New Analysis Finds Bioidentical Hormones Safer Than Standard Hormone Replacement Therapy---Comprehensive review demonstrates bioidentical hormones are superior to synthetic HRT with greater cardiovascular benefits and reduced risk of breast cancer

PR Newswire 02-24-09
TORRANCE, Calif., Feb 23, 2009 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The most comprehensive analysis to date, published in the Postgraduate Medical Journal, a leading peer-reviewed publication for practicing clinicians, showed that bioidentical hormones are associated with reduced health risks and are more efficacious than their synthetic counterparts. Conducted by a leading expert in hormone replacement, Kent Holtorf, M.D., medical director of the Holtorf Medical Group in Torrance, California, the paper reviewed and evaluated results from more than 200 physiological and clinical studies. It demonstrated that bioidentical hormone replacement therapy is both more effective and has greater health benefits for women suffering with symptoms of menopause than hormone replacement therapy with synthetic hormones. Synthetic forms of hormone replacement therapy prescribe substances such as Premarin, Provera and Prempro and present real health risks with increased risks of breast cancer, stroke and heart attack.
"Many physicians and so-called experts state that there is no evidence that bioidentical hormones are safer than synthetic HRT. A thorough review of the medical literature, however, clearly supports the claim that bioidentical hormones have some distinctly different, often opposite, physiological effects to those of their synthetic hormones," said Dr. Holtorf, whose practice treats more than 7,000 patients each year. "The medical literature demonstrates that bioidentical hormone replacement therapy is highly effective and carries a reduced, rather than an increased risk of breast cancer and cardiovascular disease."
The review also showed that patients undergoing bioidentical HRT were less likely to experience sleep problems, anxiety, depression and cognitive effects - common side effects of synthetic hormones and are associated with a reduced risk for breast cancer and superior cardiovascular protection.
"While larger, randomized clinical studies are needed, the review of current medical literature demonstrates that bioidentical hormones are a safer, highly effective option for women, and any physician that is practicing evidence-based medicine should be using bioidentical hormone replacement for their patients," said Dr. Holtorf.
Synthetic HRT preparations, which are the most commonly prescribed method of HRT in the United States, are comprised of pregnant horse hormones that are not found in the human body or synthetic hormones that have physiologic effects that mimic or mirror the natural estrogen or progesterone effects in the body. In contrast, bioidentical hormone replacement contains molecules that are exact replicas of the endogenous estrogens and progesterone found in the body and, as such, have distinctly different physiological effects than their synthetic counterparts.
The Holtorf Medical Group is one of the leading authorities on hormone replacement and has been educating patients on the superiority and safety of natural hormones versus synthetic for many years. Dr. Holtorf is available to discuss the FDA's move to halt the use of bioidentical hormones while promoting synthetic hormone therapy, and why discouraging healthcare professionals from using this treatment threatens the health of women everywhere. In addition, Dr. Holtorf can dispel the common misconceptions associated with bioidentical hormone treatment and discuss the significant health benefits patients can expect from this treatment compared to synthetic versions of HRT. For more information or for a copy of the study go to www.HoltorfMed.com.
http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=7935&Section=Disease
February 23, 2009

Stroke risk doubled by unhealthy lifestyle

A report published online on February 19, 2009 in the British Medical Journal revealed the impact of an unhealthy lifestyle on the risk of stroke. Men and women who had poor compliance with four basic lifestyle factors were found to have double the risk of stroke compared with those who practiced the behaviors.
Researchers at the University of East Anglia and the University of Cambridge in England utilized data from 20,040 participants in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer Study (EPIC) Norfolk for the current analysis. Health and lifestyle questionnaires completed upon enrollment were scored one point for the practice of each of the following lifestyle factors: not smoking, not being physically inactive, having a moderate alcohol intake of 1 to 14 units per week, and having plasma vitamin C levels of at least 50 micromoles per liter, which is a marker for fruit and vegetable intake of five or more servings per day. Nineteen percent of the men participating in the study and 29.7 percent of the women practiced all four healthy behaviors.
Over the 11.5 year average follow up period, 599 strokes occurred. Stroke risk was shown to increase with each point decline. Compared with participants who scored all 4 healthy lifestyle points, those who scored one point experienced a risk of stroke that was 2.18 times greater, and those with zero points had a 2.3 times greater risk.
“The fact that the lifestyle behaviours examined in this study are potentially achievable in the general population means that our findings are of relevance to middle aged and older populations worldwide,” the authors write. “These results provide further incentive and support for the notion that small differences in lifestyle can have a substantial potential impact on risk,” they conclude.

February 20, 2009

DHA supplements reduce inflammation in men with high triglycerides

In the March, 2009 issue of the Journal of Nutrition, researchers from the University of California, Davis and the U.S. Department of Agriculture report that supplementation with docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), one of the omega-3 fatty acids that is abundant in fish, is associated with a reduction in inflammation in men with elevated triglyceride levels, which increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. Inflammation has been shown to predict the risk of heart attack, stroke, and all-cause mortality in apparently healthy men.
The double-blind, randomized trial included 34 men between the ages of 39 and 66. The men were divided to receive 7.5 grams DHA per day or an olive oil placebo for 90 days. Blood samples collected prior to and at the end of the treatment period were analyzed for white blood cells, C-reactive protein (CRP, a marker of inflammation), and inflammatory cytokines.
At the treatment period’s conclusion, white blood cells known as neutrophils, which are increased in inflammation, were reduced by 10.5 percent, C-reactive protein by 15 percent, and the inflammatory cytokine interleukin-6 by 23 percent among those who received DHA. Matrix metalloproteinase-2, an anti-inflammatory enzyme, increased by an average of 21 percent in the DHA group.
“Our finding of a reduction in the concentration of CRP in response to DHA supplementation is comparable to the 15-25% reduction in CRP caused by statins and may have clinical relevance,” the authors write. “DHA supplementation may improve cardiovascular health in several ways. DHA decreases the concentrations of fasting and post-prandial triglycerides, small dense LDL particles, remnant-like chylomicron particles, and inflammatory markers and increases the concentrations of large HDL and LDL particles, anti-inflammatory markers, and the omega-3 index.”

Health spending takes rising share of U.S. economy
Last Updated: 2009-02-24 10:26:29 -0400 (Reuters Health)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Health spending will hit $2.5 trillion this year, devouring 17.6 percent of the economy, as the White House and Congress consider major changes to the healthcare system, U.S. government economists said on Tuesday. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, known as CMS, forecast that the share of the economy devoted to health spending will jump a full percentage point from 2008. That would mark the biggest one-year increase recorded since the government began tracking the data in 1960.
Thanks to the recession, public health spending in programs such as the Medicaid program for the poor is ballooning, while private health insurance spending is slowing as more people lose employer-provided coverage, CMS reported.
"We project that the health share of the economy will increase steadily through 2018," CMS economist Christopher Truffer told reporters.
The unbridled growth in projected health spending may add impetus to plans by President Barack Obama and leading lawmakers to make sweeping changes in the healthcare system.
The United States spends more on healthcare than any other country, but its system is widely considered inefficient and it lags many other nations in key quality measures. Past efforts to make major healthcare changes have died in Congress.
The rate of increase in overall health spending -- public and private combined -- was estimated at 6.1 percent in 2008, the same as the previous year, but is projected to slow to 5.5 percent this year due to the effects of the recession.
The report forecast that 2009's increase in private health spending would slip to a 15-year low of 3.9 percent.
Overall U.S. health spending in 2009 will hit $2.5 trillion, continuing a trend in recent decades that has seen healthcare encompass an ever-larger proportion of the economy, CMS said.
By 2018, U.S. health spending will almost double from last year's sum, soaring to $4.4 trillion and making up 20.3 percent of the overall economy, the economists reported in the journal Health Affairs.
Growth in public health spending this year is projected to hit 7.4 percent, amounting to $1.2 trillion, largely due to growth in Medicaid enrollment and spending, the report said.
The current recession began in December 2007 and the report forecast economic conditions would improve beginning in 2010. Health spending growth is projected to surge anew in 2011.
Private health spending growth will leap from 4.2 percent in 2010 to 6.1 percent by 2018, CMS said. Public health spending will surge in the same time frame as the post World War II baby boom generation begins entering the Medicare health insurance program for people ages 65 and up, CMS added.
Public spending was forecast to account for more than half of health spending by 2016 and reach 51.3 percent by 2018.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2009/02/24/eline/links/20090224elin008.html

Urine test may tell of breast cancer's spread
Last Updated: 2009-02-24 10:21:58 -0400 (Reuters Health)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers have found a protein that helps breast cancer cells spread and found it in the urine of women with aggressive breast cancer -- offering a potentially painless way to warn a patient.
The protein and the gene that controls it are called lipocalin 2, or Lcn2. The team at Children's Hospital Boston showed not only that it helps the tumors spread through the body, but can be detected in a simple urine test.
"Lcn2 is among the genes most highly associated with estrogen receptor (ER)-negative breast tumors," Marsha Moses, Jiang Yang and colleagues at Children's wrote in Monday's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Estrogen-negative tumors are more difficult to treat because the widely used drug tamoxifen, and newer drugs called aromatase inhibitors, have little effect on them.
Lcn2 was known to leak from breast tumors into the breast ducts. "We considered the possibility that Lcn2 might be detected in body fluids and might be associated with disease status," Moses and colleagues wrote.
"We analyzed Lcn2 levels in urine samples from healthy women and women with metastatic breast cancer," they added.
Women, whose cancer had been known to spread, or metastasize, had higher levels of the compound in their urine.
"Our study identifies a novel, additional player in the complex development of invasive breast cancer," Moses said in a statement. Drugs that attack the protein may also help treat breast cancer, she said.