(Please click here for “What I learned after reading Estrogen Matters-1”. )
And now, after more than a decade, Dr. Bluming has collected a lot of information and literature. He raised many questions about the WHI study and publication in 2002, which included:
1. The confirmation of the study conclusion was not rigorous in terms of scientific research. And even the members of the WHI research group did not have unanimous consent about the study conclusion.
2.At that time, some members of the research group rushed to let the news media make public the study conclusion even before the final consensus of the group members. Why? (We all know that news media’s propagation power is quite strong, especially on such an important health issue related to the general public.)
3.Some data of the study did not reach statistical significance, but was analyzed in some specific way by the researchers in purpose of getting some intended results. (Dr. Bluming mentioned “data mining”). Through the transmission and propagation of news media, the true scientific meaning of the original data could be distorted easily, leading to the over-interpretation and even misunderstanding by the general public in the world.
4.Since 2002, there have been other studies published during the past more than ten years, and the results were different from that of WHI study in 2002. Besides, the WHI cohort has been followed since 2002 and they published another study also in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 2017, which stated “Among postmenopausal women in WHI, hormone therapy…was not associated with risk of all-cause, cardiovascular, or total cancer mortality during a cumulative follow-up of 18 years.”
“What?! No association? Now you tell me there is no association between hormone therapy and mortality. Then how would that such a negative report be published in 2002, making everyone think hormone was terrible and deadly?!” That’s what Dr. Bluming wants to ask.
When I was reading Dr. Bluming’s description about that historical scenario of WHI publication in 2002, it was as if I was watching a Hollywood conspiracy drama. I couldn’t help imaging that I was there in the scene in 2002, feeling and expecting something big was going to happen.
Dr. Bluming cited interview information of researchers who were involved in WHI study in 2002, as well as a lot of medical literatures. He wants to tell the readers that the WHI study published in 2002 was flawed.
In fact, hormone therapy is positive and beneficial to menopausal women.
For those interested in hormone therapy, you should read this book. Dr. Bluming introduced the hormone therapy history and listed lots of scientific articles regarding hormone therapy for your reference as well as the critique on the 2002 WHI study, which led to the dramatic decline in the use of hormone around the world. I believe that after reading the book, you’ll have a better understanding of hormone therapy, quite different from what we used to think.
I used to attend Dr. Neal Rouzier’s BHRT course. Dr. Rouzier also put forward a lot of critiques on WHI research. Many people (including professional medical staff) have doubts about hormone therapy mainly because of the WHI study. And people are deeply affected due to the strong confirmation bias caused by the flawed WHI study.
It is not easy to make a paradigm shift in the way doctors practice. Dr. Jeffrey Bland, the father of functional medicine, used to say that it takes about thirty years to make a paradigm shift in medical practice. And Dr. Bluming, in this book, took the traditional surgical treatment of breast cancer as an example. It took quite a long time, years if not decades, for surgeons to adopt lumpectomy for specific breast cancer patients instead of total mastectomy for all patients. It’s the same for hormone therapy. We still have a long way to go.
Dr. Bluming wrote this book, citing so much medical literature, trying to break the wrong stereotype of hormone therapy. Then, you may ask, is he just a believer? or is he really a doer? People say that you have to observe what a person does, not just listen to what he says in order to truly get to know this person.
So, what does Dr. Bluming do to himself or his beloved ones?
The book mentions that Dr. Bluming’s wife and daughter were both breast cancer survivors. After treatment, they also suffered from menopausal symptoms caused by decreased hormones. Did Dr. Bluming really suggest that they, as breast cancer survivors, take hormones?
The answer is: YES！