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World Menopause day 2015 and NICE

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CLKD:
Can we now assume that GPs will be bothered to read these Articles?  Can we assume that GPs will believe and therefore support ladies requiring quality of Life and won't fob them off …….. due to costs to the Practice Budgets?  Time will tell.  When women present in Surgery with possible meno symptoms they need to take someone to validate, a person who won't be overwhelmed with tears  ;) and who can push for treatment where required.

Hurdity:

--- Quote from: Prajna on October 19, 2015, 11:56:39 AM ---A quantitative study of this size is next to useless I'm afraid.

I would dearly like to see the actual report, and not just newspaper articles which are neither here nor there.

Hurdity,  If the report had proved the opposite, would you still be saying the same??

--- End quote ---

Eh? What a strange thing to say – this isn't about me – it's a comment on some new evidence. I agree that newspaper articles can be inaccurate and I would always prefer to see the original article or at least the press release from the institution that accompanies it which distills the essence of the study.

But in the absence of that Prajna – if the Chair of the British Menopause Society (in this case Dr Currie) reports the information (which is what I quoted) – I am happy to trust their (her) expert view on the evidence.

No-one said that a study of this size in isolation is sufficient to draw those conclusions – you will see that the Menopause Matters news item and what Dr Currie said for the Scottish Daily Mail, talks about this adding to the body of evidence – that's the crucial point.

CLKD – at least these guidelines will be widely reported in the media so that GPs will have no excuse not to be aware of them, even if they don't have time to read them. It will take some time for them all to become up to speed and indeed to remove their own prejudices, but let's be optimistic about this – it's a big step in the right direction which will alleviate suffering hopefully for thousands of women.

Hurdity x

dahliagirl:
The paper is being presented to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine conference later this week, so maybe we will have more of the nitty gritty  information available after that.

CLKD:
The information is a general Press release I believe, not something that the Press are trying to 'push' ……. I haven't read them all but I wonder if they are all the 'same'!

Hurdity:
Well Prajna – you asked an open question “How scientific is this” after your statement “Not really a very big study”.  I responded with another question “What is not scientific?” and explained this with quotes from the news articles and more importantly the news report on this site which isn't a press report – it is Menopause Matters' summary of the info and will have been endorsed by Dr Currie, where the fact that it is a small study ( which was your criticism of it) was recognised, and that it added to evidence from recent  existing studies which came to the same conclusion.

You subsequent question to me was not about the data or the scientific paper or the news report – it was about what I would have said – and what I said was not my interpretation – I was quoting the information given in the press reports and on this site.  I was just elucidating (or so I thought) from the information available and quoting from the links given by Emma – for anyone who didn't have time to read them as well as echoing Dr Currie's views.

The article in the Telegraph states at the bottom “ The new research was published at the ASRM annual meeting in Baltimore”. I googled this meeting before making my first post but couldn't find direct reference to it ie the actual research study so maybe this is a press release in advance of the presentation of the paper later in the week – dahliagirl?

Even in the absence of full information at this point – we are not being told (on here) what to think by newspapers - I think that was the point of Emma providing the links as well as Dr Currie's interpretation of the information – where – and I have to say this again – the small sample size was acknowledged and that the study added to the body of data which has come to a similar conclusion.

Incidentally while googling again I found the Guardian report – as always giving more details:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/oct/19/hrt-to-treat-menopause-is-safe-study

They report that:
The total sample size was 80 treated (with HRT) + 56 controls (no HRT) = 136
The women were followed for up to 25 years (presumably some of them)
Women on HRT were analysed for up to 14 years.
Full body scans were carried out on the women in the study every year for 10 years.

Of course it is not possible to conclude from this one study that HRT is absolutely safe – but it provides additional evidence which supports the view that the risks have been overstated.

Hurdity x

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