Women have long been warned that medications containing the hormone supplements estrogen and progesterone increase the risk of breast cancer, but also cardiovascular disease, blood clots, stroke and dementia.
The US is making a total turnaround, says Angelica Lindén Hirschberg, physician and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, to Dagens Nyheter.
There is no scientific evidence for the warnings painted on drug packaging. On the contrary, researchers in the US point to long-term health benefits.
Hormone medications can be either systemic – which affect the entire body, such as tablets, patches or sprays – or local, such as vaginal creams or vaginal tablets that only affect the mucous membranes in the vagina. The systemic preparations may give a slightly increased risk of breast cancer after about five years of use,
Angelica Lindén Hirschberg now wants to see incorrect warning texts disappear in Sweden as well.
"All preparations have been treated as a single risk class, even though they are so different. For example, there is no scientific evidence that hormone patches with estrogen affect the risk of blood clots, but that's what it says on the packaging," she tells the newspaper.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is removing the warning labels and replacing them with recommendations based on the women's age. Today, the message is that healthy women under 60, who had their last period less than ten years ago and are experiencing symptoms, can greatly benefit from hormone therapy.
