For many years, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was recommended to postmenopausal women in the West for the prevention of both osteoporosis and heart disease. However, U.S. health officials announced on Tuesday, Jul. 16, 2002 that the use of the HRT drug Prempro rais - es the risk of heart attack, stroke, blood clots, and breast cancer.1 This conclusion was reached after observing 16,000 women for five years. The federally funded study was supposed to run for eight years but was called off and the women in the study were told to stop taking Prempro because of the decisive negative findings by that time. An article titled "What's a Woman to Do?" by Claudia Kalb appearing in the next week's Newsweek attempted to give postmenopausal women alternatives to HRT.² However, this article did not mention the many documented benefits of Chinese herbal medicine for a variety of postmenopausal complaints. Dozens of studies are published each year in the People's Republic of China on the treatment efficacy of Chinese medicine and postmenopausal conditions. One recent example is titled, "The Effects of the Supplementing & Boosting of the Liver & Kidneys Method on Levels of Sex Hormones and the Metabolism of Blood Lipids in Patients with Postmenopausal Coronary Heart Disease." This article was written by Wang Xiu-bao et al. and appeared in issue #5, 2002 of the Zhong Yi Za Zhi (Journal of Chinese Medicine) on pages 380- 381. A precis of that article is given below.

There were 90 postmenopausal women in this study. Sixty of these women had coronary heart disease diagnosed according to WHO criteria. These sixty women were further divided into a kidney qi (and yang) vacuity group, a kidney yin vacuity group, and no kidney vacuity group. Then these women were randomly assigned to either the Chinese medical treatment group or the Western medical treatment group which consisted of 30 patients each. In the Chinese medical treatment group, the women were 51.8-70.2 years of age, with a median age of 57.6 ± 2.2 years. Their mean body/mass index (BMI) was 25.6 ± 3.0 kg/m², and their mean time since menopause was 5.3 ± 0.8 years. In the Western medical treatment group, the age range was 52.4- 67.5 years, with a mean age of 57.6 ± 2.2 years, a mean BMI of 26.8 ± 3.2 kg/m², and a mean time since menopause of 5.2 ± 0.9 years. In terms of symptoms and severity of coronary heart disease, there were also no statistically significant differences between these two groups. Another 30 women comprised the healthy group. The mean age of this group was 57.3 ± 2 years, their mean BMI was 24.8 ± 3.4 kg/m², and their mean time since menopause was 5.2 ± 0.9 years. These patients' heart function was normal and there were no endocrine, liver, kidney, breast, or reproductive tract disorders. Nor was there any hypertension or cerebral infarction. None of these women had taken any hormones in the preceding two months and their cervices were normal.

Patients in the Chinese medical treatment group were given the following Chinese medicinals for supplementing and boosting the liver and kidneys: cooked Radix Rehmanniae (Shu Di), 15g, Sclerotium Poriae Cocos (Fu Ling), 12g, Semen Cuscutae Chinensis (Tu Si Zi), 12g, Fructus Corni Officinalis (Shan Zhu Yu), 12g, uncooked Radix Albus Paeoniae Lactiflorae (Bai Shao), 15g, Herba Cistanchis Deserticolae (Rou Cong Rong), 10g, Radix Astragali Membranacei (Huang Qi), 15g, Radix Salviae Miltiorrhizae (Dan Shen), 15g, Radix Rubrus Paeoniae Lactiflorae (Chi Shao), 12g. Patients exhibiting kidney yin vacuity also received 15 grams of Fructus Lycii Chinensis (Gou Qi Zi) and Shu Di was increased to 18 grams. Patients with kidney yang vacuity received an additional 15 grams each of Radix Morindae Officinalis (Ba Ji Tian) and Herba Epimedii (Yin Yang Huo). One packet of these medicinals was decocted every three days. The patients in the Western medicine group received two milligrams of Nylestriol once every 15 days. Both groups were treated for six months with these protocols. In addition, those patients with angina pain received standard Western medical treatment for that pain.

Prior to treatment, all patients in all groups were tested for blood estradiol (E2), total cholesterol (TC), and low density lipids (LDL). All patients were also tested for these same things at three and six months after treatment. Estradiol levels were significantly lower in the Chinese medical treatment group than that of the healthy comparison group. Estradiol levels increased gradually and LDL and TC level decreased significantly after six months of treatment in the Chinese medical treatment group, and there was no significant d i fference in these levels compared to the Western medical treatment group.

Concern over postmenopausal coronary heart disease has been one of the rationales for postmenopausal HRT. Estrogen helps protect women from high cholesterol which is implicated as a causative factor in coronary heart disease. According to the Chinese authors of this study, this study shows that Chinese medical treatment is as effective as HRT for the prevention and treatment of postmenopausal coronary heart disease. Therefore, Western women looking for an alternative to HRT postmenopausally should consider Chinese herbal medicine. Chinese herbal medicine for perimenopausal complaints has no known short- or long-term risks or side effects

¹ Cowley, Geoffrey & Springen, Karen, "The End of the Age of Estrogen," Newsweek, Jul. 22, 2002, p. 38- 39

² Kalb, Claudia, "What's a Woman to Do?" Newsweek, Jul. 22, 2002, p. 42-45