| I want to take
this opportunity to thank so many of you for the outpouring of
good wishes on the announcement of my 70th birthday last
month. Your greetings and sentiments were touching and
really meant a lot to me. It brought home to me the fact
that we at Oleda and Company are unusual in that we have a
truly personal relationship with our friends and
customers.
I was so happy that so many
of you took advantage of my seventy-percent-of-retail price
(30% off) discount to celebrate my 70th birthday. It was
the most popular promotion I have ever run, and I know it
introduced many of you to products you had not used
previously. Thank you for that. I hope they have
made you look and feel younger by now!! I’d love to hear
from you about it.
Now to a topic that’s very
important to me.
More Very Interesting, and Important News
about Hormone Therapy.
In my birthday
Newsletter two years ago, I discussed the enormous
amount of publicity at that time about hormone replacement
therapy (HRT). A major five-year study had been abruptly
halted by federal researchers because they said they detected
an increased risk of health problems. There were
alarming stories about this in all news media. Millions
of women discontinued the therapy.
At the time I said that
I believed this was another case of reporting dangers
disproportionate to reality and, while I did not condone HRT—I
still don’t—unless under the direction and care of a physician
well versed and who “keeps up” in the subject, I advised that
I had been taking HRT for 15 years—I still am today—prescribed
and controlled by my gynecologist, and it has worked
wonderfully for me…I personally would not want to be without
it.
NOW HEAR THIS: Studies
Show Benefits of HRT Outweigh
Risks for Many Younger
Women
That
study two years ago was limited to older women who were well
past their menopausal years. Now, a review of other
studies of younger women, prior to the age of 60, finds
a survival advantage for those who begin HRT before
turning 60. These studies reveal that HRT reduced the
risk of dying from any cause by 39% compared with women
who did not take HRT at all.
Now,
isn’t that something! Most of these studies were
conducted between 1990 and 2002. Where were these
reports two years ago, when the controversy was raging?
The
risks vs. benefits of treating younger women (younger than 60)
with hormone replacement, nevertheless, remain
controversial. However, what this news does is give me
the fuel to reiterate what I said two years ago. I urge
anyone having any menopausal or pre-menopausal problems to
discuss the possibility of HRT with a competent doctor, one
who understands the studies and who is not prone to simply
dismiss the therapy. As I’ve said, HRT is certainly
still helping me. Maybe it will change your life,
too. It is at the very least worth looking into.
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