Do the results of the Womens Health Initiative (WHI) apply to bio-identical hormones?
A. The Women’s Health Initiative specifically studied a population of women who were broken into 3 separate arms of the study: one arm received premarin, a second received prempro, and a 3rd arm received placebo. Bio-identical hormones were NOT studied in the WHI. Many physicians have extrapolated the results of the WHI to bio-identical hormones, implying varying side effects with all forms of HRT, which cannot be proven at this time, as the WHI did not use bio-identical hormones. Conversely, other practitioners have also claimed that bio-identical hormones are superior and safer based on negative results of the WHI using pharmaceutical agents. This is also extrapolation and cannot be proven at this time. Whether positive or negative, the only hormone regimens for the treatment of menopausal symptoms which have had proven results in large-scale (high statistical power), gold-standard trials of placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blind studies to date include premarin and prempro, bu
