The solutions are straightforward when you understand the problem. If you know a man over the age of 50 who's not sleeping well, chances are good it's because he's got prostate problems that require visits to the bathroom a couple of times a night. It's estimated that benign prostate disease affects over 40 percent of American men by age 50 and over 70 percent by age 60. The most common symptom is trouble with urination. Such men may have urinary frequency (hence getting up at night), their urine flow may be decreased in force or rate, they may have urinary urgency, and they may feel that they haven't emptied the bladder (a sign of urinary retention), especially after drinking coffee.
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Dr. JOHN LEE
Medical Letter
Insights, Opinions, News and Reviews from John Lee and Friends
February 2002

Dear Reader,

The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Centre released study results in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (July 2001) showing that women taking tamoxifen for treatment of first breast cancer are more likely to develop oestrogen receptornegative tumours in the other breast. These tumours are particularly aggressive and difficult to treat with conventional medicine.

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Increased risk of breast cancer a factor, government says
July 9, 2002 Posted: 3:07 PM EDT (1907 GMT)
 WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In a move that may affect millions of women, U.S. government scientists Tuesday stopped a major study of hormone replacement therapy on the risks and benefits of combined estrogen and progestin in healthy menopausal women, citing an increased risk of invasive breast cancer.
Researchers from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health also found increases in coronary heart disease, stroke and pulmonary embolism.
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by Martha Rosenberg 
http://www.opednews.com

Since federal researchers halted the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) hormone replacement therapy (HRT) study in 2002, three years early because the drugs were so dangerous, the sequence of events has played out almost like a joke.

Doctor: I have some bad news. The HRT pills you've been taking cause cancer, stroke, blood clots and heart disease.
Patient: What's the good news, Doctor?
Doctor: I'm dating the cute receptionist out there!
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Women who take the most common form of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) experience a hearing loss of 10 to 30 percent more than those who do not.
A study of 124 women showed that age-related hearing loss is accelerated for those whose HRT includes progestin, a synthetic form of progesterone.
Women who took progestin had the hearing loss usual for women up to a decade older.
The study compared the hearing of three groups of women aged 60 to 86. 30 had taken a form of HRT that included only estrogen; 32 had taken both estrogen and progestin; and 62 had never been on HRT. Each of the women was given a variety of hearing tests.
In all the tests, women whose HRT included progestin (the most common form) had worse hearing.
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Dear Reader,

You may have heard the news last week that another (yes, ANOTHER!) major hormone replacement therapy (HRT) study was shut down early to protect the health of subjects 
participating in the study. Or maybe you didn't hear about it. These studies are shutting down with such frequency lately that they barely rate a mention in most news reports. 
If it weren't so serious, it would pretty comical.

But what received even less attention was a recent report in the British Medical Journal that revealed a shocking turn in the HRT saga that will not make anyone laugh. Scream with anger? That would be far more appropriate. 
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Women kick the PremPro habit and live to tell the tale.
In November 2006, research was released by cancer centers around the U.S. showing that breast cancer rates have dropped dramatically since 2002. Most doctors and researchers agree that the drop was created when millions of women suddenly stopped using hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study group announced, in the summer of 2002, that HRT users had an increased risk of breast cancer, stroke and heart disease. Estimates are that as many as 50 percent of women using HRT stopped taking it within six months after the WHI results came out.
How large was the drop in breast cancer? It depends on who's reporting the statistics and how they're interpreting the numbers. Most of the data came from the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) cancer registry.
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