nearly 50,000 women, study says

Published July 19, 2013 

 

By FoxNews.com  

 

Doctors believe that misconceptions about the risks of estrogen therapy have led to the premature deaths of nearly 50,000 women in the past 10 years, the Los Angeles Times reported.
 

Estrogen therapy has long been a controversial topic in the medical world. Before 2002, more than 90 percent of women who underwent a hysterectomy were treated with some type of hormone therapy, to help manage symptoms related to early menopause triggered by the procedure.
 

However, in 2002, a Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study suggested that combination estrogen-progesterone treatments could potentially increase women's risk for cancer and other health issues.

In the 10 years after that study was published, the numbers of women choosing to receive any type of hormone treatment post-hysterectomy dropped dramatically. 
 

Now, in a study published in the American Journal of Public Health, researchers are arguing that misconceptions about hormonal treatments also led women to reject estrogen-only treatments, which have numerous health benefits including reduced mortality and lower incidences of breast cancer and heart disease.
 

Using data to analyze a population of women ages 50 to 59 who had undergone hysterectomies, researchers estimated that up to 48,835 women died prematurely between 2002 and 2011 because they failed to use estrogen therapy treatments, the Los Angeles Times reported.
 

"What has happened is an avoidance of use of estrogen, not because of the [study] findings, but because of the way they were communicated and understood," lead study author Dr. Philip Sarrel said, in a video interview released Thursday by Yale. "None of those women lived to be 70 years old. They were all women aged 50 to 59 who would have used estrogen but did not use it," because of unfounded fears, he added.
 

Click for more from the Los Angeles Times. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/07/19/avoiding-estrogen-therapy-led-to-deaths-nearly-50000-women/print##ixzz2ZmtKmNPX


Upcoming HotFlashHavoc Events:

 

July 20, San Diego, CA hfh-poster-border
University of San Diego
Shiley Theatre (Camino Hall 147)
5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA 92110

 

Sponsored by Kaiser and Cigna Insurance. The executive producer will moderate the panel. The tickets will be free for over 600 women and men but you must reserve your seats, First 100 to arrive will receive amazing gift bags
To reserve tickets, please visit http://usdhotflashhavoc.eventbrite.com

 

July 31, Greeley, Colorado
Banner Health Clinic is sponsoring a HOT FLASH HAVOC EVENT
Wednesday,  July 31, 2013 ~ 6:30-8:30pm
NCMC Auditorium ~ 1801 16th Street (enter through Door 6)
Greeley, Colorado
Reserve a ticket by calling 970-392-2222 or register by email at [email protected]. Admission: FREE for spirit members and non-members, however pre-registration is required

 

September 21 to 24, Port Townsend, Washington
Times and Day for Port Townsend Film Festival to be announced

 

October: St Paul, MN 2013
October: Norway and Sweden 2013 


Avoiding estrogen therapy proved deadly for nearly 50,000: study

     From LATimes.com by Erin Brown    

 

This post has been updated. See below for details.
3:44 PM PDT, July 18, 2013.

  

Hormone replacement therapy has plummeted among U.S. women since the Women's Health Initiative cut short its Estrogen Plus Progestin Trial in 2002, when study results revealed that women who took the two-hormone therapy suffered adverse effects and higher mortality.
 

But the widespread rejection since of all hormone replacement therapies among menopausal women has been misguided, a team of researchers from the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., wrote Thursday in the online edition of the American Journal of Public Health.
 

Looking at a separate group of women than those followed in the 2002 trial - women ages 50 to 59 who had had hysterectomies - Dr. Philip Sarrel and colleagues calculated that rejecting estrogen-only hormone therapy resulted in the early deaths of nearly 50,000 women between 2002 and 2011.
 

"What has happened is an avoidance of use of estrogen not because of the [study] findings, but because of the way they were communicated and understood," Sarrel said, in a video interview released Thursday by Yale. "None of those women lived to be 70 years old. They were all women aged 50-59 who would have used estrogen but did not use it" because of unfounded fears, he added.
 

Using mortality rate data to calculate the number of women who died, the team's analysis estimated that between 40,292 and 48,835 women died prematurely during the study period.
 

Prior to 2002, the team wrote, 90% of women who had had hysterectomies would have used estrogen therapy for around five years. Today fewer than a third do - even though ongoing studies by the Women's Health Initiative in 2004 and 2011 had showed that women who had had their uteruses removed and who took estrogen alone actually had a decreased risk of early death, compared to women taking a placebo (mostly, because of reduced incidence of heart disease.) 
 

The coauthors urged researchers, healthcare providers and the media to devote a special effort to making sure patients understood the potential benefits of estrogen-only hormone replacement therapy in women who do not have a uterus.
 

"Distortion of details can prove to be nothing less than lethal," they wrote. "The Women's Health Initiative findings need to be presented so that the very important differences between the two treatment modalities are emphasized and the benefits for hysterectomized women aged 50 to 59 years are appreciated.  This effort has clearly been inadequate to date."
 

[UPDATED July 18, 3:59 p.m.: Dr. Rowan Chlebowski, an investigator at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, sounded a note of caution. "This paper does not present any new clinical trial results," he wrote in an email. "Rather it is an analysis based on aggressive assumptions."
Chlebowski said that while the analysis might "support new hypotheses ... they do not provide reliable evidence to inform clinical practice or to make reliable claims about mortality consequences."]
 

Read a summary of the American Journal of Public Health study here.
Read a Yale press release detailing the study findings.

 

Learn How To Become An Affiliate!           

For women with hysterectomies, estrogen may be a lifesaver after all


By Karen N. Peart
July 18, 2013

 

The widespread rejection of estrogen therapy after the 2002 Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study has most likely led to almost 50,000 unnecessary deaths over the last 10 years among women aged 50 to 69 who have had a hysterectomy, Yale School of Medicine researchers reveal in a study published in the July 18 issue of the American Journal of Public Health.
 

Led by Dr. Philip Sarrel, emeritus professor in the Departments of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences, and Psychiatry, the researchers analyzed United States census data, hysterectomy rates, and estimates of decline in hormone use in women aged 50 to 59 between 2002 and 2011.
 

Before 2002, it was standard practice for doctors to recommend estrogen therapy for this slice of the population, and more than 90% of these women used it to treat symptoms such as hot flashes, and to prevent osteoporosis and other diseases related to menopausal hormone deficiency. Today, about 10% of these women use estrogen.
 

This sharp decline in estrogen usage was linked to results from one part of the large, federally funded WHI study in 2002. Women and their doctors became frightened of the dangers of post-menopausal hormones. But according to Sarrel and his colleagues, this was a report about women with a uterus, who took pills that combined estrogen and a progestin. Women who have a uterus must take a second hormone (a progestin) to avoid a risk of uterine cancer. But these results did not apply to women with no uterus who use estrogen-only therapy.
 

"Sadly, the media, women, and health care providers did not appreciate the difference between the two kinds of hormone therapy," Sarrel said. "As a result, the use of all forms of FDA-approved menopausal hormone therapy declined precipitously."
 

Sarrel added that for the women taking combined hormone therapy (at least the particular drug, Prempro, used in the WHI study), it was probably a good decision to avoid it because the WHI study showed a significant increase in breast cancer, heart disease, stroke, and blood clots in women who used this drug compared to placebo. However, for the women taking estrogen-only therapy, avoiding treatment does not appear to have been a good decision.
 

Results from the second part of the WHI study, which followed women who had no uterus and who took either estrogen-only or placebo, were very different. A series of papers published by the WHI between 2004 and 2012 showed that estrogen-only therapy had mostly positive health outcomes. For example, in 2011 and 2012 the WHI reported that women who received estrogen compared to those who received placebo had fewer deaths each year for 10 years and were less likely to develop breast cancer and heart disease. For each of the 10 years the death rate among those not taking estrogen was 13 more per 10,000. Most of these women died from heart disease while breast cancer accounted for almost all the other deaths.
 

"Estrogen avoidance has resulted in a real cost in women's lives every year for the last 10 years - and the deaths continue," said Sarrel. "We hope this article will stir an overdue debate and raise consciousness about the health benefits of estrogen-only therapy for women in their 50s with no uterus."
 

Other authors on the study are Dr. Valentine Y. Njike, Dr. Valentina Vinante, and Dr. David L. Katz. Sarrel is a consultant with Noven Therapeutics.
 

Citation: American Journal of Public Health

Click on link below to view video interview by Dr. Philip Sarrel

 

The Mortality Toll of Estrogen Avoidance - YouTube

 


Buy Your DVD Now:Buy the DVD

 

DVDGet yours ordered today! In case you can't get to one of the Hot Flash Havoc screenings, you can order the DVD online at: www.hotflashhavoc.com.
 
Special Offer! Just $14.99 plus S&H.
 
We will ship it out to you in a FLASH!.....

HOT FLASH HAVOC

It's up to you! So GET EDUCATED, BE INFORMED AND YOU DECIDE your health. If you have not seen HOT FLASH HAVOC, now is the time to see and share with friends.
 
Enjoy the rest of your summer!Hot Flash Havoc