Pfizer has set aside $840 million to pay claims against Prempro, which was linked to breast cancer in a 2002 study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. So far the company has resolved about 46% of the litigation resulting from claims against the drug, which is still available. Prempro was developed and sold by Wyeth prior to the 2009 merger takeover by Pfizer.

Pfizer has said that it will appeal the ruling to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Read more: Pfizer Loses Court Case on Menopause Drug (PFE) – 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/2012/01/04/pfizer-loses-court-case-on-menopause-drug-pfe/#ixzz1iWS9WoPT

Researchers used data from the Iowa Women’s Health Study which followed a group of women with a mean age of 61.6 for a period of 20 years starting 1986.  They concluded:

In older women, several commonly used dietary vitamin and mineral supplements may be associated with increased total mortality risk; this association is strongest with supplemental iron. In contrast to the findings of many studies, calcium is associated with decreased risk.

The supplements they referred to included multivitamins , vitamin B_{6 ,} folic acid , iron, magnesium, zinc  and copper. 

It goes without saying that it is better to get your vitamins and minerals from food.  Supplements are just that – supplements to your food intake. 

However there are clear cases for the use of supplemental Vitamin D, Omega 3 and so on for menopausal women, therefore alarmists headlines like these need to be tempered by specific details.

The study involved 68 women who had reached menopause and were taking hormone replacement for at least one year.

They found that compounds containing conjugated equine estrogen have negative effects on cognition whereas bio-identical estrogen (17β-estradiol/17β-E) has a positive or at least no effect.

The bottom line? Keep away from anything that comes out of a horse’s bottom.

According to Dr. Jonathon Tilly’s keynote address to North American Menopause Society (NAMS) 22nd Annual Meeting entitled”Ovarian Aging: Can Science Turn Back the Clock?”, the concept of the biological clock in which a woman’s egg supply becomes depleted over time might be reversible.

Based on experiments with mice, he suggests that a woman’s ovarian pool could possibly be replenished by implanting human oogonial stem cells that generate new germ cells and new oocytes in adult ovary tissue.

Researchers have used co-enzyme Q10 to make “older” mice produce not only more eggs but also healthier eggs.

They believe that if CoQ10 can have the same effect on humans then women seeking fertility treatment will not only produce embyros with less chance of chromosomal abnormalities but also there will be less need to transfer multiple embryos thus reducing the instance of multiple births due to IVF.

Read more: http://www.canada.com/Fertility+benefit+from+vitamin/5441089/story.html#ixzz1ZAnnwJBM

Read more: http://www.canada.com/Fertility+benefit+from+vitamin/5441089/story.html#ixzz1ZAmLC1AS

What is already known on this topic

• Although heart disease mortality increases with age, it is lower in women than in men

• It has been suggested that this protective effect is due to female sex hormones, and the protection is therefore lost at menopause

What this study adds

• Heart disease mortality in women increased exponentially with age, with no acceleration at menopause. In men, there was a rapid increase during young adulthood followed by reduced rates of increase

• The early rapid acceleration in male heart disease mortality could explain these sex differences rather than menopausal changes in women

• Efforts to improve cardiac health in women should focus on their lifetime risk rather than only after menopause

Symptoms of heart attack vary significantly between men to women.  For men it is the traditional pain the chest and left arm.  However for women it is not so. While the most common heart attack symptom is still some type of pain, pressure or discomfort in the chest, women are more likely than are men to also have heart attack symptoms without chest pain, such as:

• Neck, jaw, shoulder, upper back or abdominal discomfort
• Shortness of breath
• Nausea or vomiting
• Abdominal pain or “heartburn”
• Sweating
• Light headedness or dizziness
• Unusual or unexplained fatigue.

Unfortunately many doctors are still uneducated in this regard and therefore women need to factor this in when experiencing the above symptoms.

In a recent study on incontinence and obesity, researchers noticed that losing weight could help lessen the frequency and  intensity of hot flashes.  And of course the headlines followed with “lose weight” messages to all women.  No mention being made on how it might improve incontinence itself.

But they have no idea why weight has any effect on hot flashes  and this particular study provides no new clues. The women did not follow a set diet or exercise regime.  They were merely “educated” and left to record their efforts.  

Since significant numbers of thin women also suffer from hot flashes, it could well be that regular exercise rather than being actually ”losing a few pounds” that is the clue.

“During menopause women are three times more likely than the general population to be diagnosed, and even more so if they have a history of depression.  Women during menopause are more likely to commit suicide than at any other time in their lives. “  

Other risk factors noted were that lower levels of education, Hispanic ethnicity, stressful life events, low social support, and a higher number of physical symptoms such as hot flashes were also associated with a higher risk of depression

The women taking Prometrium had a 56% decrease in their score, and the women taking the placebo had a 28% decrease.

The women taking Prometrium had a 48% decline in the number of symptoms; women taking the placebo had a 22% decline.

As of yet no-one knows why progesterone helped. Interestingly the placebo helped too!