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27 July 2006
Experts Question Value Of Alternative Therapies For Menopausal Symptoms 
During menopause, many women will experience hot flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness, sleep problems and other associated symptoms, and around 40 percent of them will seek medical help. Since the clinical trial that linked hormone therapy to an increased risk of breast cancer, many women have been looking at complementary and alternative therapies to ease their symptoms, but there's little evidence to support the use of these therapies to relieve menopausal symptoms, say health experts, writing in the Archives of Internal Medicine. To arrive at this assessment, the study team reviewed 70 previous studies into alternative and complementary therapies for menopause-related symptoms. Forty-eight of the studies examined vitamins, proteins and diets; nine focused on mind-body therapies (including meditation); one studied osteopathic manipulation; two looked at reflexology and magnet therapy; and 10 assessed whole medical systems, such as traditional Chinese medicine or ayurvedic medicine (traditional Indian therapies). Lead investigator, Anne Nedrow, from the Oregon Health and Science University, said that although some of the individual studies suggested benefits for certain therapies, the overall quality and quantity of data was not sufficient to recommend any of the treatments. Nedrow said that many of the studies had a large placebo effect, meaning that even women who were not assigned to receive active therapy still reported improvement in their symptoms. "The large placebo effect is consistent with preexisting work of menopausal hormonal therapies," she explained. "A study of estrogen compared with placebo reported a 50 percent improvement in frequency of hot flashes in the placebo group. The placebo effect likely plays an important role in the expanding number of dietary supplements marketed to menopausal women." Source: Archives of Internal Medicine
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