Menopause & Homeopathy

Homeopathic treatment has helped millions of women go through the change of life, or menopause, without the dangerous side-effects of conventional drugs. Besides its comprehensive emphasis on the patient’s detailed symptom-picture, her individual constitution, overall health and medical history, past medicinal use, mental, physical, and emotional state, the advantages of homeopathic treatment are just as obvious — minimal cost and long-lasting, safe healing effects.

- Dr Debby Bruck & Dr Manfred Mueller

First, the big question. How safe is the menopausal medication oestrogen, the most widely prescribed drug in the USA? Answers may be years away, and yet 1.3 million American women who enter menopause each year must decide whether it outweighs possible links to cancer and other illnesses.

Oestrogen has been prescribed since the 1940s to ease hot flashes, headaches, vaginal dryness, insomnia, mood swings and other signs of menopause, when the body’s natural supply of the hormone declines. Studies performed in 1975 show oestrogen [Premarin] increased the risk of cancer of the endometrium [the uterine lining]. By 1980 the drug was back in favour with the use of progestin [a synthetic progestogen with effects similar to progesterone], a second hormone taken with oestrogen that appears to reduce the risk of endometrial cancer. In recent years, the medical establishment has strongly promoted oestrogen because of evidence that it protects postmenopausal women against osteoporosis [the loss of bone mass that can lead to deformities and crippling fractures], cardiovascular disease and, perhaps, Alzheimer’s.

This is being done, in spite of the strong evidence that continued administration of so-called conjugated oestrogens increase the risk of cancer in both animals and human beings. Studies have shown an increased risk of endometrial and breast cancer. There is also a three-fold increase in the risk for gallbladder disease. Other serious long-term risks include blood clots, stroke, liver cancer and tumours, high blood pressure, heart disease, glucose intolerance with symptoms similar to diabetes.