Hormone therapy is used to treat a multitude of menopause symptoms. From night sweats and incontinence to weight gain and body odor. It functions by addressing the imbalance of hormones in menopausal women's bodies and artificially restoring some normality to this balance. Hormone therapy is viewed as the artificial alternative to phytoestrogenic herbs which contain plantlike hormones which address this hormone imbalance in a similar way. Like most people approaching the later stages of life, there is a plethora of lifestyle choices and natural ageing effects that can increase mortality rates. Hormone therapy in itself can bring with it dangerous side effects that can affect the mortality of menopausal women. A recent study has quantified such risks specifically for menopausal women.
The research for this study has been specifically modified to analyze the danger of mortality for certain aspects in relation to older women who may be at varying stages of menopause. Such studies do exist but none have ever purposefully focused on the significant impact of singular factors. The study monitored these factors along the lines of a multitude of demographics, some of which included: prevalent disease, medication use and lifestyle measures. A significant 62 individual factors were considered in the study and among them 19 were found to be major contributors to mortality in women who may be suffering from menopause symptoms. Research found that these factors among menopausal women were modifiable, in that they could be stopped by those tested. The most prominent in this regard was smoking and this risk was found to multiple in older women who may be suffering from menopause symptoms. Other none modifiable factors also weighed in heavily in mortality rates and such factors can be tied with the hormone therapy that is sometimes used to treat menopause symptoms.
Despite hormone therapy carrying with it a number of risks that can be hazardous and subsequently dangerous to the mortality rate of women, the study showed that these risks were not as serious as other interchangeable risks. Hormone therapy can be a factor but more so was the modifiable symptom of smoking which accounted for almost a quarter of the significant mortality risks in women of menopausal age.
