Hormone Replacement Therapy: Paradise Lost? CCHS Hosts Lecture at UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – At noon on Dec. 13, in the Willard Auditorium of the DCH Educational Tower, Dr. Robert Kreisberg, a physician and dean of The University of South Alabama’s college of medicine, will deliver a lecture entitled “Hormone Replacement Therapy: Paradise Lost.”

Kreisberg, a pre-eminent medical scholar who lectures nationally, is giving this lecture as part of The University of Alabama College of Community Health Sciences’ Grand Rounds continuing medical education lecture series. The event is open to those in the medical and healthcare community.

Dr. William Curry, a physician and the dean of UA’s College of Community Health Sciences, said that for more than 25 years medical science accepted the idea that estrogen replacement therapy in women after menopause had far more benefits than risks.

“What we’ve discovered now is that the benefit it looked like women got to prevent heart attacks is not there and that the benefit for osteoporosis is not as great as we had thought,” Curry said. “It turns out that all the benefits at providing continued youthfulness is true, but at a great cost.

“We shouldn’t over-react and say no women should take estrogen,” Curry continued. “However, what had looked like a straightforward discussion between a doctor and his patient has now become very complex. Today, the decision to take estrogen is a very individual decision.”

Curry said although there are more risks than once thought in using a hormone replacement therapy, those risks still are quite small.