Coded gray.

Sunday 21 July 2002

Flowering bush losing petals

Pic of the day: To youth and beauty there is an end.

Perspective, people, perspective!

Would you eat broccoli to save your life?

So the first thing I read in the morning is this article in Wired News about medical treatments that do more harm than good. Hormone replacement for women in menopause was found to increase the risk of coronary heart disease by 0.07% and invasive breast cancer, pulmonary emboli and strokes each by 0.08%. On the other hand, there were 0.06% less colorectal cancers and 0.05% less hip fractures, all in one year. All in all, a raw deal.

The article went on to distribute blame as widely as it could: The pharmaceutical companies, the doctors and the patients were all found guilty. I stopped reading and started to skim, looking for any sign that they had Got It. They hadn't. I hope you have, but anyway I will explain.

***

Hormone replacement is used to increase quality of life, not to reduce the risk of death. Basically it attempts to imitate the balance of sex hormones in a woman during her fertile age. The shortfall of such hormones lead to discomfort in some but not all women, most famously unfounded sensations of heat, loss of bone mass, and dryness during sexual intercourse.

It is an uncontested fact that people die from driving cars, and from eating fat, and from not eating vegetables, and from not going on the potty often enough. Extramarital sex kills millions. Not to mention mega-killers such as tobacco and alcohol, just to take it to the extreme. People do whatever they want to do even if it should cost them their lives; it is just when things come from the apothecary that you expect them to magically do Nothing But Good. "If there is a FDA, why is there so much suffering in the world?"

(FDA = the Food and Drug Administration in the USA. It seems to be invoked only for drugs, though.)

***

Now don't get me wrong: I do not belittle the death and suffering of innocent women. If anyone would want decent people to live forever, it would be me. I even cling to an old religion that I cannot verify completely by experiment, largely for the hope of eternal life. But in this life, there is often a trade-off between comfort and longevity. Hormone replacement may be a youth prolonging therapy, but not a life prolonging one. People occasionally die during cosmetic surgery too, but it is very rare. And so it is in this case too. We are talking about a few people out of each 10 000. That's small consolation for those who are hit: You can't say "it's not the end of the world"; it is. For them. But for the 9900-and-a-lot who survive, life goes on – and with a higher quality.

Perhaps sometime, as our knowledge increases, the therapies will be fine-tuned and improved in such a way that tampering with our hormones will be good for our health ... even when it is normal processes we replace with synthetic ones. But for now, we should keep perspective. The extra risk is at such a low level that you can more than compensate by eating a fruit every day. Or one more fruit, if you already eat some. Or if you want to go for all-out longevity madness, you could eat broccoli. (Now, that is what I call discomfort!) Of course, you may still be run over by a truck...


Yesterday <-- This month --> Tomorrow?
One year ago: The future revisited
Two years ago: Not always be strong
Three years ago: Sleepy & unfocused

Visit the Diary Farm for the older diaries I've put out to pasture.


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