ABSTRACT
Clearly, it is during perimenopause when hormone treatment is most sought after by women and recommended and prescribed to treat changes, sometimes referred to as symptoms. Hormones are also recommended to prevent osteoporosis and heart disease. The effects that hormones have on preventing heart disease and osteoporosis and increasing breast cancer risk are presently being studied via national studies, described later in this chapter. Unfortunately, the results of these studies will not benefit women of the baby boomer generation who are just now entering perimenopause, and questioning whether or not to be hormone users. The best-documented benefit to date from taking hormones is osteoporosis prevention, or stopping the progression of the disease once it is detected. This disease, typically called the “bone robber disease,” affects both women and men. However, two factors combine to make osteoporosis more a women’s disease. First, women live longer than men; so even though both are at risk of developing the disease, it is more prevalent in women simply because they live longer. Second, women generally have a smaller bone structure than men. Therefore, they have less bone to lose, and will feel the effects of bone loss sooner than men. For women then, both gender and age interact to increase the risk of developing this disease earlier than men. Gender and age also interact to increase the risk of developing heart disease in women, albeit at a later age than for men. I have devoted Chapter 18 to osteoporosis. Hormones and heart disease are discussed in this chapter.
