HEALTH REPORT - Hormone Replacement Questioned

By Nancy Steinbach
HEALTH REPORT -May 8, 2002: Hormone¹ Replacement² Questioned

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

An international team of health experts says there is no scientific evidence that hormone

replacement can treat serious conditions suffered by older women. Women’s bodies
stop producing the hormone estrogen at about the age of fifty. Women can no longer
become pregnant³. This period of life is called menopause.

Until now, medical experts believed that taking the hormone estrogen could protect older
women from health problems. These include heart disease, mental depression,
Alzheimer’s disease and broken bones caused by osteoporosis. However, hormone

replacement therapy increases the risk of breast cancer if used for many years.

The new report was paid for by the United States National Institutes of Health and the private Giovanni Loren
Zini Medical Science Foundation in Italy.

The full report will be published in June. But the part concerning hormone replacement and other treatments was
released at a recent scientific meeting at the N-I-H. The report examined the results of many women’s health
studies. Twenty-eight doctors and scientists wrote the report. They are from the United States, Italy, Sweden,
Switzerland and Australia.

The group’s goal was to present all the information in one report for doctors around the world. The group

examined only studies that used the scientific method called a randomized control trial. In such studies, people
are given either the treatment being tested or an inactive substance called a placebo⁴. The results show if the
treatment was more effective than the placebo.

The report said that hormone replacement is useful to ease the hot feelings that some women experience during
menopause. But it said scientific evidence does not support its use for other problems.

For example, three recent studies show that taking hormones⁵ increases instead of reduces the chance of a heart
attack or stroke. Studies have shown that taking hormones does not help women with early Alzheimer’s disease
or mental depression.

The report said taking hormones can slow bone loss. But the loss continues after women stop taking the
hormones. And it said that no large studies have been done to see if taking hormones reduces the number of
broken bones suffered by older women.

This VOA Special English Health Report was written by Nancy Steinbach.

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1 hormone   

n.荷尔蒙，激素，内分泌

参考例句：

• Hormone implants are used as growth boosters.激素植入物被用作生长辅助剂。
• This hormone interacts closely with other hormones in the body.这种荷尔蒙与体內其他荷尔蒙紧密地相互作用。

2 replacement   

n.取代，替换，交换；替代品，代用品

参考例句：

• We are hard put to find a replacement for our assistant.我们很难找到一个人来代替我们的助手。
• They put all the students through the replacement examination.他们让所有的学生参加分班考试。

3 pregnant   

adj.怀孕的，怀胎的

参考例句：

• She is a pregnant woman.她是一名孕妇。
• She is pregnant with her first child.她怀了第一胎。

4 placebo   

n.安慰剂；宽慰话

参考例句：

• The placebo has been found to work with a lot of different cases.人们已发现安慰剂能在很多不同的病例中发挥作用。
• The placebo effect refers to all the observable behaviors caused by placebo.安慰剂效应是指由安慰剂所引起的可观察的行为。

5 hormones   

n. 荷尔蒙，激素 名词hormone的复数形式

参考例句：

• This hormone interacts closely with other hormones in the body. 这种荷尔蒙与体內其他荷尔蒙紧密地相互作用。
• The adrenals produce a large per cent of a man's sex hormones. 肾上腺分泌人体的大部分性激素。